New Zealand’s medical hashish trade is quickly rising as one of many fastest-growing on the planet, and now, its main firms have their sights firmly set on Europe.
For the reason that legalisation of medical hashish in December 2019 and subsequent introduction of the Medicinal Hashish Scheme in April 2020, the nation has opened its doorways to industrial cultivation, analysis, manufacturing, and export of cannabinoid-based medicines.
With market income projected to double in dimension to over US$1.3 billion by 2028, based on Prohibition Companions’ World Hashish Report: fifth Version, New Zealand is positioning itself as a world hub for hashish innovation and funding.
The newest figures from the Ministry of Well being reveal that the variety of unapproved medicinal hashish merchandise containing CBD, THC, or each as the first energetic ingredient surged by 68.4% in 2024. The sharpest will increase got here from THC-dominant and mixed THC-CBD merchandise, which greater than doubled year-on-year.
This increase comes as little shock from a rustic with a well-deserved repute as an agricultural heavyweight, producing sufficient meals yearly to feed round 40 million individuals, some eight occasions its personal inhabitants. Its export-driven philosophy and deep agricultural experience now kind a core a part of its thriving medical hashish sector.
With Europe on their radar, a delegation of New Zealand firms is making ready to attend Hashish Europa later this month. Enterprise of Hashish caught up with them forward of the occasion to discover how they plan to attach with European counterparts, and the place they see essentially the most promising alternatives on the horizon.
Bluelab Holdings
Bluelab Holdings, situated in Tauranga, is famend for its superior know-how options for hashish cultivation. The corporate specialises in manufacturing high-quality meters and controllers that assist growers optimise the cultivation course of.
Its merchandise are designed to make sure exact measurement and management of pH, conductivity, and temperature, and its modern instruments are utilised broadly all through the worldwide cultivation trade.
CEO, Jono Jones, believes that the strides made all through the European hashish market in the direction of scale and professionalism lately makes this ‘the proper second for Bluelab to deepen its presence’ on the continent.
Citing Germany as a key goal, she defined that Bluelab’s give attention to sustainability values, that are ‘more and more very important’ in Europe, will make its providing enticing to each regulators and shoppers alike.
“Trendy hashish cultivation is extremely complicated and solely getting extra so. Producers have to scale with out compromising on high quality, sustainability, or compliance. That’s the place Bluelab is available in.”
Past its excessive tech merchandise, Bluelab can be investing in native presence to raised help European companions.
“In Europe, we’re investing in regionally based mostly gross sales and advertising and marketing help, beginning with Germany, to make sure we’re translating language, tradition, and context. We’re with growers on the bottom, studying from them, evolving with them, and serving to them unlock new worth in a altering regulatory panorama.”
As for why it has chosen to broaden now, Jones believes ‘the time is correct for hashish to be recognised extra severely in Europe, and we all know main hashish producers take their rising know-how simply as severely.’
“Regardless of being situated on the opposite aspect of the world, we’re formidable. We see what hashish will be in Europe: a complicated, sustainability-led trade that provides safer, extra dependable entry and producers the prospect to be a part of one thing transformative. Our know-how helps that imaginative and prescient. Bluelab is able to help that progress in know-how, insights, and a shared dedication to high quality.”
Rua Bioscience
Rua Bioscience, based mostly in Gisborne, is a pioneering medicinal hashish firm with a robust give attention to social affect. As one of many few Māori-born biotech companies in New Zealand, Rua Bioscience integrates science and nature, land and folks, commerce and group, fashionable innovation, and ancestral knowledge.
The corporate was the primary to obtain a medical hashish cultivation license in New Zealand and has established a strong analysis and breeding program. Rua Bioscience is dedicated to creating financial alternatives for rural communities and reinvesting earnings into environmental tasks. 
“Europe’s medical-cannabis market has been a spotlight of Rua Bioscience for a few years,” Rua’s CEO Paul Naske advised Enterprise of Hashish, suggesting that being based mostly exterior the European market may very well be a serious bonus for potential buyers and companions.
“Our location and regulatory base allow us to de-risk European provide chains. New Zealand’s strict pharmaceutical requirements mirror EU-GMP, so European distributors can plug Rua merchandise into their portfolio with out having to ‘re-paper’ compliance.”
The corporate’s Māori heritage additionally performs a central function in the way it cultivates hashish and within the worth it brings to companions.
“Our Māori roots add a layer of worth that can not be replicated in-house. Tikanga Māori ideas information every thing from seed choice to group profit-sharing.
“For European manufacturers competing on belief, with the ability to present sufferers and regulators that their provide chain uplifts an Indigenous group delivers a narrative that cuts via a crowded market and aligns with the EU’s rising give attention to social-impact procurement.”
