A new 100,000-square-foot expansion to Organigram’s Moncton production facility officially opened on Tuesday.
Organigram currently has 135,000 square feet of production space, allowing it to grow 22 million grams of marijuana a year. That's one of the 50 strains currently being produced at the Moncton facility.
It took just over a year to complete phase two. Phase three could be finished by May, and phases four and five will be closer to 2020.
“Over the next two years as we expand to our full facility, it'll just be under 500,000 square feet on three levels. We'll be at over 100,000 kilograms or 100 million grams,” says Organigram CEO Greg Engel.
That's going to require a boost to Organigram's workforce. The company currently has 175 employees, but that number will increase to 270 by May.
Organigram plans to have close to 400 employees.
“We're looking for specifically production and sanitation, specifically on the production side. We've seen a lot of people with cultivation experience and different levels of experience working with other plant types,” says Ray Gracewood, CCO of Organigram.
Organigram currently grows medical grade cannabis that's sold nationwide. When recreational use of marijuana becomes legal in Canada, Organigram has agreements in place to supply P.E.I. and New Brunswick.
“We do anticipate economic growth opportunities here for this. These will be increased as time goes forward,” says New Brunswick Finance Minister Cathy Rogers.
Engel says they're hoping similar deals will be made across the country, but Europe could be a major customer down the road.
“Most of the European medical market today doesn't have domestic production, so there's tremendous opportunity as we scale up for export into the European domestic medical cannabis market,” Engel says.
For now, the company is focused on stockpiling marijuana for when it becomes legal for recreational use later this summer.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.
