GenCanna Global Inc. Announces Strategic Partnership with Specialty Oil Extractors

Hemp Processing and Manufacturing Agreement to serve Kentucky and South Carolina Farmers

Photo courtesy of GenCanna Global Inc.

WINCHESTER, Ky. & DARLINGTON, S.C.--()--GenCanna Global Inc.(“GenCanna”) and Specialty Oil Extractors, LLC (“SOE”) jointly announce a strategic processing and manufacturing agreement. The first-of-its-kind partnership will serve as a processing solution that fulfills the needs of GenCanna’s Certified Farming Network, as well as farmers throughout the state of Kentucky that have been abandoned by other CBD manufacturers.

The partnership expands the scale of GenCanna's industry-leading processing capacity, and offers much-needed optionality for farmers throughout the state of Kentucky. Specialty Oil Extractors is able to process up to eight-hundred thousand pounds of hemp biomass per day and can process both dried hemp flower and whole green plants. In conjunction with GenCanna’s best-in-class quality and safety regimes this agreement sets the bar for industrial scale, high quality, and cost-efficient hemp processing and CBD manufacturing.

And while strategically meaningful to regional farmers this year, it is the promise for the future that GenCanna is most excited about. “Consider this our formal announcement of our Certified Farming Network hub in South Carolina. New and current farmers can contact us at gencannafarmers.com,” said Matty Mangone-Miranda, CEO of GenCanna Global Inc.

Since Governor Henry McMaster signed into law the Hemp Farming Act (H.3449), expanding the state's hemp farming program, South Carolina farmers have embraced the new crop opportunity and are breaking into the hemp market in an impactful way. “South Carolina is very blessed to have such strong economic development activity thriving in our state. The hemp industry is fast-growing nationwide, and South Carolina is now poised to become the hemp processing capital of the entire country,” said Governor McMaster. “With great partners like GenCanna and Specialty Oil Extractors, farmers in South Carolina will have a national network of experts to help them as they begin their journey cultivating this new crop in our state,” McMaster continued.

This year, more than 100 farmers are licensed to cultivate, handle, and process hemp with the approval of the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA). “South Carolina is uniquely positioned to play a defining role in the hemp industry, South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, Hugh Weathers stated. “The partnership between GenCanna and Specialty Oil Extractors gives South Carolina farmers a direct channel to work with an industry-leading processor and will hopefully generate additional acres being grown throughout our state. As interest with industrial hemp steadily grows, we remain one hundred percent committed to expanding this industry,” Weathers said.

GenCanna has partnered with nearly 60 farmers across more than 7,000 acres this year in Kentucky. When coupled with the processing needs of other farmers in the region the partnership serves as an exemplary solution for the industry’s most acute needs.

"The GenCanna Production Platform™ is a robust seed-to-sale vertical solution;” said Chris Stubbs, GenCanna’s Chief Quality & Science Officer, “Aligning years of industry-defining quality, compliant operating standards with a facility of this scale is exciting.”

"Farmers need a trusted solution to monetize their crop and there is no better solution in the marketplace today," said Chris Barone of SOE. "We partnered with GenCanna because we believe our goals and values align and that this collaboration significantly accelerates our trajectory. We are thrilled to enter the marketplace with industry-leading pioneers and stewards focused on quality at-scale and helping farmers farm. It's truly an alignment of like minds."

This partnership is an evolution of GenCanna’s vertical offering and is designed to enable the growth of GenCanna’s Certified Farming Network throughout the U.S. by adding an unprecedented scale component to GenCanna’s best-in-class position in the marketplace. The partnership is an alignment of both strategy and culture.

“We are very excited to expand our farming network to the Carolinas. This is a very strong step toward building our national farming network,” said GenCanna’s Chief Executive Officer, Matty Mangone-Miranda. He added, “And while this strategic step is meaningful it is only possible because of our mutual alignment of ethics and values. The SOE team is great and believe, like we do, in the power of both doing well and doing good.” Outside of its agricultural base in Kentucky, GenCanna’s farming operations and partnerships span from California, Oregon and Colorado to Pennsylvania, New York and Florida.

In addition to this partnership, GenCanna is developing plans to rollout farmer packages providing farmers access to GenCanna-certified genetics and standardized SOPs. The Company is also working on crop insurance and financial solutions for its farming network in 2020.

GenCanna promises continued developments like these, especially as a solution for industry-wide needs. “We understand many farmers are struggling to find processors and buyers,” said GenCanna President and U.S. Hemp Roundtable Chair, Steve Bevan. He added, “Our priority is to offer a stable solution for farmers while developing and standardizing the new marketplace and its inherent volatility. We built GenCanna to service this nascent industry’s growth and we are ecstatic to take on this next level phase change."

If farmers and/or companies wish to process biomass they may contact the companies at SOE@gencanna.com.

ABOUT GENCANNA GLOBAL, INC.

GenCanna is a vertically integrated agriculture-technology company specializing in the production of hemp rich in CBD. Committed to helping farmers farm, the GenCanna Certified Farming Network ensures a compliant, consistent supply of hemp-derived products grown on accredited U.S. family farms. GenCanna’s seed-to-shelf chain of custody is built with the industry's strictest compliance standards (BRC, cGMP) and links the farmers directly to the finished goods.

Founded in 2014, as an inaugural member of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Industrial Hemp Pilot Program, the company is a longstanding industry pioneer. GenCanna works closely with state universities, consumer protection agencies and other regulatory bodies driving key industry standards and legislation. Consistent extraction methods and innovative processing technologies ensure GenCanna production processes exceed all regulatory standards for FDA registered and inspected food production facilities (learn more at https://gencanna.com/compliance/). The GenCanna Production Platform™ assures standardized, repeatable quality from farm to finished product.

GenCanna is a founding board member of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable. Launched in early 2017, the U.S. Hemp Roundtable is a coalition of over 70 hemp companies – representing every link of the product chain, from seed to sale – and all of the industry’s major national grassroots organizations. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable has secured the passage of bi-partisan legislation in the U.S. Congress that established hemp federally as an agricultural commodity, permanently removing it from regulation as a controlled substance.

ABOUT SPECIALTY OIL EXTRACTORS, LLC

Specialty Oil is one of the most ambitious industrial hemp projects in the U.S., and stands at the nexus of state-of-the-art hemp refining technology, old school, made-in-America manufacturing, and industrial scale agriculture. With an unparalleled capacity to process hundreds of thousands of pounds of hemp biomass per day – in either green, whole-plant form or as dried flower – and the ability to refine that product into a wide variety of products, Specialty Oil is the industry-leading resource for industrial scale hemp processing and manufacturing.

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Contacts

Media Contact:
Trevor Manscalo
Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency
trevor@mygrasslands.com
630-841-1017

Contacts

Media Contact:
Trevor Manscalo
Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency
trevor@mygrasslands.com
630-841-1017