Token Naturals earns processing licence
It took three years but Edmonton-based Token Naturals will be able to manufacture liquid-filled cannabis products after receiving approval from Health Canada.
The company received its standard processing licence from the federal agency on April 9, allowing it to move forward with extracting and processing cannabis at its Edmonton facility. It also plans to offer products wholesale to licensed producers and to retailers.
The company is primarily focusing on products such as oils, tinctures, topicals, vapes and edibles.
Token Naturals founder Keenan Pascal said getting this kind of licence is rare and hard to obtain.
“We were doing a lot of research, consulting, building design and that was how we operated for the last three years,” he said. “We designed the company to be focused in Alberta, specifically in Edmonton. We were very passionate as we raised our capital and did our building design that we had made sure that capacity was able to stay within Edmonton.”
Token Naturals employs 15 people, but Pascal said the plan is to double that within the year.
He said keeping the company as local as possible was important, including ensuring the majority of investors were Albertan.
Pascal said he plans to make his company stand out by focusing on liquid filling.
“There's a lot of (cannabis) flour out there so for us we just looked downstream,” he said. “There's obviously the extraction and that's kind of already getting crowded. We looked at the next phase, which is turning that extracted product into finished, consumer packaged goods. We're seeing a lot of opportunities. This is a very efficient way for us to get a return on our investment and be able to fit in the market with a niche (product).”
Pascal said the company is working on obtaining other licences to expand to who they can sell to and to expand research and development.
“We're excited about this new wave (in the) cannabis industry,” Pascal said. “The City of Edmonton has been an amazing community. We've ... been able to create jobs and keep people employed through a pandemic and actually grow our business.”