Canopy selling cannabis facility back to chocolatier Hershey

Added on 18 August 2023

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Canopy selling cannabis facility back to chocolatier Hershey

A Canopy Growth Corp. flagship facility that was once emblematic of the prospective wealth and new beginnings of the country’s legal cannabis industry is being sold back to its original owner, chocolate maker Hershey Canada.

The sale of the Smiths Falls, Ontario, facility – for 53 million Canadian dollars ($39 million) – is part of Canopy’s drive to shed costs and transition to an “asset-light” model, the struggling company said in a news release.

But it’s also symbolic of Canada’s faltering marijuana industry, which has sustained more than $20 billion in losses.

Canopy – which has yet to record a profit – has lost almost CA$6 billion since becoming the first cannabis company to go public in 2014, when it was known as Tweed Marijuana.

Back in February, Canopy said it planned to shutter the Smiths Falls facility and lay off 800 workers to save money.

The facility has a rich history and has undergone a major transformation over the past 15 years.

Hershey stopped producing chocolate in Smiths Falls in 2008, leaving the plant empty for years.

In 2013, Tweed Hershey Drive – a company affiliated with Canopy Growth – bought the plant from Icon International, a specialized finance company in Canada and the United States, according to local media reports at the time.