Tasmanian Botanics plans to triple cannabis production with new greenhouse
A secretive Southern Tasmanian business employing 100 people has revealed big plans for future growth, with aspirations of becoming the top dog in the nation’s burgeoning medicinal cannabis industry.
Tasmania
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Tasmania’s leading medicinal cannabis company has unveiled a grand expansion plan on the back of a new greenhouse, which it says will enable the business to massively increase its output.
While Tasmanian Botanics CEO Dan Howard was tight-lipped on the exact location of the facility, which is near Hobart, he said it employed about 100 people and was set to increase its workforce by up to 25 per cent each year once the greenhouse was fully up and running.
“The structure is built, we’re literally just waiting on the letter from the Office of Drug Control to give us the permit to start growing inside of that greenhouse,” he said.
“The first phase will triple our output and … that’s about 40 per cent of the area of the greenhouse. And then, over time, we’ll continue to build out the bounds of it as needed.”
Tasmanian Botanics currently produces about 2.5 tonnes of cannabis flowers per year and about 500kg of extracts. The majority Tasmanian-owned company’s products include vape cartridges, oral liquids and flower products.
These can only be accessed with special approvals obtained through the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Special Access Scheme and Authorised Prescriber Scheme.
The business has been operating in Tasmania since 2021 and has its sights set on producing between six and seven tonnes of flowers a year within the first phase of the new greenhouse development, as well as between 1000-1500 kg of extracts.
Mr Howard said Tasmanian Botanics was able to operate at a profit because it did all of its own value-adding and therefore was not required to pay any third parties to “transform the product”.
“Being in Tasmania is a big benefit in that the light that we get in the summertime is very beneficial for outdoor growing and the fact that it’s temperate and dry, we don’t have to aircondition our greenhouses, we don’t have to dehumidify our greenhouses,” he said.
“They say California grows some of the best cannabis in the world. We’re basically the same latitude as Northern California, which is renowned for its cannabis growing environment. We’re the same latitude, just in the Southern Hemisphere.”
Members of the Tasmanian Small Business Council (TSBC) and representatives from the State Growth Department were given a tour of the Tasmanian Botanics site on Tuesday.
TSBC CEO Robert Mallett said Mr Howard had “decided that it’s about time he lifted the lid on some of the secrecy and let people know what’s going on out there and the value [the company] puts into the Australian and Tasmanian marketplace as a very legitimate product.”
“This organisation … hopes to go from fifth-largest [of its kind] in Australia up into the third and second-largest in Australia in the not-too-distant future because of their expansion plans. [It’s] really good news for Tasmania and we need to embrace it,” he said.
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