NEW YORK, TORONTO and HERZLIYA, Israel, June 23, 2022 - PRESS RELEASE - InterCure Ltd. announced the successful opening of the first flagship Cookies store in Austria located in the Neubau district of Vienna.
The flagship location offers Cookies’ unique CBD menu, available for the first time in Europe, as well as clothing and lifestyle products. In the future, as regulations are evolving, pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis will be available for Austrian patients, including Cookies EU-GMP THC products.
The Vienna launch represents the spearhead of expanding into additional European countries, following the successful collaboration between the two companies in the global pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis markets, including Israel.
“We are proud to make another big advancement in the expansion of our winning model into Europe and deliver on our promise to supply the highest quality and reliable cannabis products to every territory with a supportive regulatory framework,” said InterCure’s Chief Executive Officer, Alexander Rabinovitch. “We look forward to welcoming Austrians and the millions of tourists who visit Vienna to the first Cookies location in the country. I am grateful for the amazing work of our teams in Europe and partners at Cookies who helped make this successful launch and look forward to the many more to come across the continent.”
“Bringing the Cookies brand and its products to Vienna is a core part of our global expansion strategy. By partnering with a global partner like InterCure, we can share cannabis-based medicine and culture from California to Europe,” said Parker Berling, Cookies president.
The agreement includes five phases of development with the first phase contract signed for $1.2 million.
Louisville, Colorado, June 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PRESS RELEASE -- CEA Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: CEAD, CEADW) (“CEA Industries” or the “Company”) subsidiary, Surna Cultivation Technologies LLC (“Surna”), a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) systems engineering and technologies company, today announced it has entered into a letter of intent to provide products and mechanical engineering services over five phases with Greene Brothers Farm, Inc., a family owned and operated farm that is developing a 26-acre site exclusively for indoor cannabis cultivation. CEA Industries anticipates contract revenues of approximately $10 million over an estimated two to three-year period. The initial contract, valued at $1.2 million, is for the first phase of products and services and is planned to be completed by early Q4 2022.
The project builds out a new all-indoor Cannabis Park, located in Lockeford, Calif., between Stockton and Sacramento, on a 26-acre property once used as a vineyard and wine distribution center. The Greene Brothers Farm Cannabis Park is an ambitious major expansion of the Greene Brothers’ operations that are currently located at a 200-acre farm in Mendocino County. The Cannabis Park will be the new headquarters for the Greene Brothers and will include cultivation, manufacturing, non-storefront retail sales and distribution. Once complete, the Cannabis Park will utilize 371,918 square feet of new structures.
“After a couple of years of planning and working with San Joaquin County, we are beyond excited to realize the dream that started back in 2020,” stated Aaron Greene, co-founder and CEO of Greene Brothers Farm, Inc. “We look forward to creating hundreds of jobs and funding various community improvements that will be enjoyed by our new neighbors with revenue generated from our Cannabis Park and Farmacy Phactory brands. We partnered with Surna because we know they can provide the outstanding engineering, design and equipment that we require in a quick and efficient manner throughout each phase of development.”
Phase 1 is estimated to be online by Q4 of this year. For this first phase, Surna will perform mechanical engineering services that will include the design of exhaust air filtration systems to eliminate odors as well as to provide climate controls systems, its EnviroPro air handling equipment and Surna by Anden dehumidifiers. Phases 2 and 3 are planned for completion in 2023, while phases 4 and 5 are planned for completion in 2024.
“We are proud to have been chosen by Greene Brothers Farm for this multi-million-dollar, multi-phase development project,” said Tony McDonald, chairman and CEO of CEA Industries Inc. “We expect this to be a winning relationship for both of us and we will strive to make this Greene Brothers Farm Cannabis Park an exemplary representation of these types of projects for others in this industry.”
One of the California vertically integrated company’s subsidiaries provides consulting services to businesses in that state and other states as the parent company eyes expanding plant-touching divisions to the East Coast.
Editor’s note: CBT’s June cover story, “California Cannabis Market at a Crossroads,” prominently features MD Numbers Founders Allen Hackett and Marie Montmarquet, who are on the cover of the print issue. Read it here.
For MD Numbers, it’s been six years of growing—and six years of rolling with many industry changes.
Greenhouse grower Allen Hackett, a founder of the California vertically integrated business, points out that it opened its Salinas grow in June 2016, in the state’s Proposition 215 medical days.
“We never had to stop cultivating while we were getting our license in the county because we had been here paying and abiding by their medical laws [and] rules that they had in place,” Hackett says.
