Accommodating the Huge Demand for High Quality Cannabis

GTEC has a mandate to supervise every aspect of its premium craft cannabis production

GTEC uses business acumen and the science of cultivation in order to craft its premium products

Kelowna-based GreenTec Holdings Ltd. (GTEC) is making considerable strides toward fulfilling its mandate of becoming a leading Canadian craft cannabis company, driven by a team of successful venture capitalists, PhD scientists, cultivation experts, and food and beverage executives (from SunRype, Diageo and Quails’ Gate)—plus a strategy that includes establishing retail outlets across the country.

GTEC‘s singular concern for being a craft producer is especially important to founder, chairman and CEO Norton Singhavon, who points out that the nascent legalized cannabis industry is creating a whirlwind of activity that may influence producers to focus on quantity over quality. “And frankly, we have no intention of going that route,” he says. “We want to be the Grey Goose of legal cannabis, not the Smirnoff.” 

Singhavon’s professional background is of substantial benefit to GTEC‘s development as a craft specialist. With extensive experience at the senior management level of capital investments, he has facilitated regulatory and corporate matters, as well as raising capital privately and publicly.

Singhavon’s business acumen has enabled him to foresee what the cannabis industry would look like and determine what the market would need long before legalization was ever on Ottawa’s agenda. 

“I had no connection to cannabis until 2010 when I became involved in purchasing commercial real estate for growers to operate in conjunction with Health Canada regulations.  Eventually with my real-estate development background, I would finance the buildouts and assist in municipal regulatory matters,” he says. “Over time, I got to know the players in the production realm, and while they had cultivation skills and certain scientific acumen, they lacked business skills and market focus. 

“With GTEC, we have a perfect marriage of all these skills. And it seems to me that there will be a huge demand for high-quality cannabis products, which we will complement with progressive marketing that targets distinct consumer segments within the premium craft cannabis market.”

Accordingly, GTEC strives for full vertical integration in order to ensure that products are cultivated with quality, care and consistency. The company has a strict mandate to wholly own and internally operate its own cultivation facilities and supervise every aspect of production, from initial construction and genetic selection, to cultivation and final harvest.

With its no-nonsense business structure, GTEC has been able to achieve considerable industry gains. For example, in September its wholly owned subsidiary, Zenalytic Laboratories, received approval from Health Canada to expand the scope of its dealer’s licence to include extraction of cannabis oil, which in turn will help GTEC realize revenue generation overall by late 2018.  

Singhavon and his colleagues are also pursuing retail locations in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. “We’re also working with real estate groups in Ontario to achieve a presence in that province,” he says.

Although it’s unclear to what extent GTEC will grow in this hugely competitive sector, Singhavon says the foundations upon which the company has been built will remain intact. “We are adamant about operating well within compliance of all levels and remaining vertically integrated,” he says. “In the end, our curated products that we control from ‘seed to shelf’ will hopefully resonate with the end consumer.”