After a recent open house for shareholders at FV Pharma, Today’s Northumberland sat down with CEO of FV Pharma Inc. Thomas Fairfull who founded the company approximately six years ago.
FV Pharma held a open house on Thursday, December 21, 2018 for approximately 300 shareholders.
Vehicles were lined up onto William Street in Cobourg waiting to get through the tight security.
Some shareholders traveled as far as Quebec for the open house.
The following day Today’s Northumberland sat down for a Question and Answer with Fairfull to speak about the year it’s been and what’s ahead.
“The first phase has all gone on to the license now. So we’re fully licensed for the first 25,000 square feet. By the end of January, the middle of February the 25,000 square feet should be all operational.
Fairfull said there are nine grow rooms in the 25,000 square foot area that is currently active and he states they should be able to harvest and plant a room every week. The production in the 25,000 square foot area should be close to four million grams per year.
With the expansion currently underway for approximately the last six months, Fairfull said they will have a production 10 times that with a 245,000 square foot operation with each grow room being approximately 2,000 square feet.
There is approximately 650,000 square feet in the facility that can be converted.
Fairfull said the building is built in a “U” shape, “we can fill in the middle and we can build back onto that property. We’re going to build this out to 3.8 million square feet over the course of time.”
“It will be the largest producer of medical marijuana in the world and the highest quality.”
The projected time for full implementation would be six to nine years.
TN: Tell me how it’s going?
TF: It’s actually going very well. It’s always going slower than what people want it to go, but that’s building a business. It doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re moving forward. You can see from the last time you were here, it’s different so we’re making process.
(Last time Today’s Northumberland was at FV Pharma was on October 9)
TN: How was the shareholders open house?
TF: They are loved it. The odd guy was complaining. But 85% of them liked what they saw. We are going in the right direction. We’re focussing on the medical side. Everything in this building will be GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) which is the highest standard production you can get.
TN: Have you done any grows yet?
TF: (Pointing to a security monitor showing a room full of marijuana. On another monitor Fairfull points to a room that will be harvested in a week).
We’ve done two prior harvests. That will be the third one.
TN: If you’re licensed January/February what happens with the previous grows?
TF: We store them. We put them in inventory that’s all. We have a license to sell now. We can sell to other “LP’s” (licensed producers) but we’re discounting it and selling it wholesale. We want to sell to end users. So the sale license to end users, we should have it by the second or third week of January and by February the whole place will be set up and running. We should have our sales license, our marketing in place, the whole nine yards and be operating.
In the second quarter we should have a revenue stream coming in.
TN: So this year hopefully is going to be through the roof.
TF: I don’t know whether I’d phrase it “through the roof” but this year is going to see us moving forward in the right direction.
TN: What’s happening with the dispensary? (the former CERTO building on the property which there was a ribbon cutting on October 9, 2018).
TF: That building is really delapidated. It’s really, really bad. It needs a new roof before we can do anything. There is no point in doing anything until you get a new roof. We were told by the town we needed to get a building permit to put a new roof on. And they haven’t issued us a building permit to put the roof on yet. So we’re just waiting on the town. We’ve been waiting on the town for over two months. Now we just want to get the roof on and then we can do other stuff. If the roof isn’t put on soon, the whole building is just going to fall down. I don’t know why you need a building permit for a roof. Let us put the roof on so we can stop the weather from coming inside. It’s getting harder and harder to put the roof on because winter is coming. We wanted to had the roof on when we had the (ribbon) cutting.
TN: At the ribbon cutting (on October 9) it was believed the dispensary would be up and running in six to eight weeks.
TF: We can’t be running legally. We can’t be running as you know, I believe it’s May 2019 so we have to be ready. That’s due to what their doing in the Province so I was a little off my prediction there, because we can’t do it till May – it’s just frustrating.
Fairfull said cannabis/marijuana, “it’s the most misunderstood product on the market because everybody thinks of it in the way of recreational – potheads.”
“You’ve been brainwashed for the last 30 years smoking is bad. We’re not going to be smoking.”
Fairfull said they will be working on a 30,000 square foot room that will have two machines that will make pills and capsules.
The product will be used for things like cancer, senility and irritable bowel syndrome “without the crazy side effects.”
“But in order to effect this you have to have the science.”
“We will have the science.”
In the future Fairfull said they hope to have a call centre for anyone wanting to know about concerns and also the worlds most advanced laboratory for cannabinoids.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
