High Yields And Higher Returns: Inside The U.K. Cannabis Industry
The U.K. cannabis sector is projected to be worth nearly $570 million by 2028.
Guarded by razor wire, over 1,300 alarms, and a 24/7 ex-military security presence, Dalgety's medical cannabis manufacturing facility is intentionally hard to find (I've got the Uber receipts to prove it).
The 30,000-ft U.K. site saw £10m in investment and over four years of regulatory checks before shipping its first products to patients earlier this year.
Head grower Brady Green has over 15 years of experience cultivating medical cannabis. He relocated from Canada in 2023, where he was at the forefront of the industry, leading a team of 450 growers at a 13-acre facility.
'I handed him [Green] a blank piece of paper and asked him to draw the perfect cannabis facility,' Dalgety's CEO, James Leavesley, tells me when I eventually arrive.
Today that sketch is a reality.
The site has been specifically designed to grow cannabis under highly controlled conditions, using energy-efficient lighting, cutting-edge hydroponic systems, and strict climate control to replicate the changing seasons throughout the plant's life cycle.
The temperature —and the smell— get more intense as we progress through each stage of the growth cycle. In the cultivation rooms, the temperature is controlled to the nearest 0.5 ̊C and humidity to the nearest 1%, with selective use of air pressure so precise that you can see the spike in CO2 on the monitors when we exit the room.
The first company to obtain an EU-GMP license for the cultivation, manufacture and supply of a medical cannabis flower API from the U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA), Dalgety is currently producing enough to fulfil 4,000 prescriptions per month.
By 2026, when it expands to full capacity, it aims to produce 2,600 kg of cannabis per year, with yields boldly estimated to be 82% higher than the top 1% of cultivators worldwide.
'We're looking to increase our output by five and a half times by 2026,' Leavesley says. "We're setting our sights on the future and are optimistic that the market will grow quickly.'
Dalgety is the first company to obtain an EU-GMP license for the cultivation, manufacture and supply ... More of a medical cannabis flower API from the MHRA. CEO James Leavesley. Dalgety stock photography 2023. Picture by Shaun Fellows / Shine Pix Ltd
The U.K. is already known as the world's biggest producer and exporter of legal cannabis for medical and scientific purposes, largely due to Jazz Pharmaceuticals (formerly GW Pharma), which has manufactured the FDA-approved cannabis-based medicines, Epidiolex and Sativex, since the 90s.
Since medical cannabis was legalized in 2018, several others have seen the opportunity— and growing demand— for a domestic market. Target Healthcare now manufactures Bedrocan oils in Glasgow and the North East-based Rokshaw Laboratories was taken over by Curaleaf — the world's largest cannabis company— in 2019.
Along with Germany, the U.K. has been identified as a key market in the European cannabis sector, with industry analysts at Prohibition Partners, forecasting that the market will grow from $255 million in 2024 to nearly $570 million by 2028. [In the interests of full transparency, Prohibition Partners also own a media brand I write for in the U.K.]
The lack of NHS access—fewer than five patients have been able to obtain a prescription through the country's national healthcare service—has paved the way for a prospering private market, with over 40 clinics now prescribing cannabis.
Exact patient numbers are hard to come by — some estimates suggest there could be as many as 60,000 — while the NHS Business Services Authority, which collects data on private prescriptions, shows over 300,000 items were prescribed between April 2023-24, more than double that of the previous 12 months.
In its recent U.K. report, Cannamonitor estimates that 79% of these prescriptions are for flower, with many high in THC and almost all imported from overseas.
Dalgety is getting ready to meet this demand. Five new strains have been selected for market launch in 2025, with over 100 varieties in its library.
The team drew on Green's experience when choosing genetics, importing 600 cannabis cuttings from the west coast of Canada (remarkably, only one didn't survive the journey).
'We worked with partners to import tissue culture cuttings so we didn't have to start with seed trials and spend a year finding genetics,' Green explains.
'Now we're diversifying. Our next step is to introduce strains that we think people will like, but don't necessarily know to exist, because it's difficult to grow so you don't find it on the illegal markets— exotic flavor profiles. We have such a small window of what we think is possible. Cannabis has the genetic potential to express every terpene on earth."
Head grower Brady Green has 15 years of experience in the Canadian market. Dalgety stock photography ... More 2023. Picture by Shaun Fellows / Shine Pix Ltd
All this is going on while a Labour government refuses to budge from its hard stance on cannabis.
Although the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, proposed decriminalization back in 2022, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made it clear he has 'no intention' of changing drug laws or treating cannabis use as a 'low-level' crime.
Even calls to widen the availability of prescriptions for children with treatment-resistant epilepsy (many of whom are still unable to access the treatment at all) were shut down by Health Minister Karen Smith in the House of Commons in January— despite her previous support while in opposition.
But many feel policy change is inevitable, especially given European countries including Malta, Luxembourg, Czechia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany are all moving towards regulation.
A recent report by Transform Drug Policy Foundation outlines how regulating cannabis for adult non-medical use in the U.K. could generate up to £1.5 billion in annual net benefits to the Treasury. The High Returns: The Economic Benefits of UK Cannabis Legalisation, report, predicts that a mature regulated market could capture up to 80% of the current illegal cannabis market within five years while creating up to 15,500 full-time jobs across cultivation, manufacturing, retail and ancillary services.
Dalgety received over 2,500 applications in 48 hours in response to an advert for a 'cannabis grower" on the job search site, Indeed. The company now takes a more considered approach to hiring, with all employees required to undergo extensive background checks by the Home Office.
The point still stands. With cannabis thought to be the biggest source of daily cash flow for operators in organized crime, polling suggests that in the U.K. and the U.S., the economic argument for regulation receives the most public support. Analysts at Transform believe this argument, while secondary to public health and social justice reasons, is becoming increasingly important politically, too.
'The economic dimensions of the cannabis reform debate are undoubtedly gaining political salience, particularly as governments face growing budgetary pressures,' write co-authors Ester Kincová and Steve Rolles.
'Public support for cannabis reform, particularly for economic reasons such as disrupting illegal profits and the potential tax windfall, is growing in both the U.S. and the U.K. Legal cannabis markets are expanding globally with reforms now unfolding on every continent. This global momentum, coupled with growing public support in the UK – polls show a majority favors legislation – suggests reform is increasingly likely, if not inevitable, with economic arguments potentially decisive.'
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