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Scotts Miracle-Gro Invests in Cannabis Research

Scotts Miracle-Gro Invests in Cannabis Research

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Scotts Miracle-Gro Invests in Cannabis Research

Flowr and Scotts Miracle-Gro are partnering to create a first-of-its-kind research facility.

The legal cannabis market continues to explode—especially in Canada where weed is set to become fully legal on October 17. As the market changes and grows, it’s becoming more and more common for Canadian and U.S. companies to team up. Most recently, a Scotts Miracle-Gro company and a Canadian cannabis company teamed up. Together, they plan to start one of the world’s leading cannabis research and cultivation facilities.

A Huge New Partnership

The new partnership is between Hawthorne Canada, a Canadian-based subsidiary of Scotts Miracle-Gro, and The Flowr Corporation, a cannabis grower in Canada.

Together, the companies will build a research and development facility in Kelowna, British Columbia. Already, the new facility is being celebrated as “North America’s first research and development facility dedicated to advancing cannabis cultivation techniques and systems.”

According to an official press release, the new research and development facility will be 50,000 square feet. It will include plenty of lab space. In the labs, researchers will study indoor and outdoor growing, genetics, breeding, and more.

Additionally, the companies will build another 80,000 square foot facility for cultivation. Flowr expects to grow more than 26,000 pounds of weed in the new facility starting next year.

The new campus will ultimately help the companies improve growing techniques and develop new cultivation tools.

“We chose to with Flowr due to their ability to grow quality, consistent plants,” said Chris Hagedorn, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Hawthorne. “Dedicated to innovation this fist-of-its-kind research facility will help to optimize our entire array of products . . . and put us in the unique position to help our customers, no matter their size and scale, get the result they seek with even more precision.”

According to the press release, the new facilities should be done sometime in 2019. The companies expect the development to bring somewhere around 200 new jobs to British Columbia.

Scotts Miracle-Gro in the Cannabis Space

This isn’t the first time Scotts Miracle-Gro has been involved in cannabis. In fact, the company has reportedly invested more than $1 billion in legal weed over the past few years. And as is the case with this latest partnership, the company often makes moves through its Canadian subsidiary, Hawthorne.

For example, Hawthorne made some big moves back in 2015. That’s when they purchased General Hydroponics and Vermicrop Organics. Each of these companies sells products commonly used in cannabis cultivation.

After purchasing these companies, Hawthorne saw almost immediate results. That year, Hawthorne had more revenue growth than any other part of Scotts Miracle-Gro.

In general, this growth is often attributed to the cannabis space. And although many agricultural products aren’t necessarily marketed as tools for growing weed, they still find huge success in that space.

Interestingly, the partnership between Scotts Miracle-Gro and Flowr is the third such relationship between Canadian and U.S.  cannabis companies.

According to the companies’ joint press release, “the alliance makes Flowr one of only three Canadian cannabis companies with a business partnership with a publicly traded U.S. company.”

Canopy and Hexo both reportedly have similar partnerships in place. In this context, the new partnership could be part of a larger international trend in the global cannabis market.

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