A new hemp processing facility, Halcyon Thruput, will be bringing more than thirty new jobs to the Hopkinsville area in the coming months.
Halcyon Thruput is a post-harvest, midstream drying and processing facility for the hemp crop. It is expected to bring essential agricultural infrastructure to support regional farmers.
Southwestern Kentucky Economic Development Council Executive Director Mark Lindsey tells the News Edge about the company and their partnership.
He says they are the first commercial real estate investment in an Opportunity Zone in the county. The facility was purchased in May 2019 by OZ Capital, an Opportunity Zone investment firm out of Forth Worth, Texas.
Halcyon was founded out of a need for post-harvest drying infrastructure in the region. The new technology will accept whole-plant, raw material from the field and will mechanically dry it to a sub-10% moisture content, while also removing the stems. They will have a total throughput of nearly 50,000 pounds of wet plants per hour. The process will result in standardized 10-12%-plus CBD biomass that will be packaged and ready to ship to extractors.
The new facility, located in Hopkinsville’s Industrial Park, is currently undergoing upgrades to increase their efficiency and capacity during harvest. The upgrades are scheduled to be completed by mid-August. Lindsey says he expects they will begin their employee search shortly thereafter.
(Story by Hannah Crisp)
