Yes, we Can(nabis)

BC bud is finally growing in the old mill administration building – the first new business on Townsite’s formerly-industrial waterfront

BY PIETA WOOLLEY

From the outside, the old mill administration building behind Dwight Hall still looks like a silent bunker. The windows are dark. Chain link fencing surrounds it. The parking lot is far from full. But step inside, and the vibe is Wall-E. In a new little entrance building are offices, a staff room and meeting rooms decorated with chic drawings explaining the medical and aesthetic attributes of the Asian cannabis plant. Walk into the renovated mid-century offices, and an elevator takes you to the growing rooms.

A vast system of pipes, controlled by computers, carries water and fertilizers to the otherwise-sterile pods. New little plants being propagated in one room. Mid-sized plants are in another. Fully-flowering, heavy bud-laden plants are ready for harvest in the next; their name tags read, “Bubble Gum Ice Cream,” “Scoobie Snax,” and “Blue Afghani,” all famous strains being cloned here. These plants have been growing since the moment Meridian 125 W received its licenses from Health Canada on February 17. Now, this first round of experimental bud is ready for harvest.

BEST BUDS: Meridian 125 W VP of Cultivation Dennis Frewin and VP of Operations & Marketing Joe de la Plante examine bud from the first crop of cannabis, which started growing February 17.

“In full production, we can have up to 15,000 plants,” said Joe de la Plante, Meridian’s VP of Operations and Marketing, mentioning that currently there’s about 3,400 plants growing in the building. Each one costs about $100 to bring to bud. “We are trying to scale up slowly – to learn from the mistakes of our competitors.”

And slow it has been. Meridian is a project of long-time Vancouver tech entrepreneur and first-time cannabis farmer, Thomas Ligocki. His crew of 10 hoped to be producing bud by fall of 2022, but licensing has been lethargic. Now that the first licenses are in place, staff are perfecting their growing and drying techniques in the hopes of offering the most exacting, clean, craft cannabis available.

Here’s the rub: no one on staff can try it. Although they’re producing a product with flavonoids similar to wine, and it’s used for its impacts on the mind and body, there’s no sampling allowed. Instead, they test the product by machine.

Dennis Frewin shows how a program on his phone can control exacting amounts of nutrients and moisture flowing to up to 15,000 plants in the operation.

Kelly Storm measures sanitation solutions.

Joe compares the cannabis industry to the dot com boom and crash at the turn of the millennium. Seeing a potential gold rush, cannabis entrepreneurs jumped in as laws lifted for medical marijuana in 2001, and then for recreational marijuana in 2018. Many crashed. One of Canada’s biggest producers, Ontario’s MediPharm, cut 30 percent of its workforce in May, for example. Alberta’s SDNL recently announced a loss of $372 million in 2022, a year of ambitious acquisitions. Meanwhile, growth has been steady overall. About $1.5 billion was collected in taxes from Canada’s legal cannabis industry last year, and BC just introduced a farm gate program.

The mid-century building was once the pulp and paper mill's administration building. It was first renovated for growing cannabis in 2017.

“Typically, they [new cannabis growing companies] paid a lot more attention to scale and size, and less to product quality,” said Joe, who has been working in the industry for more than half a decade. “Product quality is our North Star. And our core value is community. We want to make sure we grow slowly so we can keep our employees. So we take our finances and costs very seriously. We make sure all our dollars are strategic. We currently have no debt. We want to make sure that when we say hello at a large scale, we’re ready to do so.”

Healthy flowers

All of that will roll out – again slowly – over the next year. Meridian plans to start selling through its partner brands this year, as it brings its team up to about 50 people. By early 2024, you can expect to see Meridian-branded product in local cannabis stores, as well as across BC. The team plans to sell to international partners as well, eventually.

When Meridian’s bud finally fills local pipes, it will be the culmination of at least six years of investment, by three companies. Meridian 125 W bought the building in 2022 from Tilt Holdings, a Phoenix-based cannabis business. Tilt had bought it from San Francisco’s Sante Veritas Therapeutics, who originally leased the building from the City in 2017, and put about $25 million into renovating it for growing.

“I’m really excited to see where this is going to go,” said Joe. “It’s why I stay in the industry, despite it being chaotic at times.”

|| pieta@prliving.ca