A greenhouse at Cresco’s medical marijuana processing facility PHOTO BY SETH KUBERSKY
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chased by Cresco, rebranded as Cannabist last year; Verano Holdings Corp. merged with AltMed, operator of MÜV; and Planet 13 (known for their glitzy superstore off the Vegas strip) entered the Florida market by buying its license from Harvest after they were absorbed by Trulieve, the state’s dominant dispenser. “Our focus is on being education-first, and really meeting consumers where they are,” Cresco Labs/Sunnyside Florida regional president Cris Rivera told me in a recent phone interview. “It’s about a new start to one’s life with cannabis at the forefront of solving whatever conditions or ailments they have.” Rivera says that a main reason Cresco Labs were initially interested in acquiring One Plant was “the quality of product they made, it’s quite remarkable. I can argue it’s as strong as some of our rec [recreational] states that have been selling and growing for some time.” The good news for discerning medical marijuana patients shipping container-like buildings hits your nose, and it’s clear what type of herbs they are raising here. Welcome to is that — as far as I could tell during my exhaustive two-hour Cresco Labs’ newly expanded medical cannabis grow facil- tour of Cresco’s facility — the new management is maintainity: Exhibit A for the rapid transformation of Florida’s legal ing and building upon One Plant’s high standards. It all starts in the enormous grow houses, which Cresco weed business. Only a year ago, I was speaking with Bluma Wellness has expanded to 42,000 square feet. They’re outfitted with CEO Brady Cobb about his ground-floor involvement in powerful climate control systems which make the budding Florida’s medical marijuana movement, but just months crop’s odor far less pungent inside than I’d imagined, but after our interview was published, Cobb had departed after still allow in natural sunlight. There’s no seeds or pollinaselling his company to multistate operator Cresco Labs. tion here: New sprouts are cloned from mother plants for One Plant dispensaries (including Orlando’s Fern Park loca- consistent genetics, then raised in precise rows of inert subtion) converted to their Sunnyside national brand. They strate, nourished by countless yards of irrigation tubes, and weren’t alone: Columbia Care, which is also being pur- defended by beneficial bugs and botanical oils.
FOR THIS REPORTER, A WALK THROUGH CRESCO’S INDIANTOWN PROCESSING FACILITY IS LIKE A TRIP TO WILLY WONKA’S CANDY FACTORY BY SETH KUBERSKY
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ong before theme park tourists were Central Florida’s cash crop, agriculture ruled our local economy, and although the citrus groves are mostly gone, a new harvest is proving increasingly lucrative in the Sunshine State. In Indiantown, about two hours southeast of Cinderella Castle, a facility sits quietly along a rural road miles from the nearest fast-food drive-through, neighbored only by cow pastures and dense thickets of palm. The easily overlooked dirt driveway sports no identifying signage, and as you pass through the nondescript security gates, there’s little indication that you aren’t entering any ordinary industrial farm. That is, until the unmistakable aroma emanating from high-intensity air conditioning units attached to rows of
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APRIL 20-26, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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