Chris Lowrey
LITCHFIELD April 5, 2018
Livewell Foods Inc., the group responsible for the proposed cannabis growing facility in Litchfield, has partnered with Smiths Falls-based Canopy Growth Corporation and Canopy Rivers Corporation.
Canopy is one of the most prominent cannabis companies in the world and is one of the most well-positioned Canadian companies for the upcoming legalization of the drug by the Federal Government.
Livewell announced in December that it had received zoning and site approvals to begin construction on a 600,000 sq. ft. cannabis growing facility in Litchfield.
The agreement between the companies is billed as a strategic agreement to accelerate the development and commercialization of Livewell’s Litchfield facility as well as its facility in Ottawa.

“We have a whole part of our business that’s dedicated to exactly that type of project,” said Canopy director of Communications Jordan Sinclair.
Canopy Rivers is what’s known as a streaming company, which injects cash into a company in exchange for a percentage of their production capacity.
In this case, Canopy injects capital into Livewell and, in return, Canopy gets a percentage of the cannabis grown by Livewell.
“This is a popular model in mining or in an area where there are exploratory costs, but maybe not necessarily a rate of success that’s high enough to be able to access normal debt instruments,” Sinclair said.
Some cannabis companies are finding it difficult to get financing from traditional institutions like banks. As a result, a company like Canopy Rivers steps in with a funding boost to get the project going.
“The model works really well in cannabis, not because of the riskiness of the ventures but because big banks won’t touch it,” Sinclair said.
Asked why banks would be hesitant to get into what many analysts are predicting to be a lucrative market, Sinclair said it could have to do with an “old school mentality” and the fact that many banks have strong connections to the United States, where cannabis remains illegal at the Federal level.
Canopy Growth is the other arm of the company, which focuses the production of cannabis at its facilities.
Canopy Rivers specializes in navigating the complicated nature of setting up a cannabis business and getting a growing license from the federal government.
Of the 90 licenses to grow cannabis that have been granted by the Canadian government, Canopy has 10 of them.
“We’ve got an incredible amount of experience in developing license applications and security aspects,” Sinclair said. “Basically everything you need to take a site from a normal greenhouse to a cannabis-producing greenhouse.”
Sinclair said that the Litchfield site provides a unique opportunity for the Smiths Falls-based company.
“They’re close to us, they’ve got a lot of scale potential,” Sinclair said. “So for us it’s an ideal arrangement that will hopefully work out really well for everyone involved.”