Seneca Foods, CraftAg Enterprises Form Seed-to-Sale Hemp Company
Seneca Foods Corporation and CraftAg Enterprises have formed a joint-venture, CraftAg, a vertically integrated seed-to-sale hemp company.
“CraftAg was one of the early participants in Washington State’s hemp pilot program, working with a small network of growers in the Yakima Valley to produce, process, and sell Aromahemp – a safe, flavorful, and premium quality input for smokable hemp products and herbal vapor blends,” the company said. “CraftAg’s proprietary techniques for processing superior dried and cured whole hemp flower distinguish it from the many processors focusing on cannabinoid isolates.”
The newly formed CraftAg will process hemp in Sunnyside, Washington, at a facility that was previously owned by Seneca and used as a pear and apple cannery. The repurposed 270,000 square-foot facility has already begun processing the 2019 crop of Aromahemp, and is ideally located in the heart of the Yakima Valley, a region well-suited for growing specialty crops such as hemp.
Seneca is investing approximately $10 million and contributing the Sunnyside facility to acquire a 49% stake in CraftAg. CraftAg plans to further build-out its vertically integrated production network, including the construction of a large-scale, technologically state-of-the-art, automated hemp processing plant at the Sunnyside, Washington facility, while modernizing CraftAg’s existing seed and clone propagation facilities located near Royal City, Washington.