Thanks to those exacting requirements, Rua’s fast industrial purpose is to satisfy surging pharmacy demand for high-potency flower in Europe, particularly within the German and Czech markets the place ‘demand is outstripping provide’.
“Our proprietary cultivars, chosen from the legacy cultivators in our group, constantly take a look at above 23% THC whereas sustaining terpene profiles that sufferers and physicians worth.”
Naske sees European hashish coming into a transformative part, and Rua needs to assist drive that shift.
“European hashish is coming into its ‘cross-over’ second—the place pharmaceutical rigour meets wellness-scale volumes. Rua Bioscience exists to make that transition simpler, cleaner and extra compelling for the manufacturers and distributors who select to develop with us. If this sounds attention-grabbing, I’d welcome a dialog throughout European Hashish Week. Let’s discover how a partnership with Rua can flip provide certainty, regulatory readability and genuine storytelling into your subsequent aggressive edge.”
PURO Restricted
Puro Restricted is New Zealand’s largest grower of medical hashish and one of many world’s few accredited large-scale natural producers. With two cultivation websites in Marlborough, Puro focuses on producing high-CBD and high-THC hashish varieties.
The corporate dedicates itself to sustainable and natural farming practices, guaranteeing that its merchandise meet the best requirements of high quality and purity. Puro has obtained vital authorities help, together with a $13 million grant to fast-track the event of New Zealand’s natural medicinal hashish trade.
Backed by the clear setting and supreme situations of one of many world’s prime wine-producing areas, Puro has developed its personal distinctive cultivars to satisfy the strictest medical-grade requirements.
“Puro’s benefit comes from our moral, natural method to sustainable, but pharmaceutically compliant, farming, complemented by our supreme local weather and topography,” its CEO Sank Macfarlane commented.
“As one of many few licensed natural medical hashish producers globally, Puro’s premium natural merchandise characteristic wealthy therapeutic compounds, enhanced minor cannabinoids and complicated fragrant compounds that differentiate them in Europe’s demanding market.”
Puro is focusing on two main ache factors for European companions: constant high quality and regulatory belief.
“Our sun-grown, organically licensed hashish delivers constantly excessive THC and CBD profiles with distinctive efficacious compounds that sufferers search. UK and European sufferers will now have entry to among the world’s solely licensed natural medical hashish. Our product provides distinctive purity with out artificial pesticides or chemical substances, offering sufferers with premium therapeutic choices which were largely unavailable up till now.
“Europe is the place the way forward for premium medicinal hashish is being written, and Puro is completely positioned to be a part of that story.”
Ora Pharm
Ora Pharm is a New Zealand-based medicinal hashish firm dedicated to enhancing high quality of life via premium, sustainably grown plant-based healthcare. Based by Zoe Reece, whose private well being journey and expertise with the worldwide hashish chief Curaleaf impressed a mission-driven method, Ora Pharm operates from a state-of-the-art facility in Waikato.
Combining pharmaceutical requirements with a deep give attention to compassion, innovation, and sustainability, Ora Pharm cultivates and processes hashish merchandise that meet New Zealand Ministry of Well being and European Pharmacopoeia high quality requirements. The corporate additionally helps the broader trade via new plant processing and export providers, enabling over a 3rd of the nation’s licensed cultivators to scale effectively.
Ora’s CEO Zoe Reece believes that shared priorities between Europe and New Zealand, together with environmental safety, innovation, and social duty, kind a stable basis for worldwide partnership.
“Europe’s closely regulated market, coupled with New Zealand’s dedication to related regulatory compliance, additional strengthens the case for exporting New Zealand-grown hashish into the European market,” she stated.
“New Zealand’s credible ‘clear, inexperienced’ repute for high quality, mixed with its well-regarded regulatory focus, supplies a aggressive edge within the European market, and our sustainable agricultural processes are extremely complementary.”
Alongside Reece’s private mission and keenness for sharing the advantages of hashish with others, Ora Pharm additionally takes a hands-on method with cultivators, offering instruments and help to make sure product high quality and safe provide.
“Our partnership-based method permits us to tailor our choices for every buyer and the precise market we help.
“What excites me in our subsequent chapter are the hashish trials we will likely be conducting, offering the New Zealand trade with much-needed proof of how hashish will be another choice for individuals the place conventional medicines usually are not serving to them.
“The legalised medicinal hashish and CBD market in Europe is strong, and the rising demand for high-quality, sustainable hashish merchandise presents a big alternative to additional construct and broaden the New Zealand medicinal hashish trade.”
