Jace Callaway, the developer of Finola, one of the world’s leading hemp oilseed varieties, is among those who will be on hand to talk about the hemp industry at “HEMP 2020: Food & Health” part of an investment summit series organized by HempToday, the leading source for global business information about industrial hemp.
The event, set for Oct. 21-22, 2016 in The Palace at Nakło, Lelów, in south-central Poland — headquarters of HempToday, will put together current and future industry stakeholders to survey the vast opportunities in hemp food and health products worldwide, and jointly explore investment and business opportunities.
Entrepreneurs, consultants, investors, researchers and policy experts are invited to explore hemp’s market potential as a “super,” “nutritious” and “bio” food and health supplement, along with its medicinal promise (CBD), and look at value chain structures and economic development possibilities in the various industry sectors.
“Europe is the center of the earth as far as the hemp industry is concerned. It’s all legal, and it’s a full-blown, fast-growing market,” said Kehrt Reyher, HempToday’s Editor & Publisher. “There’s a lot to be gained for the industry by making key strategic relationships and partnerships across borders, and by sharing knowledge and intelligence.”
Robust growth predictions worldwide
The hemp food & health industry is expanding all over the world, from Europe and North America to India and China. Some predictions indicate 400% growth in the global hemp food markets in the coming year.
At the same time, the demand for hemp in Europe is currently double the supply on the continent — including the demand for seeds — resulting in an inefficient value chain requiring imports from Canada and China, and reflecting enticing investment opportunities in an industry that has already developed a basic regional infrastructure.
As HempToday.net has reported on Europe: “With legacy hemp firms busier and busier at the trading level, more and more creative, smaller companies are developing niche hemp food products, and doing the marketing. Still, imports of hemp seed to the EU from third-party countries remain higher than domestic production, indicating clear room for growth among EU hemp food players.”
EU countries planted hemp on about 22,000 hectares in 2015, and the number of fields dedicated to growing hemp has grown steadily over the last five years, and is a center for the development of harvesting and processing technology.
“It’s all very practical here,” said Reyher, whose firm is headquartered in Poland, one of Europe’s fastest-rising hemp stars.
Vast opportunities in Asia
In Asia, where it all started, China is working to restructure its world leading hemp industry while India appears on the cusp of returning to hemp as a major crop within the next 12 months. In both countries, significant investment is needed for restructuring (China) and re-establishing (India) traditional hemp markets. Meanwhile an Australian hemp food market looks certain to open within the next year.
Only 20 accreditations to The Summit are available. The registration fee of €900 includes a subscription to HempToday.net online (€150 value) and HempToday’s recently published Big Hemp YearBook (€50 value), a comprehensive report on hemp around the world.
2016 Presenters: Hemp2020
Jace Callaway
Finola Ltd, Finland
Jace is the developer of Finola, an established oilseed crop in Europe, Canada and more recently the USA. Finola was the first hemp variety that was developed for grain production, rather than fiber. He is also Founder and CEO of Finola Ltd., a private company that maintains the Finola variety in Finland. Jace, an American born scientist, has lived in Finland since 1989. He earned his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry in 1994 from the University of Kuopio, Finland (now University of Eastern Finland), where he is currently Adjunct Professor. He has published more than 80 articles on organic synthesis, analytical chemistry and natural products research. He has conducted human clinical trials on food and drug metabolism, with a special emphasis on plant medicines, functional foods and psychoactive substances. Jace and his wife, Finola Ltd. co-owner Anita Hemmilä work to provide certified Finola hemp seed to the agriculture industry worldwide.
Hana Gabrielova
CEO, Hempoint, Czech Republic
Hana graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, University of South Bohemia in 1999 where she wrote her thesis on cultivation and use of hemp in the Czech Republic. In 2005 she was accredited by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture as an adviser specializing in organic farming and cultivation of energy plants with a specialization in hemp. She has been an active member since 2000 of Konopa, an NGO that educates the public and professionals about the potential of hemp. From 2011-13 she was a member of the Steering Committee of international organization ENCOD and is a member of the Committee on Petitions for medical cannabis in the Czech country. Between 2010-2012 she organized professional conferences on international hemp at Cannafest in Prague. She founded Hempoint Ltd. in 2010, focusing on growing organic hemp mainly for flowers and seed production, and making Hempoint branded products for the hemp wholesale and retail markets. She was the co-founder of KOPAC – the Czech patient association for cannabis treatment. Beginning in 2016, she has focused on Patient Focused Certification (PFC) standards for cannabis growing with the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (ICCI).
Richard Rose
Author & entrepreneur; the original “Hemp Nut”/USA
Richard pioneered the soyfoods (TofuRella, Inc. 500 in 1993), fresh/frozen prepared hemp foods (Hempeh Burger, with the only FDA-legal health claim on the label), and shelled hempseed (HempNut Inc, the first hempseed brand in North America) segments in 1980, 1994, and 1996. He is the author of two books on hemp foods, was first first-mover by years in what is now 93% of Canadian hemp exports, and has been on CBS-TV/USA talking about hemp foods to millions. Today, Richard is busy developing three new hemp initiatives: Nobacco artisanal CBD hemp flowers for smoking (the first open-source hemp brand), Hemp Nut 2020 (to disrupt 15% of soya in 2020 with thousands of state-of-the-art appropriate-scale innovative seed shelling lines), and the US Farm Freedom Act of 2017 (the Industrial Hemp Act for today, not 1996).
Boris Baňas
Managing director/CSO, CBDepot, s.r.o., Czech Republic
A hemp activist since 1998, Boris started growing hemp for research under Slovak government licenses in 1999, and ultimately helped to push the Slovak government to adopt EU hemp-related farming rules in 2008. He launched CBDepot.eu in 2014 with a mission to provide legal, high quality cannabidiol-enriched products for the industrial and consumer markets. He is also co-founder and co-owner of Hemp Seed Oil Europe, Ltd, a supplier of bulk and private label hemp seed derivatives. Boris is a graduate of the School of Finance, Matej Bel University, Slovakia.
Kehrt Reyher
Editor & Publisher, HempToday/Poland & USA
Kehrt is a veteran American business journalist and publisher based in Europe, and Founder of HempToday.net. He is the founder and past President, CEO and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of VFP Communications, a Warsaw-based B2B publisher: Media & Marketing Polska Weekly – Licensee in Poland of Advertising Age of the USA. Kehrt is the former European Bureau Chief of Smart Grid Today. He is also currently the Co-Founder and Director of Development of The Naklo Foundation, which works for economic development through sustainable farming of industrial hemp in south-central Poland.
