N.B. Cannabis Producer To Highlight Local ‘Craft Growers’ With Product Line
DIEPPE- A New Brunswick-based cannabis producer is hoping to elevate craft growers in the region with its upcoming line of products.
Crystal Cure, a Shediac-based licensed cannabis producer specializing in organic cannabis and professional services, is partnering with Dieppe-based craft grower Golden Peak for the first product of its Farmers Series, which aims to support and highlight smaller licensed growers in the region.
Crystal Cure was New Brunswick’s fifth licensed cannabis producer and got its cultivation license in July 2019. The company also has its processing license and is waiting on final approval for its sales license, which will allow them to sell its products to stores like Cannabis NB.
“We’re not a micro producer, but our vision is to do small-batch craft cannabis,” says Crystal Cure CEO Mark Barbour. “Even though we have a standard license, our procedures and our vision on how to bring cannabis to the market space is a small-batched craft,”
Aligning with their mission to offer small-batch, craft cannabis, Barbour says they saw the opportunity in the market to partner with smaller growers in the province who aren’t at the stage of getting their own processing or sales license yet.
“If a micro producer has the same vision and believes in the same kind of growing theories at us, we saw the opportunity to give recognition to that small farmer through the Farmers Series program,” says Barbour. “We believe we are the first in the country to do it this way. We know there are other producers out there that are in collaboration with micro craft growers, but they don’t highlight them and they don’t feature them.”
With the Farmers Series, Crystal Cure will essentially buy cannabis from the craft producer and take care of the packaging and bringing it to market. Though it will be sold under the Crystal Cure banners like its other products, consumers who purchase from the series will then be able to go on the company’s website and learn more about the strain’s grower and their story.
“Some micro growers will look for a processing license or sales license, and some, like [Golden Peaks’] instance, they just want to be a grower, you still have a cool story in the background, and that’s what the Farmers Series will do,” says Barbour. “It will bring to the forefront, under the Crystal Cure banner, with the brand of the Farmer’s series, we’ll highlight on our webpage where it was grown, details of that small craft cannabis farm as well.”
Golden Peak Cannabis owner Tom Devost said a partnership with Crystal Cure made sense because both companies share the same values when it comes to organic cannabis.
“I was talking with Mark a couple of times and we started to engage one another and noticed we had some synergy that we could really build upon and complement each other with,” says Devost. “Having the sales license and the processing license, there’s a lot to getting those licenses. For us, we found it might have been a little bit much to chew on at the beginning, so thought partnering with them would be the right decision.”
Devost says Crystal Cure’s approach could be a model for how bigger cannabis producers can work with smaller growers.
“I think it’s a great idea and I think it’s a model for perhaps the industry across the country. It’s very difficult for a small player to get into the retail market right away, so having a bigger player helping you out to bring you there is great,” he says. “It highlights the craft product we’re producing. For Crystal Cure, it gives more variety of products they can offer their clientele.”
With their sales license in the final stages of the approval process, Crystal Cure plans to have their own original products on shelves by October, with the first Farmers Series with Golden Peak debuting later in the fall.
Barbour says they hope to work with more craft growers in New Brunswick and the rest of Atlantic Canada for the series.
“We see that as a collaboration that can continue to extend. I’ve had a chat with a few different ones who were in different stages of planning out or starting build that express interest as well,” says Barbour. “We’ll extend outside of just New Brunswick as well. Atlantic Canada has a cool story to tell, so if there are micro folks out there who are licensed or that are in the works and would like to talk with us, we welcome that opportunity.”
As for Golden Peak, Devost plans to continue to grow the business, eventually applying for those processing and sales licenses themselves. But he views the relationship with Crystal Cure as a lasting one.
“We are only going to be around 30-35 percent of the allocation our license allows us to produce. So we want to ramp that up to 100 percent, and once we get to that point then we are going to look at getting a processing and sales license as well,” says Devost. “But I think our future with Crystal Cure is something we’re looking at long-term. They’re making the soil that we’re going to use, so I think that relationship is going to be there for some time to come.