File photo
Flowr’s cultivation facility in north Kelowna.
The Flowr Group has teamed up with Canada’s most famous pharmacy to sell medical cannabis.
Shoppers Drug Mart is now selling medicinal pot online in Ontario, and on Wednesday it announced that The Flowr Group, whose main cultivation centre is in Kelowna, will supply it with product for up to the next five years. It’s technically a three-year contract with a two-year renewal term.
“We feel that the future of medical cannabis distribution in Canada will be through pharmacies, and this product will be treated much more similarly to a regular pharmaceutical product than the way it’s being treated now,” Flowr Corporation co-CEO Vinay Tolia said on Wednesday. “So who better to team up with than Shoppers?”
Flowr’s other co-CEO, Kelowna resident Tom Flow, was the co-founder of MedReleaf, so he is well versed in the medical marijuana market. Tolia isn’t sure how much of Flowr’s licensed product, which is cultivated in its massive warehouse on the Kelowna-Lake Country border, will go towards medicinal marijuana.
“It’ll vary quarter to quarter, but we’ve always been focused on the medicinal market,” Tolia said. “Our team and its roots started in the medical program, so we’ll always have a significant medical presence.”
Shoppers’ new e-commerce website will also serve as the exclusive, direct-to-patient, online provider of FlowRx products, which Flowr hopes will “significantly” increase its sales.
The selling of medical cannabis in retail pharmacies is in its early stages, with Ontario being the only province in which Shoppers is allowed to sell online. It is expected to expand across the country soon.
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