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British Sugar has reconfigured its successful UK tomato business by growing a key ingredient for the pharmaceutical industry.
Prior to 2016, British Sugar grew 2% of the UK’s tomato crop at Riverside Glasshouse, 18 hectares of glasshouse (equivalent to 13 football pitches) that uses surplus heat and carbon dioxide from British Sugar’s adjacent Wissington sugar factory.
Maximising the value of the high-grade facilities, it moved out of tomatoes and now uses Riverside to grow a non-psychoactive variety of cannabis, specially cultivated for medical purposes. This plant contains cannabidiol (CBD), the active pharmaceutical ingredient in Epidyolex®/Epidiolex® (cannabidiol), a medicine licensed in Europe and the US for children with severe forms of epilepsy. Some 240 miles of piping carries hot water from the sugar factory’s combined heat and power (CHP) plant all year round to maintain temperatures that suit the plants.
British Sugar switched from its successful, award-winning tomato crop to cannabis, due to the significantly greater growth and profit opportunities inherent in growing some pharmaceutical ingredients. The decision supported the business’s strategy of maximising return on investment from all assets and being open-minded about new co-product and growth possibilities.
Riverside was reconfigured to provide the right environment for the new crop in just 60 days. Internal fixtures were removed; LED lights were inserted; and blackout blinds were installed throughout. The first cuttings were planted in January 2017, just two months after the last tomatoes were packed and sold, and by May 2017 the first batch of botanical raw materials were delivered to the client, GW Pharmaceuticals (GW)*.
British Sugar grows cannabis plants specifically bred by GW to produce CBD. CBD is produced naturally by microscopic resin heads (trichomes) found on the plants. These trichomes act as a defence mechanism to predators and harmful UV rays.
Epidyolex®/Epidiolex® is an oral solution which contains highly purified CBD. The medicine was approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in June 2018, and by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in September 2019. The medicine was recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to receive routine reimbursement from NHS England in November 2019. GW continues to research the medicine in other forms of refractory epilepsy, alongside autism spectrum disorders.
*GW is a UK-based global biopharmaceutical company that has established a world-leading position in cannabinoid science and medicines over the last two decades. GW’s pioneering work has led to the regulatory approval of world-first, potentially life-changing, cannabis-based medicines, which have treated thousands of patients in the UK and around the world.