As expected, MD Numbers has dialed in its practices over those years.
“Each plant needs its own amount of space and a certain amount of time in the sun to be able to [meet] whatever goal that you have in your cultivation facility—because people have different goals—whether you're growing for weight or you’re growing for look, smell, terpenes, things like that,” Hackett says.
Strategic planning should go into planting a clone or seed, which is largely dictated by consumer expectations, says Marie Montmarquet, who founded the business with Hackett.
“That's the most important part of building that business, I would say, is really understanding who your customers are, understanding what they're looking for, what profile in cannabis that they are looking for, what genetics they're looking for, making sure you can meet those parameters, your schedule, your grow cycle, making sure that you can forecast, financially, to meet all of your licensing fees and your tax fees,” Montmarquet says.
In addition to cultivating 150,000 square feet of mixed-light greenhouse space in Salinas, MD Numbers runs delivery under the name Marie’s Deliverables (powered by Mountain Remedy) and distribution in the Bay Area. While MD Numbers is focused on catering to consumer preferences, it’s also committed to serving the industry in other ways, such as national operational management consulting, retail/delivery startup consulting and brand creation through the division Legacy Coterie.
MD Numbers’ genetic selections include a lot of product from Seed Junky Genetics, Hackett says, including Kush Mints crosses like Gelato x Kush Mints, Biscotti x Kush Mints and London Pound Cake x Kush Mints. Hackett commends these cultivars’ mold resistance, terpene profiles, and “dense and good, hearty” bud structures.
The company will have an 8,000-square-foot facility coming online in Greenfield, Calif., later in 2022, which will be about half indoor cultivation and the rest R&D nursery and tissue culture (TC) lab space.
The TC lab, part of a new division called Greenfield Ops, will be able to house plant material that will serve as mother plants, freeing up greenhouse space and allowing the TC plants—and in turn, their clones—to “grow bigger, faster, stronger,” Hackett says.
“The whole thing about [growing] cannabis in [a] greenhouse is finding ways to eliminate the stresses of the plant,” he says. “So, if it's a cold night or if it's a rainy day or the sun’s not out, and you don't have lights, you try to find ways to keep that plant optimal and comfortable …, and having a good start, is really key,” Hackett says. “So, I think the start for us is key. We process anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 plants every month in our facility.” He adds that MD Numbers aims to exceed higher-than-average production standards with 75%-85% of those plants.
Allen Hackett will speak live at Cannabis Conference 2022, August 23-25 in Las Vegas. He'll speak on the all-access session, "Facility Design - Greenhouse," and will be joined by Flower One Executive VP/Board Chairwoman Salpy Boyajian.
Visit CannabisConference.com for more information and to register.
When paired with hands-on techniques like hand-trimming and advancing pheno-hunting processes, Montmarquet says it’s not MD Numbers’ MO to participate in a race to the bottom on pricing.
“We do try to strive to stay at that higher price point because it’s really the only way for us to make sure that we can get rid of the amount of flower that we have, is just making sure that we can grow what I kind of call ‘passers,’ which [is flower grown in] greenhouse[s] with lights that looks like indoor[-grown flower] and has that bag appeal, and a really beautiful trim and trichome expression,” Montmarquet says.
“Then, those can go into nearly any brand and be sought after, versus if we were just growing mediocre green flower, then it would be a lot harder for our distributors to sell it for their brands,” she adds.
MD Numbers is heavily focused on growing flower that will stay in that form when it reaches the end consumer, Montmarquet says, versus selling plant material to downstream businesses to make into cannabis extracts and manufactured products.
“Flower is 90% of the use, and all of our flower stays in flower form,” she says. “Then, our trim is used to process extracts, topicals, tinctures—whatever the demand calls for.”
MD Numbers sells most of its flower and trim to Los Angeles distributors, so its product is largely available in Southern California, Montmarquet says. The trim is also sold to LA distributors, and area manufacturers use it to create other end products.
Currently, MD Numbers doesn’t have branded products. However, the business has sold its own branded products in the past through the Marie’s Deliverables menu. In the third or fourth quarter of 2022, Montmarquet says the company aims to launch brands of its own, which will consist of different flower types, such as smalls and crown nugs, and will be labeled “Powered by MD Farms.”
With MD Numbers’ brands coming online, Montmarquet says a goal is for the company to extend flower availability across California.
So, through which brands can one find MD Numbers flower? Gift of Doja; Paradiso; and High Purpose, a Harborside-partnered operation in San Francisco, are a few that Montmarquet names. MD Numbers also plans to have a full line of house products for Obsidian Dispensary in San Francisco near the end of 2022.
