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25 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEBER 20, 2021 Special Report: CT's emerging cannabis industry By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com D ressed in medical scrubs and a hairnet, Curaleaf Senior Cultivation Manager Adam Raleigh surveyed a sterile, brightly-lit "flower room" filled with rows of maturing cannabis plants, as the overwhelming smell of marijuana created a thickness to the air. Equipped with millions of dollars worth of lighting, temperature control and other infrastructure, the Massachusetts-based company's Simsbury grow operation is a well- honed modern manufacturing facility. Raleigh said all the high-end equipment Curaleaf uses allows the company to specify and automate the grow process in order to ensure quality while producing at scale. "[The equipment] affords us the luxury to make sure we're giving commercial-sized cannabis the attention that it deserves," Raleigh said. "When you have the tools at your discretion, it does give you the biggest opportunity for success." Curaleaf is one of four cannabis producers in Connecticut currently serving the state's medical marijuana market. But with recreational pot use now legal in the Constitution State, the number of cannabis manufacturers is all but certain to grow, as behemoths like Curaleaf and smaller producers enter the nascent adult-use market. An inside look at Curaleaf's Simsbury operations demonstrates to prospective cannabis growers and investors that producing marijuana is an intensive process, requiring high levels of knowledge and a plethora of infrastructure and equipment. It also underscores the challenges that Green Manufacturing Here's an inside look at what it takes to grow marijuana at commercial scale Adam Raleigh, senior cultivation manager at Curaleaf's Simsbury grow operation, talks about the infrastructure necessary for successful cannabis cultivation. smaller producers will face, in terms of being able to finance the purchase and fit out of a cultivation facility, in trying to enter the state's recreational market. "Standing up a grow facility, we're talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, depending on how big you want to go; and it's going to take probably close to two years," said Patrik Jonsson, Curaleaf's regional president of the Northeast. Offbeat vibes When you first walk into Curaleaf's Simsbury grow facility, the building's front offices have the look, feel and smell of a standard-issue office building with white, fluorescent lighted hallways leading to an office with a grid of desks in cubicles. Employees and visitors have to pass through locker rooms and change into scrubs, masks and shoe covers in order to avoid accidentally carrying in contaminants. The long, white-tiled hallways lead to areas that warehouse equipment and house growing plants. There's another area where workers process, distill and cook cannabis edibles. It has a unique hospital/Costco/ Willy Wonka's Cannabis Factory juxtaposition. Offbeat vibes notwithstanding, Curaleaf's Simsbury operation is a serious one, producing cannabis for about 20% of Connecticut's medical marijuana patients. The key factors to a successful cannabis harvest that growers must control are water, temperature, light, humidity and carbon dioxide, Jonsson said. He estimates the cost of such controls at about $650 per square foot of a grow facility. Jonsson said Curaleaf learned HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER