Canada’s legal medical marijuana regime is growing at an unrivalled pace. As patient numbers continue to grow, licensed producers are eagerly expanding production capacities. It also doesn’t hurt that recreational cannabis is just around the corner in Canada. To keep tabs with all the grand plans hatched by LPs, Lift has decided to compile an expansion roundup that highlights all known production capacity expansion plans for licensed producers that are currently shipping medical cannabis to patients.
Abcann
The relatively new entrant also has a relatively small production capacity. Their 14,500 sq ft facility in Napanee, Ontario has an annual production capacity of 1,000 kilograms. The company is quick to point out that their yield of 257 grams per square foot easily surpasses the industry standard of 130, and with a new planned production facility this number may grow.
The company owns a 65 acre property, where they are building a 71,000 square foot facility with an annual production capacity of 20,000 kilograms. Eventually, the company hopes to build out a 150,000 square foot facility that would net an annual production capacity of 40,000 kilograms.
Aphria
This licensed producer, considered one of the three largest LPs currently on the market, prides itself on a low production cost per gram. They just completed their Phase II expansion, which turns the existing production capacity of 2,500 kilograms of dried cannabis annually up to 8,000 kilograms. With Phase II complete, there is 101,000 square feet of cumulative growing space. The company hopes to build out 200,000 more square feet in their September 2017 Part III expansion, which would see their total production capacity jump to 22,000. Finally, the company’s Part IV expansion, to be completed in July 2018, will see a total greenhouse growing space of over a million square feet and a cumulative production capacity of 75,000 kilograms annually.
Aurora
Taking into account their expansion plans, Aurora is one of the largest licensed producers when it comes to canopy size. Their current purpose-built facility covers 55,200 sq ft, enabling an annual production capacity of 6,000kg and a potential patient base of over 15,000. The company has a massive 7.7 million sq ft of land available for expansion, and is planning the “world’s largest and most advanced cannabis facility.” That new facility is close to a major Alberta airport, and when it is completed in late 2017 it will have 800,000 square feet and support a 100,000 kilogram annual production capacity. Can you say wow?!
Broken Coast
Public details are sparse, but word from Broken Coast is that the small batch, BC-based LP has just finished building expanded facilities and is just beginning to harvest the first crop of the new facility. This has allowed the company to open up registrations, which had been replaced with a waitlist for a significant period of time. It looks like demand for Broken Coast has been too much for the team to handle, as registration times are taking up to 5 business days.
Canopy (Mettrum, Tweed, Bedrocan)
Canopy Growth is having a blockbuster year, having acquired both Mettrum and LP applicant Vert Green. While their Tweed facility is maxed out in its production capacity, the company is expanding in more than one way. New snoop strains should be on the way soon, and the company is also suggesting that there could be an expansion of the brick and mortar. The company has also revealed that there is additional capacity at Tweed Farms—about 14 acres that could be built upon sometime in the future.
CanniMed
The Saskatoon, Saskatchewan based licensed producer has a 97,000 sq ft production faciity that supports the production of 7,000 kg of dried cannabis, and the site boasts five separate Level 7 compliant vaults. The company is also planning a new facility in White Pine, Michigan, although it is unclear how these plans would fit in with the ACMPR in Canada. The company does plan to release gel caps by the middle of 2017, which may mean an additional facility build is on the horizon.
CannTrust
In a recent presentation to GMP Securities, licensed producer CannTrust detailed plans to start selling capsules and sublinguals sometime in the future. With patient growth that they say is outpacing the industry generally (they now have 15,000 patients), Canntrust better have adequate expansion plans. And in that respect it’s probably a good thing that the company has acquired a 386,000 square foot commercial greenhouse in the Niagara region “to dramatically increase production capacity.” The LP says that it has 48 acres of the property zoned for cannabis production and an additional 30 acres available for future expansion.
Emblem
Emblem is another new kid on the block. Their current facility contains three rooms that produce a modest 700 kilograms of cannabis. The company is looking to grow with a “Phase 2” expansion due for completion in June 2017 that would bring up the total potential running capacity to 2,000 kilograms. But the company has grander plans: their objective, when recreational cannabis becomes available, is to produce 70,000 kilograms annually within approximately 300,000 square feet of “purpose built production space.”
Emerald Health
Emerald Health raised capital earlier this year for their expansion, which would see the company expand from its current indoor production facility in Victoria, BC to a 32 acre space in metro Vancouver. The company is planning to build “a modular hybrid greenhouse” with 78,000 square feet of growing space and additional processing facilities.
Green Relief
There’s little public information out there about this LP, but they have announced a Phase II building that will have 10,000 square feet—and unlike other LPs—will use the power of fish within an aquaponics environment.
Hydropothecary
The Quebec-based licensed producer currently has a 42,000 square foot licensed facility with an annual capacity of 3,600 kilograms. This figure includes a 4 season greenhouse completed in December 2016 that has allowed the company to sell its newer H2 line of cannabis and Decarb Cannacaps to patients. Like the other licensed producers, Hydropothecary has some big plans in their future. A whopping new 250,000 square foot facility, with a cost of $25 million, is slated to open in late 2018, bringing the company’s total canopy to 292,000 square feet.
Maricann
It’s unknown how far through the company is with their expansion plans, but LP Maricann announced in September of last year that they intended to expand their production from 10 kilograms of dried cannabis a week to 200 by the end of the year.
WeedMD
WeedMD, with 1,600 patients registered, currently operates from 25,000 square feet in a former Alymer, Ontario-based Imperial Tobacco plant. In February of this year, the company told the St. Thomas Times-Journal that it is seeking to expand its greenhouse expansion ten-fold to 300 kilograms per week. The 220,000 square foot expansion would cost $3 million and could mean up to 100 employees at the company.
Whistler Medical Marijuana
In March of this year, Whistler Medical Marijuana announced that it was commencing a 65,000 square foot expansion, which would enable production capacity of up to 6,500 kilograms by Spring 2018. Production on the expanded facility began in April 2017.
It’s no wonder that with the number of medical marijuana patients expanding in the country, and recreational cannabis on the horizon, many licensed producers have plans for production capacity expansion. LPs are also exploring international export markets to expand their growth and revenue, and another expansion roundup could soon be warranted just for export developments alone.
UPDATE: A day after this article was published, Peace Naturals announced that it had broken ground on a massive 315 000 sq ft expansion. This would be the largest purpose built indoor cannabis production facility.
Lift News’ attention was also brought to some of Organigram’s expansion plans, including a planned facility for oils and extracts manufacturing measuring 15,000 sq ft, and “onsite expansion” to their current production facilities that would enable production of 26,000 kilograms of dried cannabis per year—due to launch in the Summer of 2018.
Featured image by Rashida Banks.
In this article