Other MD Numbers-partnered brands include those with which MD Numbers subsidiary Legacy Coterie works with on consulting and brand creation.
Legacy Coterie has worked with mentoring social equity operators. One of these is Hard Hitta, boxer Karim Mayfield’s brand with STIIIZY. Another is 40 Tons, a social impact brand that rallied around releasing Corvain Cooper, who was sentenced to life in prison for nonviolent cannabis charges and later pardoned by former President Donald Trump; 40 Tons is now working to release other cannabis inmates from prison. Legacy Coterie has also mentored Alex Asefaw, who is building out Obsidian Dispensary.
Now, Montmarquet and Legacy Coterie Partner Jessica Strange are mentoring and advising prospective applicants and licensees in other markets such as New York and Virginia. (Hackett is originally from Virginia, while Montmarquet is originally from next-door Tennessee.)
In various state markets, some of the things Montmarquet focuses on as a consultant are conveying to clients the upsides and downsides of specific license types and business types, as well as how—and if—companies can adhere to certain laws and regulations while maintaining profitability.
For MD Numbers more broadly, Hackett says plans include to “expand in other locations, consult in other locations, try to grab a piece of the market share in different areas, particularly in areas that Marie and myself have footprints in—Tennessee, Virginia to start—New York, as well ….
“But the market of cannabis was built in California. So, we have a unique insight into how this runs and how it flows and brands and strains and how the market's going to take to different things, so I think that's [a] unique insight [and] we would want to definitely maximize [on] the opportunity.”
Many of the hundreds of vape products that were recalled in February can return to dispensary shelves.
Pennsylvania dispensaries can once again sell vape products that the state’s Department of Health recalled from its medical cannabis program in February.
The decision came from a Commonwealth Court judge on June 15, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
And it follows a lawsuit that a broad coalition of cannabis industry members, patients, doctors and others called Medical Marijuana Access and Patient Safety brought against the department.
Hundreds of Vape Products Recalled From Pennsylvania’s Medical Cannabis Market: UPDATED
“We are thrilled about this decision,” said Judith D. Cassel, an attorney for the group and partner at Hawke McKeon & Sniscak LLP, according to the paper. “The vapes can go immediately back on the shelves, and the grower processors can continue or commence producing these vapes.”
In a press release, industry group Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition (PCC), claimed that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health could not find an example of a single person who had been harmed during the state medical program’s five-year run.
The court determined that there was no basis for the department to justify the recall or for it to remain in effect, and “issued an injunctive relief on behalf of the cannabis community,” according to the release.
“The purpose of regulating medical marijuana is to ensure its safety and this ruling verifies what we already know—operators' products are rigorously tested, approved and safe,” PCC Executive Director Meredith Buettner stated in a press release. “As the state’s program surpasses its five year mark, it’s my hope that state regulators and advocates find common ground outside of the courtroom. Together, we can continue to grow this burgeoning industry by meeting more patient needs.”
PanXchange and National Industrial Hemp Council of America announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding that will support the growth of financial incentives for carbon sequestration for the US industrial hemp market.
DENVER, CO - PanXchange, the industry market structure solution and benchmark price provider for US hemp, and the Washington DC-based National Industrial Hemp Council of America announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will support the growth of financial incentives for carbon sequestration for the US industrial hemp market.
“NIHC is a leading and unifying voice for the industry, particularly in regulatory issues for industrial hemp,” said Julie Lerner, founder, and CEO of PanXchange. “Partnering with a strong hemp membership and advocacy organization like NIHC will help grow industrial hemp markets and related climate-smart agricultural practices across the supply chain,” she added.
The two companies said the partnership would allow hemp farmers to take advantage of PanXchange’s deep knowledge of commodity trading and the potential impact of implementing climate-smart practices specifically for hemp growing and processing.
PanXchange is rolling out a transparent carbon program that provides farmers a viable path toward financial rewards for implementing regenerative agricultural practices. Moreover, Lerner explains that the PanXchange program gives farmers full ownership of the carbon credits earned and full agency to market the credits directly to buyers through its online trade platform.
The company already has 31,000 acres of croplands committed to the program for the 2023 crop year.
“We aim to be the most accessible, economical path towards remuneration for carbon smart agricultural practices for smaller-scale farmers who face barriers to participate in the voluntary carbon credit market,” Lerner said.
Other aspects of the MOU include:
Cannabis Business Times’ interactive legislative map is another tool to help cultivators quickly navigate state cannabis laws and find news relevant to their markets. View More