Greenheart CBD is the Irish CBD company you need to pay attention to. Starting with a simple vision ‘to bring the finest Irish made CBD products from seed to shelf here in our native country’ they’ve been growing from strength to strength. Set up by entrepreneurs Mark Canavan and Paul Walsh, they show no signs of slowing down.
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The people behind the business
CEO & Co-Founder Mark Canavan has found himself winning a spot on the Sunday Independents ‘30 under 30’, an accredited businessman from a family of entrepreneurs, Greenhearts strength truly lies in its founders. Mark has an extensive history in catering and retail and was the founder of successful, charity based vending machine company HaloMunchies.
Paul Walsh, advocate for sustainability and his extensive volunteer work, is the man who created the concept for Greenheart. Now the company's CSO & Co-Founder, his background and knowledge in crypto and sustainable industries is invaluable to the company's success. Paul is also an accredited All-Star Thought Leader, by the All Ireland Business Foundation.
What makes Greenheart products so effective
Greenheart CBDs high-quality hemp & flax seed oil offers a fully traceable supply chain and uses a homogenised cold press extraction method. This allows Greenheart to produce high-quality products without any solvents or harsh chemicals while retaining all of the flavours, aroma and nutritional value of the product.
Why Greenheart aren’t just another CBD company
What truly set’s Greenheart leagues above the rest is their innovative capabilities to use technological advancements to further the CBD landscape. The first step involved in Greehearts mission was to work with Irish farmers to create a solution for sustainable infrastructure, using AI drones to record plant health and traceability.
Whatsmore, Greenheart has also expanded into Cryptocurrency. Launching the Greenheart Punt Token, their goal is to create a decentralised marketplace that will accept Punt for goods and services in the sustainable industries, providing a full seed to currency model, they will be able to also collect data through Punt purchases.
Greenheart Punt Tokens are live trading on the DigiFinex Exchange as of the 2nd December 2020.
What made you decide to move into the CBD space?
We have had some great personal experiences with CBD oils, however, we found that there was a great variance with the quality of the products available and saw a gap in the market. Also, the introduction of the Novel Foods Licence opened doors for us as we had aimed to go down the natural route for extraction and sourced the finest Homogenised Cold Press extraction machinery available.
How long have you known each other and how have you found working together as friends?
Myself and Paul have been friends since we were young teenagers, we grew up skateboarding together. In our early twenties, Paul then moved from the area but we always stayed in touch. It was when Paul had an idea for another business that he approached me as I had previously set and ran multiple companies simultaneously. We had the experience and the bond begin a project like this. With a few weeks to the original business plan we came together and formed Greenheart CBD.
What challenges have you faced setting up Greenheart?
We have faced many challenges. We set the bar high and wanted to stand out from the crowd so unlike traditional CBD companies that are primarily based around marketing and sales; we decided to take things a few steps further. We grew our own crops and teamed up with a partner company Zenadrone and are developing AI technology – currently used to monitor crop health, this is stage one of the development of this technology.
We are introducing other elements to this equipment such as spaying abilities and robotic claws used to remove male/unhealthy plants/weeds. There will also be a soil testing apparatus that will be part of this equipment. This whole set used in the production process allows us to have a full data stream from seed to sale. This also included heavy licencing aspects for both the growing of the crops and also the extraction process, both of which we have obtained although the growing licence must be applied from each year.
We then took things another step further and created a cryptocurrency backed by our CBD oil. This is the first model of ‘Tokenization of CBD’ that has been introduced. This is another space altogether but completes the whole data chain which is now ”Seed to Currency” and we are the first company to implement such a process.
Your drone AI is very interesting, can you tell us does it have any applications in the agri-tech world outside of hemp farming?
Our drone project although still in the Beta stage can be applied to many other applications such as the monitoring of other crops, the monitoring and even herding of livestock over vast areas, security aspects through surveillance and even manual tasks such as the movement of materials, spraying of crops etc.
You’re very focused on sustainability, do you find that many companies in this space talk the talk but maybe don’t walk the walk, and how do you make sure you live what you say?
We are very focussed on sustainability, we run a zero waste facility. We optimise on all aspects of the raw materials in which we use. Our byproducts from our extraction methods is a highly valuable high protein substance perfect as a protein supplement. Currently, we are just working with CBD but we plan to work with other aspects of the plant such as the fibres for insulation and other materials such as hempcrete, the cellulose for the development of bioplastics and even non-toxic batteries. Investment is required to get optimised on this aspect of the plant. Currently, we don't waste the fibres but they are used at low value for animal bedding.
Hemp is a carbon negative crop, it rejuvenates the soil and absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than trees. With this huge benefit to the environment, we can't help but use it to its full potential and create the infrastructure to optimise on the full benefits the plant can give.
Tell us about the Punt Token project and how it’s been to launch?
Our PUNT project is a Cryptocurrency model backed by our CBD oil. It is unusual in the Crytpo space to have a currency backed by a commodity and this gives its use further value. Also, the fact that we are a profitable company that has already achieved steps on our roadmap to prove our path.
We plan to apply our crypto model to many different methods of payment, on our DApps marketplace where our CBD oils and other sustainable products are available for sale. We will also be applying this form of payment through other companies for their products. We launched our project as an IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) on Digifinex this is our first exchange platform that the PUNT has been made available.
This is also for fundraising for our future projects to allow the expansion into fields of cosmetics, edibles, building materials, bio-plastics etc. Also funding further R and D.
Bringing back a bit of Irish history, what does that mean to you?
The PUNT is the old Irish currency one of our team members is Cian Ryan who is the grandson to John Ryan the original artist of the PUNT he is following the legacy of his grandfather and bringing back the old currency in a digital form.
As a very Irishcentric company, how far do you want Greenheart to go?
We wish to push this brand globally, we are revolutionizing the CBD and Hemp space with our introduction of technology and processes. We are planning to make this into a modular franchise system whereby we can put a small yet efficient, fully equipped plug and play system on farms fully monitored through the use of AI and lasers. This will allow us to regionalise the CBD in which we create and to help more farmers to get involved with such a sustainable, environmentally friendly crop. In turn, having a positive impact on the environment.
What companies do you look up to?
Tesla would be one of the most influential companies of our time with its focus on technology and sustainability aligned.
We look up to most of the technology leaders such as Apple and Amazon for their innovation but sustainability is so important to us we don’t feel that enough companies focus on this and with the detrimental impact that humans are having on the environment this needs to be prioritised.
How do you think the landscape of the CBD and hemp industries will need to change in order to achieve the growth that’s talked about but not yet achieved?
We feel that the infrastructure and education are the barriers to growth within this space at the moment. With our first decortication plant, we plan to create an innovation hub where we can educate not only farmers but also people from other walks of life about the potential and different uses of this plant.
What’s next for Greenheart, can you tell us?
Our next steps are the development of our DApps marketplace and the launch of our edible and cosmetics range. All of which will be completed in Quarter 1 of 2021.
For someone looking to find out more, how can they contact you?
You can contact us via our website, there is an enquiries page on there or alternatively, you can email either Mark at [email protected] or Paul at [email protected]
Finally, very important, if Greenheart was a superhero, who would it be and why?
I think if Greenheart was a superhero it would have to be Spiderman as we thrive off helping others in any way possible!
