A $10-million marijuana processing plant is coming to London, and bringing 75 job opportunities to the east-end.
High Park, located at 300 Sovereign Road near Veterans Memorial Parkway and Gore Road, will use a 56,000-square-foot space to turn dried marijuana into milled blends, edibles, pre-rolls, vape oil cartridges and other products.
The facility is a subsidiary of Tilray, a medical marijuana company based in British Columbia that’s branching out under the country’s plans to legalize pot.
Tilray CEO, Brendan Kennedy, says the plant will be getting marijuana from High Park Farms, a 100-acre property with 13 acres of greenhouse that’s under construction in Enniskillen, near Sarnia.
“Our intent is that all of the products that High Park distributes across Canada, for the adult use market, will be processed in London,” he explained.
Kennedy says High Park has secured rights to produce and distribute under a number of different brand names, that have been tested and trusted in different markets around the world.
Those include Marley Natural, the women’s wellness brand Irisa, the frequent consumer brand Dutchy, the luxury brand Grail, the experienced consumer brand Headlight, an edible brand Goodship, and the chew/confection brand Wallops.
Kennedy says the facility should be up and running later this year, after marijuana is legalized and the facility gets the right approvals. He notes some products, like vape oil cartridges and edibles, won’t be allowed under the initial legalization, but that the federal government indicated they’d be permitted no later than a year after the legislation comes into force.
“Our intent would be to eventually build a bakery in that facility, so that we can produce various types of edible, per the regulations.”
Kennedy expects the range of products to evolve over the next five years, once specific regulations are laid out in different locations.
Tilray already runs a cultivation and processing facility for medical cannabis in Nanaimo, B.C. The company has launched the High Park subsidiary as it dives into adult-use products, which has a Toronto-based office.
Comments