Canndeo officially opened its Bundaberg medicinal cannabis research and plant production facility yesterday announcing plans for expansion and more than 70 jobs.
Canndeo Bundaberg site manager John Hall said it was a proud day, held in conjunction with the opening of its Southport manufacturing facility.
“The whole business has come a long way since we started,” Mr Hall said.
“We began the journey in 2016.”
Mr Hall has been producing industrial hemp for 20 years but over the last three years began the journey to become a licenced medicinal cannabis producer.
Granted earlier this year, Mr Hall said he felt like the company had achieved a lot in the last three years, now growing low THC medicinal cannabis strains.
“The company has moved forward to the point that we have our plan in place for large scale manufacturing and moving in to the stage where we’ll produce plants for our commercial stage growing here in Bundaberg.
“Now we have developed and bred our own medicinal cannabis strains and we are now researching the optimisation of the growing conditions and understanding exactly what we need to do to the plants to get the best yield and quality.
“We will plan to provide the capacity of the plant within the next three years which will be a significant quantity.
“This facility will produce plants for commercial production and we will be expanding significantly in the next six months.”
Canndeo Bundaberg facility opening to boost jobs
Mr Hall said there was currently about 10,000 patients approved to use medicinal cannabis in Australia and, based on other global markets, he expected that figure to quadruple.
“One of the things that we’re going to really be pleased with is the number of jobs that we will create in this district.
“We’re looking to be up around 75 jobs here in the next two or three years and a lot of those jobs will be professional jobs and highly skilled jobs.
“That’s something we can do for the area and earn some economic income, export income for the district and the country.”
Mayor Jack Dempsey officially opened the Bundaberg Canndeo facility and congratulated the company for the significant investment in Bundaberg.
“This is an enormous announcement,” Mayor Dempsey said.
“The research and the technology that it will give to agriculture and supplement the other research facilities we have here in the region – it means an increase in research, an increase in education and an increase in jobs.”
Canndeo has already experienced global interest in its products from a Chinese pharmaceutical, medical and research organisation.
- Cucumber farm leased to grow cannabis
