SpeakEasy Cannabis Club Ltd., a holder of a federal licence to cultivate, process and sell cannabis under the Cannabis Act. Speakeasy’s completion of its successful 2020 first outdoor harvest highlights how important the combination of the Geen family’s farming experience, combined with genetics and the perfect climate are, in the making of a successful cannabis crop.
British Columbia’s spring was not a typical one and less than perfect, with wet and cold weather. The fall ended early in spectacular fashion with freezing temperatures and snow, but the summer was exactly what we would expect for this area, blue skies, sun, heat and over 65 days without rain. The unusual fall weather showcased how critical it was to choose an outdoor genetic that finished early, otherwise, one was certain to have challenges harvesting their crop in time. SpeakEasy experienced no harm from weather this year for a variety of reasons. Using three different genetics and three different planting methods allowed us to spread our harvest period over 35 days, of which we took full advantage of each and every day.
Founder Marc Geen says, “What I had imagined for years finally came true and was more spectacular and amazing than I had pictured. It is difficult, if not impossible to describe what standing in the middle of 60 acres of blooming, fragrant cannabis plants is actually like. Everywhere you look, big healthy crystal covered buds, the fruity pungent aroma hanging thick in the air, the satisfaction of seeing the results of so much work, I wish you all could have walked through. Our record breaking plantation didn’t go unnoticed this summer as we were featured in Forbes twice, among many other TV, radio and print articles, with one television interview broadcast in over 3.5 million homes.”
QUALITY AND HARVESTING STRATEGY OPENS UP DYNAMIC SALES OPPORTUNITIES TO INCREASE MARGIN
The harvest yielded quality much higher than our expectations. SpeakEasy now holds over 72,000 kilograms of dried, fresh frozen and biomass in its inventory. With its low cost to harvest, as opposed to greenhouse costs that currently dominate the industry, the Company has an opportunity to disrupt categories within the industry. Pre-rolls and a wide range of extract products will be the main end products for the majority of the outdoor crop. We believe that the largest advantage the Company has over its competition is its low cost production, giving us the ability to be extremely price competitive on the market while continuing to maintain healthy profit margins. More and more, price point is becoming a key factor in product selection in the Canadian market and SpeakEasy expects to bring high quality products at extremely competitive pricing.
- Consumer Facing Brands – Over the last 3 years, our team has been developing multiple brands that take advantage of the robust products we expect to produce upon receipt of all applicable Health Canada licences and we’re excited to showcase them in the coming months.
- White Label – This offers us the second highest margin opportunity where SpeakEasy will both manufacturer and package the product onsite.
- B-to-B – Our focus with wholesale products is to manufacture raw material to a finished product like that of shatter or live resin to increase margin of the input material.
Geen further states, “We have spent months in discussions with multiple Province’s distribution companies and partners who are responsible for distribution for recreational and medical sales along with specialty groups like veterans affairs. Discussions have been very positive and the groups we have begun working with are like minded and enthusiastic about working together.”
HARVEST YIELD BREAKDOWN OF 72,000 KILOGRAMS
- Dried Flower yielded 11,400 kg and will be used for a multitude of products including flower as a finished product, pre-rolls, shatter, distillate and a range of value added products.
- Fresh Frozen flower yielded 13,861 kg and was harvested and immediately frozen to minus 30 degrees allowing preservation of volatile terpenes. This method of harvest allows for the creation of certain types of high value extracts only possible when made from fresh frozen material. SpeakEasy believes it has the largest single supply of fresh frozen flower in Canada.
- Biomass yielded 47,250 kg and will be used for bulk extraction, the cannabinoids gleaned from that process will be the input material for many value add products.
Founder, Marc Geen further states, “2020 has thrown many things at us, the latest was snow and freezing weather that broke all records in the area dating back to 1886 when they began keeping records here. Thankfully, we completed the harvest with 24 hours to spare. Every time I give updates, I can’t help but mention how important our incredible crew is to the success of our Company. With weather bearing down on us, everyone pulled together and got the crop off just in time, sparing us the troubles many others in the industry faced. A huge thank you to everyone. Throughout the harvest, smiles amongst the crew were always easy to find and it was obvious everyone felt proud of their contributions to this wildly successful season. SpeakEasy’s future is so bright, and everything is coming together at just the right time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our shareholders, supporters and staff. We have all been through so much this year, here’s to 2021 being a break-out year for us all.”
SpeakEasy Cannabis Club Ltd. holds a cultivation, processing and sales licence issued by Health Canada under the Cannabis Act.