Inside Aurora Sky, one of the world’s biggest grow-ops
By KEVIN MAIMANN - Star Metro Edmonton Sun., July 15, 2018
NISKU, Alta.—Not everyone wants Alberta’s biggest cannabis producer to be successful.
Aurora Cannabis Inc. chief corporate officer Cam Battley said he’s hearing all kinds of nasty rumours from media and analysts that were started by competitors.
The latest: The roof of the 800,000-square-foot Aurora Sky facility on Edmonton International Airport land won’t be able to handle the snow load in the winter, leading to inevitable disaster.
“That’s kind of a joke in so many ways. We need the roof to be clear of snow because we can’t get the sun into the facility without that,” he said, adding the glass has snow melters built into it.
“The whole concept that a facility built in Edmonton, by a founder who’s an Edmonton boy, who spent 20 years in safety codes wouldn’t figure that piece out, is a bit of a joke.”
Battley said he also heard a rumour that Health Canada shut Aurora Sky down because its temperature spiked to 57 C, which didn’t happen.
Others have suggested jet fuel is contaminating the weed, which he said is impossible because the building is not a greenhouse, but a completely closed system.
“The reason (other producers) are doing this is because they’re scared,” Battley said.
“And they should be. They know how disruptive this is.”
On the outside, Aurora Sky looks like an unassuming construction zone, in a drab industrial area on the perimeter of the Edmonton International airport in Nisku, with workers plugging away at the finishing touches.
But inside are large, hot, humid rooms with tables covered in thick marijuana plants as far as the eye can see.
Complex automated lighting and irrigation systems keep the plants flourishing, and a team of cultivators spends all day trimming.
No one can get in and out without donning a hairnet, foot coverings, one-time-use jackets and sanitized gloves.
Battley said the whole facility will be complete by September, and will be producing at full capacity of 800,000 kilograms a month or more by January 2019.
Cutting-edge automation technology keeps labour costs low.
With 600,000 square feet of total flower space, Aurora Sky will employ about 380 people including cultivators, a science team, maintenance and security.
When Battley talks about the facility being disruptive, it’s the technology he’s referring to.
“Essentially everything we’ve seen to this point (in cannabis production) has been a scaled-up version of what was done in the black and grey market prior. This is completely different,” he said.
“This is people sitting down and spending a year going, ‘What if we were to completely reinvent cannabis production so it was perfect as modern technology can make it.’”
He said Aurora Sky has the most heavy duty H Vac system “ever seen in agriculture” and the “cleanest air you’ll ever breathe in your life,” and that it’s growing the “happiest, most pampered cannabis plants in the world.”
It sounds like a lot of hyperbole, but bankers are buying in.
In late June, the Bank of Montreal agreed to loan Aurora up to $250 million in traditional debt. That marked the first time a cannabis company has raised that level of debt, meaning they don’t have to issue equity to raise cash.
“That is a real game changer for the sector,” Battley said.
Aurora Sky is growing eight strains of marijuana that will be distributed to medical markets around the world and, starting this fall, recreational markets in Canada.
The company has two other production facilities in Alberta, including Aurora Mountain in Mountain View County and Aurora Sun under construction in Medicine Hat, the latter of which will be bigger than Aurora Sky. It also has Aurora Vie in Quebec and Aurora Nordic in Denmark.
Edmonton houses Aurora’s headquarters and is the hometown of CEO Terry Booth. On June 30, 700 Aurora employees from around the world converged at the Shaw Conference Centre in the city’s downtown to build and discuss the company’s vision and mission.
Battley insists Alberta will always be its first priority, and Aurora has already committed to supplying up to 25,000 kg of marijuana to the province’s retail market in the first six months after legalization. But he adds that no recreational market will come before its medical patients.
The company is already supplying to more than 65,000 patients, including many in booming European medical markets.
Aurora has bought several of its former competitors, and Battley hints it has boots on the ground in several European countries, with seemingly endless plans for expansion.
It might sound a bit ambitious for a business based in Edmonton, but Battley is confident the demand is there.
“In five years, we are not just going to be selling consumer cannabis in Canada,” he said.
“In five years we are going to be selling consumer cannabis in other developed countries that have made that move, having seen the experience of the medical system and discovered that the cannabis plant is not so scary because grandma and uncle Ted are using it to manager their arthritis.”
