In the Florida news, a company known as Global Widget announced that a new extraction facility is complete and will formally open on Oct. 9 in Tampa. The facility, which covers 15,000 square feet, will be devoted to the product of CBD isolates and distillates. The company now claims to have more than 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space in the area.
The company, which was founded in 2016, now claims to have more than 200 employees. Global Widget, which is vertically integrated, says it now supplies more than 1,000 products to consumers, retailers, distributors and white label customers around the world.
Looking to Latin America
Another CBD company that is looking to expand its global footprint is Marijuana Company of America (MCOA), based in Escondido, CA. MCOA announced today that it has established a partnership intended to extend the company’s HempSMART brand of consumer CBD products to new markets in Brazil and Uruguay. The partnerships come in the form of two newly launched subsidiaries: MR Hemp Brazil and MR Hemp Uruguay .
“These specific joint ventures signify our diversified Cannabis business and will unlock the value of our hemp based quality CBD products into markets that have not fallen victim to market saturation. We are confident that we can act as a positive innovator in these markets with our proven team of local prominent business strategic partners and by offering effective pricing that should have a major positive impact on our future revenues,” said Jesus M. Quintero, CEO of MCOA.
A law proposed in Brazil earlier this year is seen as paving the way for CBD consumer products in that country. Lorenzo Rolim de Silva, president of the Latin American Industrial Hemp Association, said all signs point to the law being fast tracked through the Brazilian legislature.
“I would not be surprised if we start 2021 with a functional regulation in place in Brazil, allowing the country to finally compete in the sector,” de Silva said in a recent interview published on the site Hemp Today. CBD regulations in Uruguay reportedly have further to go.
Exiting hemp farm joint venture
In order to clear the decks for the Latin American venture and other initiatives, MCOA also announced that it is exiting a joint venture it had entered into with a company called Global Hemp Group. The purpose of the joint venture had been to develop an industrial hemp farm in Oregon. The partnership produced 48,000 tons of dried biomass, but the venture appears to have fallen victim to the oversupply of biomass in the market arising from the 2018 and 2019 crops. The joint venture was written off as a total loss at the end of 2019 and full ownership of the venture has reverted to Global Hemp Group after negotiated financial considerations between the two former partners.