A marijuana processing company that specializes in edibles is preparing to launch in Battle Ground, bringing with it a handful of new jobs.
The company, known as SKöRD (which is Swedish for “harvest”), has been planning its Battle Ground facility since 2013. Delays in permitting meant the company didn’t start construction until June of this year. With input from local engineers and a consultant from Colorado, the final plant – located at 2416 N.E. Eaton Boulevard – will be the only one in the area that offers a full trifecta of services: growing marijuana flowers, processing concentrates and oils, and cooking edible products.
“Just the building process, in and of itself, was quite a process,” said Michele Andersen, SKöRD co-founder and marketing manager. “We’re building a plant specific for the industry we’re going into, whereas a lot of people usually retrofit an existing building.”
After final licensing in October, SKöRD plans to launch operations with around 10 employees. Depending on demand, that number could grow to 30. The co-founding team includes Andersen, her husband, her son, her sister, her brother-in-law and a local grower. The team had invested in renting a space in the Fruit Valley area, but after new rules regarding distance between schools were announced, SKöRD was forced to relocate.
“By then, we were a little bit late to the ball game,” said Andersen. “We decided that the area we lived in was friendly toward the process so we found a piece of property and decided to build our own facility.”
Clark County still has a moratorium that prohibits marijuana, but growers and retailers have been operating without issue inside the city limits of Vancouver and Battle Ground.
“The city of Battle Ground has been very welcoming as far as working with them through the permitting process,” Andersen said. “We found them to be not only accepting, but also helpful in the process.”
According to Andersen, the biggest hurdle has been securing funding to do business in a federally illegal industry. To launch, SKöRD has relied on internal funds, including the founders’ 401Ks and liquidating several rental properties.
“You can’t just walk into a bank and get a loan,” Andersen said. “We weren’t use to that as business owners [in another industry].”
But the neighborhood has welcomed SKöRD, if at first apprehensively.
“Once [the neighbors] met us and we were able to explain that it’s just going to look like a building from the outside, they were relieved,” Andersen said.
SKöRD products will be marketed to the public, but sold via third-party retailers. The SKöRD team has been developing their own recipes for marijuana cookies, brownies, caramels and chocolates, complete with a few happy accidents.
“We realized that if you used gluten-free flour, it really changed the texture of the brownie,” said Andersen. “It’s kind of a by-product that we’ll be coming out with a gluten-free brownie.”
The edibles are expected to keep for three to four weeks and SKöRD plans to work closely with retailers to keep products fresh.
The company has gleaned a lot from California and Colorado in terms of predicting what will happen here in Washington. Edibles, according to Andersen, are one of the fastest growing marketable products in the marijuana industry.
“Store owners that we have already talked to said, ‘Let us know immediately when you have [edibles] because people are asking for it,’” Andersen said.
