Biome seeks similar supplier deal as Canopy
The provincial government currently has only one contract signed for the production and supply of cannabis products once it becomes legal — the deal inked with Canopy Growth — but it has made clear there’s still space in the sector.
Khurram Malik and Dave Callahan aren’t at liberty to divulge details of their negotiations with the province or the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corp. to become a supplier, but both suggest Biome and Back Home are “being treated fairly.”
So does that mean they’ll receive the same incentives — multiple retail licences and a potential $40-million tax break down the road through a percentage of all cannabis sales — as Canopy did?
“We would like some of that, but we’d like something slightly different,” Malik says. “The overall package may be worth the same amount to us, but the ingredients in that package may be a little different.”
The sides are also engaged in a discussion about potential retail licences, something that’s particularly attractive given that third parties and not just government entities will be able to enter the sector.
“There’s limited marketing we can do because it’s a controlled substance and the closer you can touch the end consumer the better,” Malik says. “It gives you quite a bit more visibility in what you can
do. It’s also one of the reasons we’re building bigger here, because you have retail locations. Otherwise it may have been a little bit smaller.”