Christina Lake Cannabis Corp. announced that Salvatore Milia will be appointed to the Company’s Board of Directors after recently receiving clearance from Health Canada to enter this capacity. Additionally, the Company intends to launch a research and development (R&D) committee under the leadership of Mr. Milia whose background is in building large-scale information technology systems, an acumen that can be applied to CLC’s plans to incorporate smart monitoring technology into its vertically-integrated cannabis cultivation workflows. Having designed, implemented, and managed technical systems and networks for one of Canada’s first non-bank credit card gateways as well as for the Conservative Party of Canada, the Company’s management believes Mr. Milia’s experience with infrastructures in sensitive and highly regulated environments could help CLC in further improving its crop yields and consistency.
After initially forecasting a harvest of 15,000 kg / 33,000 lb from the Company’s inaugural growing season last year, CLC ultimately produced a total of 32,500 kg / 71,650 lb of dried cannabis for the 2020 growing season. This crop consisted of eight proprietary cannabis strains, all specifically engineered to be grown outdoors by sunlight. As detailed in the Company’s September 3, 2020 press release, one method used by CLC to monitor the integrity of each plant is flying a remote-controlled drone with sensors to gauge a plant’s health and hydration as well as to detect potential concerns. Mr. Milia plans on integrating similar forms of monitoring technology throughout CLC’s facility in the Christina Lake region of British Columbia, with corresponding data reporting and analysis procedures as a form of quality assurance. The Company anticipates these tactics could contribute to maximizing output in future growing seasons and utilize insights to refine CLC’s proprietary strain formulations as well as its standard operating procedures for cultivation.
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In CLC’s December 11, 2020 press release, the Company shared its plans for expanding its outdoor production of cannabis which include the possibility of revising cultivation timelines to “turn over” certain strains more than once in a given season, as well as to potentially use additional acreage owned by CLC. Because the Company predicts it will produce an even greater quantity of cannabis in future growing seasons, Mr. Milia plans to institute internal protocols such as “stress tests” at regular intervals to detect any potential weaknesses which could impede scalability of CLC’s cannabis production, as well as to detect any potential opportunities to improve the Company’s efficiency, safety, and profitability.
Joel Dumaresq, Chief Executive Officer and Director of CLC commented, “By growing cannabis outdoors naturally using sunlight, we have seen terrific results with our proprietary strains that are engineered for this type of cultivation. After a very successful growing season last year, we are seeking to make the absolute most of our future growing seasons, which we anticipate could be achieved by implementing a high-tech monitoring infrastructure led by Mr. Milia, who will soon join our Board of Directors and lead our R&D committee. One of our foremost objectives is to ensure we are growing and shipping a consistently high-quality product, and I am confident in Mr. Milia’s capabilities to optimize and automate certain aspects of our quality assurance to potentially set new standards in the cannabis industry. CLC already has the ability to produce high-quality cannabis at an extraordinarily low cost, and we predict that Mr. Milia’s experience in unlocking business value using advanced technology in banking and for a major Canadian political party could achieve similar results for the Company.”
Salvatore Milia commented, “Joining CLC’s board of directors is an exciting career move for me because I have always enjoyed applying cutting-edge technologies to novel use cases. One of the challenges of growing cannabis outdoors is that monitoring of a field can be difficult, especially at a granular level. One common hazard is that water outages for irrigation systems can often go undetected for some time, potentially compromising a plant’s health. In addition to monitoring the plants themselves, I am intending to monitor their surroundings such as the water systems so that any issues can be addressed forthwith. I also look forward to applying the process design methodologies I have picked up over the course of my career to CLC’s workflows in an effort to make processes efficient and scalable, with the desired result being a sun-grown cannabis crop that is consistently of top quality.”
Christina Lake Cannabis Corp. is a licensed producer of cannabis under the Cannabis Act. It has secured a standard cultivation licence and corresponding processing/sales amendment from Health Canada (March 2020 and August 2020, respectively) as well as a research and development licence (early 2020).
