Pure Sunfarms, the joint venture between veteran vegetable grower Village Farms International Inc. (TSX and NASDAQ: VFF) and medical cannabis company Emerald Health Therapeutics Inc. (TSX-V: EMH), began shipping its products to Saskatchewan Wednesday.
This will be the fourth province Canadians can buy Pure Sunfarms weed in, after British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta. Saskatchewanians will be able to buy the company’s branded dried flower from local cannabis wholesalers and retailer by next week, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
As of April 2, 2020, Village Farms said it controlled 58.7 per cent of Pure Sunfarms.
Read more: Village Farms and Emerald Health settle dispute
“We are pleased to supply another key market in Canada as we continue to expand our footprint across the country,” Village Farms CEO Mandesh Dosanjh said.
Continuing that expansion is a recent deal with the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation. The company has been approved to ship recreational cannabis to the province’s private retailers and will begin that as soon as possible, the company said.
According to Pure Sunfarms, Saskatchewan makes up 6 per cent of Canada’s cannabis sales with 44 licensed retailers and, behind Alberta, ranks second in terms of per capita spend for the provinces. Manitoba makes up around 4.5 per cent of the country’s weed sales and has a higher per capita spend than Canada’s average.
“Expansion into additional provinces is one of a number of growth drivers for Pure Sunfarms this year as it continues to capitalize on its leading brand performance since entering the retail branded market last September,” Village Farms CEO Michael DeGiglio said the the statement. “We expect further provincial launches in the coming months, along with the continued introduction of new cannabis products, including the launch of pre-rolls in Ontario this week, and the launch of its first bottled oil and Cannabis 2.0 products this summer.”
Pure Sunfarms cannabis is grown in Delta, B.C., at the joint-owned Delta 2 and Delta 3 facilities, which make up 2.2 million square feet of cultivation space. Delta 1 is the third greenhouse that sits adjacent but is still wholly owned by Village Farms. Pure Sunfarms has until Sept. 28, 2021 to decide if it wants to convert the 2.6 million square foot facility into a third cannabis greenhouse.
Read more: Pure Sunfarms gets licence for second BC grow facility
Should it exercise that option, Pure Sunfarms would have 4.8 million square feet of production space which could produce an annual 330,000 kilograms of dried cannabis, according to the company.
Pure Sunfarms said it will launch bottled cannabis oils and its first cannabis 2.0 products this summer.
Top image of Pure Sunfarms greenhouse. Submitted photo
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