By: Matthew Marcone
President of THCK Justin Thomson was meant to be in the weed business.
“I’ve been into it basically my entire life,” said Thomson. “My dad’s always been an advocate for it and has been smoking for 40 years now. It was something that my brother, sister and I all picked up on, maybe a little too early in life but I think it helped guide us in the right direction.”
Thomson’s 16 years of experience in the cannabis industry includes studying landscaping and horticulture at Niagara College – where he learned to grow – as well as manufacturing by-products such as edibles, oils, topicals and concentrates.
Now with legalization in Canada slated for 2018, Thomson and his team at THCK are determined to become leaders in the marijuana business.
“Even though we’ve already started THCK, it dawned on me recently that this is really happening,” said Thomson. “It’s a very real thing. I don’t have to work in the automotive industry for the rest of my life.
This is what I’m going to do.”
THCK’s vision to stand out among its 52 competitors involves using as much technology and automation as possible. They’ve also partnered with Leafly – the world’s largest cannabis website with over 10 million monthly visitors – and have been encouraged by other companies currently higher up in the supply chain.
“That shows how unique of a business we are,” said Thomson. “We’ve visited Leafly in Seattle. They saw our product and instantly believed in what we’re doing. They have a lineup of 120 dispensaries and we pretty much bypassed all of them. They wanted to do business with us immediately, even though we were only in the brainstorming stage because we had different ideas. For them to see the value in what we are doing was very inspiring.”