(Rural Roots Canada) – What started as a couple of hemp seeds and one plant has turned into a successful entrepreneurial venture for Peter Sykora.
Sykora, the founder of Big Fresh Hemp, says it really just started with them taking a bunch of hemp seeds and growing one plant.
“It was more of a test of anything to see what was going to going on. We had no idea that we were going to try to sell it or do anything with it. We were playing,” Sykora said.
Sykora says four years later, they were still playing but had come to the point where it was time to do something.
“We started thinking about what kind of health products we could make, and one of the simplest was to make some tea.”
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Sykora says he and a buddy got started on his family farm on a small plot of land and expanded into products such as hemp oil and bath bombs.
He says their experimenting also led to his business partner’s relative putting bee-hives out in the hemp last year, producing positive results.
They started things up, and halfway through the year, the farmer came back to them and said something was different about the bees.
“I’m getting about twenty-five percent more honey out of your hives here than I’m getting out of my hives that, you know, have been working for me for years really quite well. And the honey as a sort of a distinct different flavor to it, it’s a floral kind of flavour,” is what Sykora was told by the farmer.
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Sykora says their focus has always been to stay small and ensure they are producing quality products.
“There’s still a ton to learn. But again, just trying to do it in a small, crafty way and making sure that we’re producing the best product we can with things that we have.”
He adds he is not interested in trying to farm one hundred thousand acres of it, focusing on quality instead of quantity.