At CANNA we’re excited to share passionate grower stories from across Canada that resonate with our community and inspire us to “grow big or grow home”.
GROWER SPOTLIGHT
I’m Steve Sissons, the COO and Head of Cultivation at Distinkt Cannabis, Calgary, Alberta.
Steve: Well, it all started in a little two by two. Yeah, you know, you get that first plant and that's what we all start with. And the first plant turned into hundreds of plants and just kept the ball going, you know. And it was interesting when we started Distinkt, it was three of us in the garage and a buddy just got back from Colorado and said “we gotta do this, we gotta get in”. So that was five or six years ago and now we're three years licensed and just trying to keep the dream moving.
How has your passion evolved over the last few years?
Steve: Passion just continues to get greater and greater. Every time we grow we're learning something new. And then, scaling into a business that I founded has been a dream come true. So the passion is always growing and, maybe I’m not getting to touch the plants as much as I used to, which is good, you know, you got to get the right people in the right spots. And I'm very grateful to be in this industry.
When starting Distinkt, what seemingly simple tasks took a surprisingly intricate turn?
Steve: I didn't realize I'd be documenting so many other things other than just my grow information. And all the extra costs, to be honest. You do your numbers, you try to develop a business strategy and plan, but there's a lot of hidden things that are not really spoken about when you're developing your grow or your business. So that's probably been the hardest thing and the biggest challenge is just those little extras and that just puts a little more pressure on performance.
From nurturing the soil, conditioning the plant, to team collaboration, how important is consistency in shaping success?
Steve: Consistency is everything as far as trying to narrow them down and minimizing the fluctuations, whether it be pH or light intensities or temperatures or what have you, it can be drastic because it can really affect the end result.
What are some accomplishments you’re most proud of right now?
Steve: Well, we got our license. There's been some very beautiful key milestones that we've hit. We got a couple of SKUs going in Ontario, one's two flower SKUs and a couple of vape carts. So we're really excited about just continuing to expand our presence and not compromising our quality and our stand for that. So just trying to build Distinkt.
Tell us a little bit more about Distinkt’s facilities.
Steve: Yeah, we have a second facility for large-scale ethanol extraction. It's half the facility, the other side is gearing up for psilocybin legalization. So we will have half that facility will be psilocybin production, a completely different avenue, a lot of pharmaceutical development actually. So we're kind of taking on a different beast there and you know we've got the ethanol extraction which we're really pumped on.
What's your next big green dream?
Steve: To continue to build the reputation that we've already built, standing behind our quality and you know getting as much Distinkt cannabis into people's hands as possible.
