Medical cannabis producer Puro has announced a significant partnership with Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura. This partnership is expected to stimulate business growth and create jobs for Māori.
Puro has been cultivating medicinal cannabis since 2018, operating two facilities: one located in the Waihopai Valley and the other on the Kaikōura Coast. In 2022, the company secured $13 million in government funding, which is set to be distributed over a five-year period.
Puro CEO, Sank Macfarlane, stated that the partnership is a natural fit that benefits the local community.
“There is a shared vision between both parties around education and training. We’ve put together, as part of our MPI funding that we received, a cadetship, which will hopefully lead to further cadets coming through the system and eventually become a contract-growing model for medical cannabis in the area,” he said.
“Over the last five years we’ve built up a huge amount of infrastructure and IP, and this opportunity allows us to utilise our existing infrastructure that we have and maybe in a year or two start out with some small satellite-type farms that can bring the raw product to our existing infrastructure.”
He mentioned that the company has achieved notable progress in exporting products to Australia due to a recent change in legislation, which bodes well for future growth.
In July, New Zealand amended its regulations so that local medicinal cannabis producers are now only required to meet the standards set by the importing nations rather than adhering to New Zealand’s own stringent standards. This shift allows products containing cannabis-based ingredients—previously unsellable in New Zealand—to be exported to countries like Australia, where demand for medicinal cannabis is rising.
Macfarlane noted that prior to this change, business had been challenging due to the limited size of the local market.
“The bigger and faster opportunities for us are the Australian market, and we’re very lucky to have them so close to us.”