Flowr lays off 25% of workers, including in Portugal

After announce a restructuring program, which will reduce around 25% of its workforce, Flowr Corporation (TSX.V: FLWR; OTC: FLWPF) has just laid off several workers in Portugal, through the subsidiary RPK Biopharma, which owns Holigen. Vinay Tolia, CEO of Flowr, confirmed this information to CannaReporter yesterday, not yet specifying how many jobs he will reduce in Sintra and Aljustrel.

Flowr, whose subsidiary is RPK Biopharma after buying from Holigen, has a production, import and export license for medical cannabis, granted by Infarmed. This reduction in the number of workers follows a statement from Flowr Corp., which announces an overall workforce reduction of 25%, in order to “exhaustively review operations to reduce costs”.

Vinay Tolia, CEO of Flowr Corp., confirmed yesterday to CannaReporter that the redundancies will also affect the Portuguese facilities of Sintra and Aljustrel, without specifying the number of workers laid off and where. “Unfortunately, we actually resort to some layoffs in our organization yesterday. It was an extremely difficult decision, it was not taken lightly, and we would like to thank the former and current employees for their tremendous contributions,” he lamented.

Dried cannabis flowers for sale at a US dispensary – Photo by Add Weed, Unsplash

Dried flowers become priority

Flowr's strategy, according to the statement advanced yesterday, is to ensure the continuity of production at its main factory in Kelowna, Canada, focusing on the Canadian dried flower market premium in the next six months. In Portugal, the company is still awaiting final GMP certification in Sintra and expects an open-air harvest in Aljustrel in the fourth quarter of this year. The delay in obtaining the GMP license may, therefore, justify the fact that Flowr is now focusing more on the recreational market, where it can more easily sell production.

Holigen in Sintra (indoor) 

Sintra is a controlled facility for indoor cultivation, extract processing and finished product packaging. According to Flowr, construction of the facility is substantially complete, with 3 of the 6 total grow rooms currently in operation. Achieving GMP certification is Flowr's top priority, through its Holigen business, and is a critical step in the production and sale of medicines to be distributed to any EU country. The company had its final GMP inspection in September 2019 and is still awaiting confirmation of EUDRA-GMP certification.

Aljustrel (outdoor) — Project of National Interest

In Aljustrel, Holigen invested in an outdoor cultivation facility of about two hectares, having been considered a Project of National Interest by the Portuguese Government. This was, in fact, the only cannabis-related project to receive this designation. The company expects a gradual increase in production at Aljustrel to match capacity with the revenue potential of a booming European medical cannabis market. Holigen wants to plant more than 2020 square meters this year, with harvest scheduled for the fourth quarter of XNUMX.

CannaReporter emailed some questions to Flowr CEO Vinay Tolia, which are still awaiting an answer.