Months ago I introduced you to Dan Sutton in my 500 Coffees series. In it I promised a followup look inside the cannabis growing facility he co-founded and manages, and today I'm delivering on it.
Legal Tantalus Labs cannabis packaged up and ready to ship. Photo Bob Kronbauer
' Sunlab 1 greenhouse is located on the ALR in Maple Ridge. Like most local farms it's tucked away in a quiet corner of the Lower Mainland, only it's a highly secure facility surrounded by razor wire and monitored by more than 100 security cameras.
Something that sets them apart from other growing operations ("traditional" and otherwise), is that they claim to use 90% less electricity. When Dan told me this at our coffee meeting I found it hard to believe it could work, considering the amount of rainy days we see around these parts. However stepping into the flowering section of the place - which has no lighting; just the sun - I was convinced.
Tantalus Labs claims to use 90% less electricity than other cannabis growing operations. Photo Bob Kronbauer
As someone who doesn't use cannabis but deeply enjoys the smell of it in its raw form, stepping into this part of the operation brought a strange feeling of calm to my person. The aroma, increased oxygen, humidity and just the general quietness of a greenhouse environment made for a contact high like none I've ever experienced. It was hard to leave.
Flowering cannabis a couple of weeks away from being harvested. Photo Bob Kronbauer
Below is a video showing the facility from top to bottom. As mentioned in it, Tantalus Labs just received their certification from Health Canada to sell medicinal cannabis, and you'll be seeing more from them when it becomes legal for recreational use in October of this year.
Here's what it looks like inside a large-scale cannabis grow-op in the Lower Mainland (), in case you were curious.
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If you're in the cannabis industry and you'd like me to come tour your facility and do a feature on it, please contact me so we can arrange a date.
