Brew Dog co-founder Martin Dickie is growing cannabis on an industrial scale and about to celebrate his first harvest. His "weed" growing enterprise near Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, is aimed at the healthcare market. And with most of the UK's medical cannabis currently imported, he sees huge potential for his new business. So much so that he's ploughed millions of pounds of his own cash into Waterside Pharmaceuticals.
It's far removed from the cannabis "factories" which feed the illegal drug trade. Waterside is a high-tech vertical farming venture with horticultural science at its core. Its crop is grown under optimum conditions. Everything from genetic selection to temperature and light is controlled to the nth degree. The first, modest harvest is expected to deliver up to 9kg (about 20lb) of medical cannabis.
Martin is one half or the entrepreneurial duo behind craft brewing beer giant BrewDog. The 42-year-old married father-of-three is the new pharma company's chief executive. "I've spent a lot of time in America, where I had exposure to hemp and medicinal cannabis production in a controlled environment," he told me.
He added: "Every step of our growth process is very carefully controlled to ensure the best purity. "Medical cannabis is a growing market here in the UK, but currently about 98% of the product is imported. We want to develop domestic production." Every step of our growth process is very carefully controlled to ensure the best purity."
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