The cannabis business is getting much bigger in Leamington, now that Canopy Rivers and its joint venture partners have Health Canada's blessing to grow medicinal pot at their PharmHouse facility.
Canopy Rivers made the announcement Monday in a statement.
It said PharmHouse on Highway 77 would be "immediately commencing operations in its 190,000 sq. ft. licensed nursery infrastructure and plans to ramp up the entire 1.3-million sq. ft. ultramodern greenhouse before the end of 2019."
In May, the company held a job fair at the Lebanese Club in Leamington. It said it was hiring 70 workers in a variety of positions including general labourer, supervisor, and maintenance.
"Together with the expertise of agriculture industry titan Paul Mastronardi, along with our team of ag-specialist joint venture partners, Canopy Rivers has helped finance, construct, and prepare for licensing one of the largest, state-of-the-art cannabis facilities in the world," said President and CEO of Canopy Rivers, Narbe Alexandrian.
In the statement, Alexandrian is quoted as saying the facility already has multi-year contracts with "internationally-focused leaders."
"This license is a monumental achievement for PharmHouse, a joint venture that I believe represents the future of cannabis production," said Paul Mastronardi, the CEO of Mastronardi Produce Limited said of the facilities plan to use a high degree of automation.
Mastronardi is also the largest individual shareholder in the PharmHouse venture.