Business View Magazine | November 2019

228 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 equipment to independent lawn & garden and hobby-hydroponic stores across Canada. Five years ago, a new CEO, Michael Nemirow, came into the organization with a specific directive from our Board to go over what the critical parts of the business were and decide where to focus our energy and resources for the future. “What we had was an evolution away from distribution, which was a good business, but one that is difficult to scale in Canada – especially in the lawn & garden sector – because it is seasonal and the weather can have a major impact on the market and the overall size of the season. So, as a group, we decided we should focus on what was really the heart of the company – the fertiler brands that we manufacture ourselves. . That’s when we really started to see a shift in our company and its positioning in the market Canadian market as a focused manufacturing business, which is how we were already perceived around the world. The move to sell the third party distribution part of Greenstar to focus on producing the science-based fertilizers that we had been evolving with different brands and products for different markets for over 20 years was a great shift for the company. This ability to focus on our own brands allowed the company to experience significant growth and a real sense of purpose – it has been amazing” BVM: How did cannabis become one of those segments? Hart: “In Canada, we already had a very technical fertilizer line, Grotek - high-powered formulas for people that were very serious about gardening and AT A GLANCE GREENSTAR PLANT PRODUCTS WHAT: Full-spectrum fertilizer solutions for growers WHERE: Langley, BC WEBSITE: www.getgreenstar.com