“We’ve been very active in the facility commissioning our equipment and so we are just in the final stages of training on that equipment. Then it’s all up and running,” said Krestell.
Speaking from Toronto, Krestell said cooperation from all levels of government, an established cannabis industry and skilled workforce were all factors in picking Edmonton as the facility’s home.
There are currently 30 people working in the facility as the company prepares the building and starts processing. Krestell said he expects a total of 75 jobs will be created during peak production.
“We are solely focused on edibles and we’re doing edibles on an industrial scale, which is something that everybody else in cannabis, or specifically in gummy production in Canada, is unable to do now,” said Krestell. “Some market estimates are pointing to a gap between industrial supply and consumer demand of approximately 80 million packaged units a year.”
Krestell said his company is now getting ready to fill that multimillion-dollar gap.
The facility will join an area of the country that is already rich in cannabis infrastructure. Aurora Cannabis, one of the largest retailers of legal weed in the country, has an 800,000-square-foot production facility.