Inside secret £10m medical cannabis factory guarded by ex-soldiers

Yahoo

08-02-2025

These amazing photographs provide a glimpse inside a unique £10 million medicinal cannabis factory in the UK.
The top-secret facility is heavily protected by razor wire fencing, bullet-proof glass windows, more than 150 security cameras and a highly trained team of ex-military guards. Run by Derbyshire-based firm Dalgety, the 30,000 sq ft factory produces high-grade cannabinoids for prescription medication.
Growing of cannabis for medicinal use was legalised in the UK in 2018. The Midlands site is the first in the UK that holds EU GMP certification to cultivate, manufacture and sell for distribution.
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CEO James Leavesley said: "It's taken four-and-a-half years to actually get to a point where we're fully licensed by the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) and the Home Office to cultivate, manufacture and supply medical cannabis in the UK.
"Some of the feedback we have received from doctors was that the supply of imported cannabis can be unreliable and with varying quality due to a lack of transparency of the supply chain. So that means that when patients are prescribed medical cannabis they get their repeat prescriptions, often it's not available or out of stock.
"If products have to be imported it can take 12 to 20 weeks just to get into the UK. The benefit of being located here in the Midlands, as soon as we finish the growing cycle we harvest and slowly dry our product then pack it. From that moment it can be within a patient's hand inside a month."
The plants – which are fed around 12 times every day - are grown in a series of medical-grade laboratories which are constantly air-filtered. The team of expert growers are all issued with specially-made dark glasses due to the powerful LED lighting used to cultivate the crop.
James added: 'The lighting has been bespoke-made, and we actually create artificial wind in the room to ensure there are no microclimates.'
Each plant takes five months to grow over 6ft in height when they are ready to be harvested. They are then dried and cured to remove any moisture before they are trimmed by hand and their flowers separated.
Head grower Brady Green, who joined the company in 2023, said: "Our crop cycle runs about five months in total. About two weeks in the crop propagation stage, about two weeks in veg, and then flowering takes about seven to twelve weeks depending on variety. From there it takes another two weeks to dry and two weeks to cure and a little bit of time to trim.
"It's important to discuss medical cannabis openly and break the stigma of this plant. It's the opposite of evil and dangerous and hopefully it can provide a lot of assistance for people."
Last September the company secured their second licence, giving them permission to sell their product. The company shipped its first batch of 500 prescriptions worth of medical cannabis last month.