Spring Hope, North Carolina--(Newsfile Corp. - April 25, 2019) - Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ending December, 31, 2018. A global leader in the industrial hemp industry with bi-coastal processing centers including the 85,000 square-foot multipurpose industrial hemp processing facility in Spring Hope, North Carolina, a state of the art processing center in Medford, Oregon, and a 500-acre hemp growing Eco-Village in Golden Valley, Arizona, Hemp, Inc. showed over an 1,800% increase in sales from previous year 2017.
Overall, sales increased from $107,002 in 2017 to $1,960,754 in sales for 2018, showing quarter-on-quarter increase for the year of 2018. Sales by quarter for the year were $96,498 for the 1stquarter; $108,100 in sales for the 2nd quarter; and $159,750 sales in for the 3rdquarter, with a remarkable $1,596,406 for the 4th quarter. Operating expenses rose only 72% percent from the previous year. Full-year sales for 2018 of $1,960,754 represent an increase of over 1,800% over the previous year.
"This steady increase is indicative of the industry's growth. The industrial hemp industry and Hemp, Inc.'s foothold in that industry continue to grow," said Bruce Perlowin, CEO of Hemp, Inc. (OTC: HEMP). "We've fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on building a hemp infrastructure since none existed previously. We've invested heavily to build this infrastructure, which currently consists of 9 divisions, as you'll read below. I liken Hemp, Inc.'s business model to that of the Amazon.com model where today the richest man in the world plowed all their operating capital and profits back into building the infrastructure. We, instinctively, have been following that same path. This is a business strategy that obviously works very well."
Perlowin went on to say 2019 will be the breakout year for Hemp, Inc. "We're hitting the market hard with massive revenues generated from massive sales."
As the first all-hemp public company in the industrial hemp industry, Hemp, Inc. has remained grounded and steadfast on ensuring the integrity of its guiding principles and it really is paying off. Executives were exceptionally pleased that Hemp, Inc. delivered a strong finish to the year. Now, 4 months into the new fiscal year, Hemp, Inc. is continuing to work tirelessly for its shareholders and to maintain steady sales growth. With the company's stability, both financially and operationally, and its commitment to the shareholders, positive sales through the new fiscal year are highly expected to be generated.
In the second half of 2019, Perlowin says Hemp, Inc. will focus most of its resources and personnel on marketing as opposed to building a massive infrastructure. While there may be a few more infrastructure footprints created, he plans to focus on becoming a full-blown marketing company as the company transitions from a developmental stage company to an operating company.
Thus far, Hemp, Inc. has 9 divisions:
Division One - The Industrial Hemp Infrastructure
Division Two - The Hemp Farming Infrastructure
Division Three - The Hemp Extraction Infrastructure
Division Four - The Hemp Educational Infrastructure
Division Five - The Hemp Marketing Infrastructure
Division Six - Accessories, Products and Services
Division Seven - Research and Development
Division Eight - Industrial Hemp Investments and Joint Ventures
Division Nine - Industrial Hemp Consulting
Division One - The Industrial Hemp Infrastructure
The Industrial Hemp Infrastructure (Division One) currently consists of two hemp processing facilities across the country, with two more under development, which will include an in-house third party testing laboratory. The largest of the two is its multi-purpose industrial hemp processing facility and milling operation in Spring Hope, North Carolina. It's the largest "industrial hemp processing center" in the western hemisphere and has grown to become one of the pre-eminent centers of the industrial hemp industry. The 85,000 square foot facility sits on a 9-acre campus. It is environmentally sustainable and was built from the ground up in hopes of "Making America Hemp Again." With a patent pending manufacturing process, the North Carolina facility is operating full time to process millions of pounds of our unique kenaf, hemp blend, to manufacture an all green natural loss circulation materials (LCMs) that are to be sold to the oil and gas drilling industry, along with an all green natural oil spill absorbent, a second industrial hemp/kenaf product called Spill-Be-Gone.
(To see a one-minute video of the millions of pounds of kenaf, go to Bruce Perlowin's personal Facebook page, September 7th, 11th, 13th, 20th and 22nd, 2018.)
In addition to the company's industrial hemp processing facility in Spring Hope, North Carolina, Hemp, Inc. also has one of the most sophisticated local processing centers (LPC) in Medford, Oregon which focuses on hemp harvesting, drying, curing, trimming, bagging, storing, and in some cases selling high CBD hemp for the local farmers and for our own hemp grows in that area, and post processing for the CBD industry.
Hemp, Inc. also has 4,500 acres of land in Golden Valley, Arizona. Out of the 4,500 acres of land, 500 acres have currently been designated for the Veteran Village Kins Community (VVKC). Hemp, Inc. is preparing 300 of those 500 acres for hemp cultivation. The company aims to boost the economies of these towns by offering affordable hemp processing services, which incentivizes local growers to add hemp to their crop rotation. The company is continuing to scout new locations for local processing centers in Florida, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and several other states.
Thus far, Hemp, Inc.'s Local Processing Center (LPC) in Oregon has created over 200 seasonal jobs as well as many year-round jobs.
