Aleafia Health Inc. (TSX: ALEF, OTC: ALEAF, FRA: ARAH)
(“
Aleafia Health” or the
“
Company”) has completed the construction of its
Paris Processing facility’s Phase II expansion and secured full
site occupancy on October 4, 2019, following the successful
completion of County of Brant inspections. The Paris Phase II
expansion is a 30,000 sq. ft. facility entirely dedicated to the
extraction, production, packaging and distribution of high-margin,
value-added cannabis health and wellness products.
The expansion builds upon the current, licensed and operational
Paris facility, which features cultivation rooms and handles all
extraction, packaging and order fulfillment for Aleafia Health’s
medical, adult-use and international sales.
Paris will feature an initial 115,000 kg dried flower equivalent
(“DFE”) extraction capacity, a 2,775 per cent
increase over the Company’s current 4,000 kg DFE extraction
capacity. The Company expects that Paris can through-put all dried
flower grown by Aleafia Health, including at its newly expanded,
86-acre Port Perry Outdoor Grow site.
To complete the final stage of securing its required Licence
Amendment, the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Emblem Cannabis
Corp., expects to submit its final evidence package to Health
Canada this October, demonstrating the facility’s operational
readiness.
PURPOSE-BUILT TO EU-GMP STANDARDS FOR
EXPORT TO EU MARKET
The facility is purpose-built to meet European Union Good
Manufacturing Practices (“EU-GMP”) certification
requirements. EU-GMP certified facilities demonstrate the highest
level of pharmaceutical-grade quality, and securing the
certification will allow Aleafia Health to begin exporting finished
goods including cannabis oils and capsules to the EU.
Through the Aleafia Health Germany joint-venture with German
pharmaceutical wholesaler and logistics company Acnos Pharma GmbH,
Aleafia will gain access to the burgeoning German medical cannabis
market, with access to 22,000 pharmacies and 110 distribution
centres.
115,000 KG EXTRACTION CAPACITY WITH
ABILITY FOR FURTHER EXPANSION
The Paris expansion will rapidly accelerate Aleafia Health’s
production capacity, and ability to create a wide variety of
differentiated products across multiple categories. It has been
built specifically to allow for further, significant expansions of
extraction capacity by utilizing additional machinery. For
instance, the existing capital expenditures budget accounts for
additional ethanol extraction machinery that would bring total
capacity to 190,000 kg DFE and would take approximately eight weeks
to bring online.
Each element of the extraction and production process occupies a
purpose-built, dedicated room in the facility, maximizing
through-put ability and operational efficiency. Highlights
include:
- 40,000 kg DFE of supercritical C02 extraction which is
primarily used for the production of pharmaceutical-grade oil-based
products including capsules and sprays
- 75,000 kg DFE of ethanol extraction, which produces a tasteless
distillate ideally suited for new product formats including
edibles, beverages and extracts
- In-house analytical testing and quality assurance equipment,
allowing for products to reach market two to three weeks earlier
than with the use of external third-party testing
- Production and packaging machinery along with space dedicated
to creating new, differentiated product formats soon available in
the Canadian market
- A dedicated laboratory for ongoing R&D, product development
and continued process optimization
- A logistics centre handling order fulfilment to medical
patients, provincial wholesalers and all international exports
- The entire expansion project, including machinery for yet to be
announced new product formats, falls within the Company’s fully
funded, previously reported capital expenditures budget
“The Paris expansion represents the crown jewel of Aleafia
Health’s cannabis ecosystem. This facility will allow us to rapidly
expand the production of high-margin derivative products, while
adding new, differentiated formats that are grown, processed,
packaged and exported by Aleafia Health,” said CEO Geoffrey Benic.
“We look forward to bringing the next generation of cannabis
products to market, while greatly expanding our international
footprint in Germany, Australia and beyond.”
For Investor and Media Relations, please
contact:
Nicholas Bergamini, VP Investor Relations1-833-TSX-ALEF
(879-2533)IR@AleafiaHealth.comLEARN MORE: www.AleafiaHealth.com
About Aleafia Health:
Aleafia Health is a leading, vertically integrated cannabis
health and wellness company with four primary business units:
Cannabis Cultivation & Products, Health & Wellness Clinics,
Cannabis Education, and Consumer Experience with ecommerce, retail
distribution and provincial supply agreements.
Aleafia Health owns three major cannabis product &
cultivation facilities, two of which are licensed and operational
including the first large-scale, operational outdoor cultivation
facility in Canadian history. The Company produces a diverse
portfolio of commercially proven, high-margin derivative products
including oils, capsules and sprays. Aleafia Health operates the
largest national network of medical cannabis clinics and education
centres staffed by MDs, nurse practitioners and educators and has
international operations in three continents.
Innovation is at the heart of Aleafia Health competitive
advantage. The Company maintains a medical cannabis dataset with
over 10 million data points to inform proprietary illness-specific
product development and its highly differentiated education
platform FoliEdge Academy. The Company is committed to creating
sustainable shareholder value and has been named the 2019 top
performing company of the year by the TSX Venture Exchange prior to
graduation to the TSX.
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains forward-looking information within
the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities
laws. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be
identified by the use of words such as “plans”, “expects” or “does
not expect”, “is expected”, “estimates”, “intends”, “anticipates”
or “does not anticipate”, or “believes” or variations of such words
and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results “may”,
“could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved.
Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results,
performance or achievements of the Company or its subsidiaries to
be materially different from any future results, performance or
achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking
information contained in this news release. Risks, uncertainties
and other factors involved with forward-looking information could
cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and
opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied
by such forward-looking information, including risks contained in
the Company’s annual information form filed with Canadian
securities regulators available on the Company’s SEDAR profile at
www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the assumptions
and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in
this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be
placed on such information and no assurance can be given that such
events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The
forward-looking information included in this news release are made
as of the date of this news release and the Company does not
undertake any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking
information to reflect new information, subsequent events or
otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.