Uruguay exports half a ton of hemp to the US

Uruguay has exported its first large-scale shipment of low-THC cannabis, also known as hemp, to the United States. The shipment, consisting of over 455 kg of high-quality flower, was sent to hemp company Low Gravity and is valued at approximately €2,3 million. The flower will be sold to consumers looking for the benefits of cannabinoids without the psychotropic effects of Delta-9 THC.

Uruguay’s Ambassador to the United States, Andrés Durán Hareau, said, “The partnership between US companies and our growing cannabis community is extremely valuable to our country, which has worked hard to develop and manufacture some of the most exceptional hemp ever. of the world". The flower will be distributed to resellers across the country, who will sell it to smoke shops in the form of a dried flower or use it to make infusions and other products.

The company behind the shipment, CEND, is a global provider of technology infrastructure and certification platforms for the cannabis industry and other regulated industries. The company's proprietary solutions streamline the export process, leveraging each country's regulations for laboratory testing, on-site facility auditing, government liaison, logistics, and due diligence with border officials. This process is made possible through a real-time software framework built on blockchain.

Delfín Morgan, the commercial director of Ananda Pampa, one of the Uruguayan companies involved in the export, said: “It is very exciting for Uruguay to be able to export our product to the United States, and this would not have happened without CEND”. The physical audit of flower quality by CEND was a key factor in the successful completion of the export.

Uruguay legalized cannabis for adult use in 2013, becoming the first country in the world to do so. Since then, the country has slowly developed an industry around cannabis and hemp, with 167 new licenses to grow more than 500 hectares of cannabis to be granted in 2020. Most large-scale exports in the past have gone to Europe , but CEND's shipment marks the largest cannabis export to the United States to date.