Robert Celt
New Member
With the imminent legalization of marijuana for recreational use and increasing demand for medicinal cannabis, commercial grower Tweed is more than doubling its production space in Smiths Falls – and its sister company Tweed Farms was approved Thursday to sell product through its Niagra-On-The-Lake location.
Bruce Linton, chief executive of Canopy Growth Corporation, a $260-million publicly traded company with Tweed, Tweed Farms Inc. and Bedrocan under its umbrella, called the company's newly-acquired licence a "major milestone" that gives it the green light to produce medical marijuana in what might be – at 350,000 square feet – Canada's largest greenhouse.
All three brands are licensed suppliers under Health Canada's Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) program, which provides Canadians with pharmaceutical grade cannabis to treat people with chronic and terminal illnesses.
"We acquired the greenhouse 22 months ago to position ourselves as a large scale, low-cost producer capable of supplying a sizable percentage of the market," Linton said in a news release. "This infrastructure completion and Health Canada approval milestone is a testament to the team at Tweed Farms who continue to execute our capacity-building as planned."
Meanwhile momentum continues to build at Tweed's sprawling campus in the former Hershey chocolate factory in Smiths Falls that closed in 2008.
Though it's a stone's throw from the town's police station across the street, the 168,000-square-foot building is secure, with swipe cards required for every door, a super-sized walk-in bank vault that stores up to $150 million worth of product, and at least 150 cameras covering every grow room, cubicle and hallway.
Tweed's communications manager Jordan Sinclair provides a tour of the plant, which is not open to the public. The space resembles a high-tech research lab. Grow technicians in protective gear work in sterile, temperature, odour and light-controlled "flowering rooms", with rows of vibrant green plants of various strains and maturity. And given the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last summer to allow authorized medicinal cannabis users to use extracts and derivatives of cannabis, Tweed is now producing and selling cannabis oil products and edibles.
After walking past several glass-enclosed rooms Sinclair ends up in large vacant space akin to an airport hanger. This is where the next phase of growth begins. Up to 18 more grow rooms will be built over the next year or so, bringing the number from 12 to 30, depending on market demand.
"We are definitely accelerating it because we think that there are pretty clear signs that we are going to have a non-medical market," said Sinclair. "But I think that we would have got there regardless ... it's starting to look like people are learning more about (medical cannabis), more doctors are learning more about it, more doctors are prescribing, and more people are curious about it."
Given the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana, it will mean more Canadians could eventually consume the drug on a daily or occasional basis. That said, there are many keeping a close eye on Canada's new policy-in-the-making, including notorious rapper and cannabis connoisseur Snoop Dogg, who wants to tap into what could possibly turn into a $5-billion industry.
When he caught wind of what's happening north of the border, the singer sent his people to scope out the Tweed site. In February the two parties entered into a partnership to give Tweed exclusive rights to use brands owned by his company, LBC Holdings.
Tweed, which opened in 2014 and now employs about 120 people from the Smiths Falls area, is licensed to produce 3,500 kilograms of medical cannabis a year.
Canopy Growth has reported a minimum of 40 per cent growth every quarter since opening and is petitioning the federal government to remove the tax on medical cannabis, the only doctor prescribed medicine taxed in Canada.
The day before gaining the approval to grow and sell out of its Niagara facility, Tweed president Mark Zekulin said the licence would mean a "massive amount of extra capacity ... that we're set up to continue growing at the same pace, whether that means we're serving a purely medical market or a non-medical market as well."
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Canada: Tweed Expands Its Grow Operation As Marijuana Reform Laws Loom
Author: Paula McCooey
Contact: Ottawa Citizen
Photo Credit: Darren Brown
Website: Ottawa Citizen
Bruce Linton, chief executive of Canopy Growth Corporation, a $260-million publicly traded company with Tweed, Tweed Farms Inc. and Bedrocan under its umbrella, called the company's newly-acquired licence a "major milestone" that gives it the green light to produce medical marijuana in what might be – at 350,000 square feet – Canada's largest greenhouse.
All three brands are licensed suppliers under Health Canada's Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) program, which provides Canadians with pharmaceutical grade cannabis to treat people with chronic and terminal illnesses.
"We acquired the greenhouse 22 months ago to position ourselves as a large scale, low-cost producer capable of supplying a sizable percentage of the market," Linton said in a news release. "This infrastructure completion and Health Canada approval milestone is a testament to the team at Tweed Farms who continue to execute our capacity-building as planned."
Meanwhile momentum continues to build at Tweed's sprawling campus in the former Hershey chocolate factory in Smiths Falls that closed in 2008.
Though it's a stone's throw from the town's police station across the street, the 168,000-square-foot building is secure, with swipe cards required for every door, a super-sized walk-in bank vault that stores up to $150 million worth of product, and at least 150 cameras covering every grow room, cubicle and hallway.
Tweed's communications manager Jordan Sinclair provides a tour of the plant, which is not open to the public. The space resembles a high-tech research lab. Grow technicians in protective gear work in sterile, temperature, odour and light-controlled "flowering rooms", with rows of vibrant green plants of various strains and maturity. And given the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last summer to allow authorized medicinal cannabis users to use extracts and derivatives of cannabis, Tweed is now producing and selling cannabis oil products and edibles.
After walking past several glass-enclosed rooms Sinclair ends up in large vacant space akin to an airport hanger. This is where the next phase of growth begins. Up to 18 more grow rooms will be built over the next year or so, bringing the number from 12 to 30, depending on market demand.
"We are definitely accelerating it because we think that there are pretty clear signs that we are going to have a non-medical market," said Sinclair. "But I think that we would have got there regardless ... it's starting to look like people are learning more about (medical cannabis), more doctors are learning more about it, more doctors are prescribing, and more people are curious about it."
Given the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana, it will mean more Canadians could eventually consume the drug on a daily or occasional basis. That said, there are many keeping a close eye on Canada's new policy-in-the-making, including notorious rapper and cannabis connoisseur Snoop Dogg, who wants to tap into what could possibly turn into a $5-billion industry.
When he caught wind of what's happening north of the border, the singer sent his people to scope out the Tweed site. In February the two parties entered into a partnership to give Tweed exclusive rights to use brands owned by his company, LBC Holdings.
Tweed, which opened in 2014 and now employs about 120 people from the Smiths Falls area, is licensed to produce 3,500 kilograms of medical cannabis a year.
Canopy Growth has reported a minimum of 40 per cent growth every quarter since opening and is petitioning the federal government to remove the tax on medical cannabis, the only doctor prescribed medicine taxed in Canada.
The day before gaining the approval to grow and sell out of its Niagara facility, Tweed president Mark Zekulin said the licence would mean a "massive amount of extra capacity ... that we're set up to continue growing at the same pace, whether that means we're serving a purely medical market or a non-medical market as well."
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Canada: Tweed Expands Its Grow Operation As Marijuana Reform Laws Loom
Author: Paula McCooey
Contact: Ottawa Citizen
Photo Credit: Darren Brown
Website: Ottawa Citizen
