FAMILY TIES: HALCYON FARMS & LYFTED EDIBLES

BY KATIE WEITMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATIE WEITMAN

The Maine cannabis game has been attracting out-of-towners for several years now, as a burgeoning industry in a beautiful state is bound to. Some of these transplants come from long backgrounds of underground grows and are looking for a place to feel welcomed and relatively safe. Others are looking for a more general, down to earth, laid back lifestyle and fell into a new cannabis-world of promise incidentally—the organic, laissez-faire lifestyle Maine offers lends itself nicely to a career in cannabis.

Halcyon Farms, located in Hampden, is owned by a couple of New Jerseyans who were looking for a new adventure. Laura and Matthew decided a few years ago they didn’t want to raise their children in the tristate area, so they sold their business and made a move. After a brief trial down in South Carolina, they came to visit Maine and fell in love. Within a matter of weeks they scrapped down south and brought their family up north.

Laura and Matthew told me they weren’t looking to just grow cannabis, they were looking to grow something more substantial—a legacy to leave their children, should they choose to keep it going. Their three daughters are still young, but aside from their main cash crop, they have an organic vegetable garden that the older two help them maintain. The girls know that cannabis grows on the property and are being raised to respect the plant as medicine.

In the beginning they faced some challenges. When they bought the property, they hadn’t realized how much of a conservative enclave Hampden is. ‘They treated us like out of town carpet baggers here to rape the town’ Matthew told me. They’ve warmed up a bit since—a result of getting to know each other at town meetings and using all local labor to reinvest in the community.

Even other cannabis growers have made them feel like outsiders. They feel like its ‘not taboo that we consume, [but it’s] taboo that we are from out of town.’ Recently Halcyon has faced injurious comments via social media from local growers suggesting new faces were moving to Maine to drive up market prices. Laura told me ‘not everyone is here to change things, we’re here to embrace the Maine way of life.’ They believe that there ‘should be variation in price [and] better products should demand a higher price.’

Without a background in growing cannabis, Matthew found himself on a steep learning curve. With some mentoring from more experienced growers, the help of some local landscapers and some assistance from two new hires culled from the University of Maine Orono, and a recently brought on soil scientist / ‘science guru’ with experience across the country, Matthew has been able to turn his grow into a well-oiled machine. They now even have a second grow location run by Matthew’s parents in the Portland area.

While Matthew tended to the plants, Laura started making edibles. She started Lyfted in 2018. Her goal was to create a line of organic, vegan edible options for patients. In the beginning she focused on vegan gummies and medicated lemonades, and expanded her menu from there. Lyfted was created to provide consumers with health conscious edible choices using only locally sourced and all organic ingredients. Laura personally checks each batch and will only sell a product she herself would consume.

Now her lemonades are sold throughout the state in batches that are made weekly from hand squeezed lemons. Each bottle is individually prepared to ensure consistent dosing. Her menu changes from season to season, but her commitment to clean, organic, locally sourced ingredients never wavers. Production limitations have limited her research and development, but demand has grown so much that Laura is about to move into a commercial kitchen with a couple of new employees—so keep an eye out for new products!

Laura and I talked a little bit about the upcoming adult-use industry. At the moment, Halcyon has no plans to transition from the medical program to the adult use market. They have established patients, and it’s so new—so expensive—that they’ve decided to take more of a ‘wait and see’ approach. ‘There’s no rush,’ Laura told me. ‘We have a good thing going right now. This is a business and eventually it may be good. Most states that do it tend to go that way anyway. As long as Maine has a medicinal market we want to be in’ she believes that ‘one should be able to feed the other for supply and demand purposes’ and pointed out that ‘already retail has a hard time stacking their shelves... things will change and hopefully Maine doesn’t lose its medical industry.’

Their newest venture is Halcyon Solventless—a line of organic, all natural concentrates. Since Laura began her business she has been using activated dry sift in a unique suspension she calls her ‘special sauce’ for her edibles—making all of her products one hundred percent organic. The goal with their solvent less line is to bring high quality, entirely organic concentrates to the market.

Currently Lyfted and Halcyon products can be found in several storefronts all across the state, with new distributor interest growing all the time. Production constraints have limited the number of clients they’ve been able to work with, but there is no doubt that as production capacity increases so will their brand following. As their business grows, however, they remain committed to offering only all natural, organic products that they themselves would use.