BC Farm-gate Cannabis Store Opens in Salmon Arm
A year after British Columbia legalized farm-gate cannabis, a BC farm-gate cannabis store has opened in Salmon Arm, BC. ShuCanna soft-opened in August, but had its grand opening on Friday, October 27. The store hopes to sell on “fresh” as its value proposition.
“It’s that farm-to-table concept,” said Leah Hermann, ShuCanna sales manager. “Craft growers usually know what they’re doing. It’s hand-trimmed, hand-rolled, hand-closed, and that attention is important from a consumer standpoint.”
ShuCanna owner and president Terry Robinson said that previously ShuCanna would have to place orders for cannabis stock through the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Distribution Branch, then wait. He said it could take up to a year for the product to be grown, cultivated, packaged, and approved.
However, getting that licence for your BC farm-gate cannabis store is not easy – or cheap. Applying for the licence alone costs $10,000. That’s before any other setup and labour costs to get your operation going, Robinson said. Even then, it’s not a slam dunk.
“There’s no guarantee with that you’ll get a licence, and it took us over a year,” he said. “If you’re not in a retail store in an urban centre, it maybe wouldn’t be worthwhile.”
Of the approximately 100 eligble BC farm-gate cannabis stores, only three had started the process a year after the province opened up farm-gate cannabis sales. The article also mentions two Indigenous-owned farm-gate operations licensed under “special arrangement” which for some reason are not included in the province’s official count of Producer Retail Stores.
For Robinson, the time, hassle, and expense of converting ShuCanna to a BC farm-gate cannabis store was worth it. “It’s a family business and we wanted to pursue that, and do it this way, farm fresh,” he said.
BC Farm-gate Cannabis Store Latest Step Forward for Canadian Cannabis – LPC
Ask many in the Canadian cannabis industry, and they’ll say cannabis restrictions are too tight. Farm-gate, for example, has been slow in coming. So far, only BC, Ontario, and New Brunswick allow farm-gate cannabis. Things get even stickier when you look at cannabis lounges, cannabis marketing, and barriers to entering the industry.
However, programs such as new BC farm-gate cannabis stores signal that things are slowly changing in the Canadian cannabis industry as a whole. And why not do things from a place of caution? The Great Cannabis Experiment in Canada has always been about keeping our children safe and ensuring our cannabis produce is safe and free of toxins.
Sure, our cannabis industry is moving forward more slowly than most would like. But it’s moving. Hopefully, more companies will take advantage of the BC farm-gate cannabis store licence and similar opportunities across Canada in the coming years.
Read the Full Story on the Nelson Star
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