Division Two - The Hemp Farming Infrastructure
The Hemp Farming Infrastructure (Division Two) consists of hundreds of acres of hemp and kenaf growing in multiple locations, farm equipment, cloning rooms, clones and seeds, grow rooms, greenhouses, hemp drying facilities and a huge amount of peripheral farming tools and equipment. (Some of this farming infrastructure can be seen on Bruce Perlowin's personal Facebook page in some of his older posts from Sept. 8th, Aug. 30th, 19th, 15th - 11th, 9th and 4th, July 31st, 29th, 21st - 16th, 2018.)
Hemp, Inc. also has a model "Small Family Farm" in North Carolina situated on 12 acres that consists of a cloning room, a greenhouse, and enough land to grow 2,000-3,000 high CBD hemp plants. (This model farm can be seen on Bruce Perlowin's Facebook page, in the Aug. 22nd - 26th, 2018 posts.) By showing farmers how to grow high CBD hemp plants, operate a greenhouse and turn a barn into a cloning room to earn $500,000 a year, the "Small Family Farm" can reappear on the American landscape. After all, the original small family farms in America were able to survive economically by growing hemp as their main cash crop and the first 5 presidents of the United States were all hemp farmers.
According to Perlowin, the company is preparing to grow on up to 500 acres of land in Oregon, 300 acres in Arizona (maybe more), hundreds of acres in NC (combination of hemp and kenaf), and an undetermined amount in Puerto Rico. He says collective sales from all these grows will be extremely significant in terms of pre-rolls, high CBD buds, distillate, isolate and biomass. "By 2020, we anticipate the main function of the company will be sales and marketing as we will have completed the infrastructure to support that sales and marketing. Right now, I believe we have the largest footprint with vertical integration in the hemp industry in America today. We are always looking for joint ventures where we have or can expand our footprint," commented Perlowin.
Moreover, "A to Z" services for the farmers are available - from harvesting to drying, bagging, curing, storing, nitrogen sparging, machine trimming, hand trimming, and selling, creating a "one stop shop" for the small to large family farms. And with the soon-to-be addition of our third party, on-site testing labs from Digipath Labs, local farmers can do their testing, processing and selling in the same place. Digipath brings their proprietary ISO-17025:2017 accredited standard operating procedures and testing protocols, to establish, maintain, and operate each lab.
Digipath will bring state-of-the-art equipment, lab expertise, proprietary operating procedures and management to Hemp, Inc.'s rapidly growing locations to ensure the highest quality of goods before entering the marketplace. They will provide all necessary laboratory-expertise and related management services to develop and operate each Lab, including purchasing and maintenance of the laboratory instrumentation, as well as hiring and comprehensive training of lab personnel.
Without an in-house, third-party testing laboratory, products in need of testing would need to be transported off site, which could mean waiting days or even weeks for results. The addition of Digipath at Hemp, Inc.'s production centers will expedite testing processes and further support new business developments.
Part of Division Two is the Great American Hemp Grow-Off on the Veteran Village Kins Community in Golden Valley, Arizona. The description of the grow off can be found below.
Division Three - The Hemp Extraction Infrastructure
The Hemp CBD Oil Extraction Infrastructure (Division Three) originally consisted of a Supercritical C02 Extractor. After operating for over a year it has been determined that Hemp, Inc. will be upgrading to a much larger and advanced alcohol extraction process. These large-scale extractors are expected to be placed in all additional hemp processing arenas, thus completing this part of building the industrial hemp infrastructure. The CBD oil that we extracted from our 2018 hemp grows in North Carolina has been made into pure crystalline CBD isolate which we will add to our King of Hemp branded line of pre-rolls to bring to the marketplace and a pre-roll fortified with pure crystalline CBD isolate.
Division Four - The Hemp Educational Infrastructure
The Hemp Educational Infrastructure (Division Four) includes Hemp, Inc.'s Hemp University which focuses on educating and empowering Hemp farmers and entrepreneurs with knowledge, processing, infrastructure and support. The educational seminars, through the Hemp University, are held periodically and teach farmers and landowners how to create a profitable income stream by maximizing the per-acre crop revenue. Through this division, Hemp, Inc. has trained well over 500 farmers in its first two years by doing six Hemp University seminars in North Carolina.
In March 2019, Hemp, Inc. completed the first west coast Hemp University in Oregon, which helped educate attendees about the various opportunities that have become available for Southern Oregon residents and farmers. The all-day educational seminar brought like-minded people together to discuss and learn from experts in the trade.
With the exceptional response to the first west coast Hemp University, Hemp, Inc. has announced the second set of educational seminars in Oregon. This event is titled "Pre-Planting Support Workshop", and is scheduled for May 4, 2019. This educational seminar will be hosted prior to Oregon's hemp planting season and is designed to educate attendees on planting, feminized seeds, clones, soil amendments, organic fertilizers and more. Vendors at this workshop will have most of these items on sale (if suppliers haven't sold out by then) just in time for the 2019 planting season.
Moreover, the second Hemp University seminars are intended to educate farmers, entrepreneurs or investors on how to grow a lucrative cash crop. For those interested in attending, presenting or showcasing at The Hemp University in May, please contact Sophia Blanton at [email protected].