Harbor Farmz and Fluence Incorporate LED Lighting into Facility with New Approach to Cannabis Production

AUSTIN, Texas AND KALAMAZOO, Mich. (May 4, 2021)—Fluence by OSRAM (Fluence), a leading global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial cannabis and food production, and Harbor Farmz, a Kalamazoo, Michigan-based cannabis cultivator, announced today the companies’ successful implementation of Fluence’s LED lighting solutions in the grower’s cultivation facility and tissue culture lab.

Headquartered in the burgeoning Midwestern cannabis market, Harbor Farmz is a 35,850-square-foot, state-of-the-art growing and processing facility featuring vertical cultivation rooms and a tissue culture lab equipped with Fluence’s LED lighting technology. The company grows with living soil to provide a range of high-quality, hand-crafted organic cannabis products to customers throughout Michigan. Leading Harbor Farmz’s innovative team is CEO and founder Michael Ward, who brings a unique perspective to the cannabis space: More than two decades of manufacturing experience and best production practices in metal stamping.

“My vision in launching Harbor Farmz last year was to elevate cannabis production in Michigan by establishing efficient growing strategies, taking a fully organic approach, deeply understanding soil chemistry and developing a sophisticated genetic library that we can share cuttings from for years to come,” Ward said. “Precision is key. We’re continually refining our processes and elemental parameters while integrating advanced technologies like Fluence’s LED lighting into our growing environment. Collaborating with Fluence enables my team to create efficiencies in our cultivation and harvest methodologies to deliver the best medicine that will benefit our customers.”

Harbor Farmz has completed multiple grow cycles, dialing in the environment harvest-after-harvest to improve plant quality and proving Ward’s manufacturing background is accelerating the company’s overall operating efficiency and position in the market as a groundbreaking cultivator. In collaboration with Fluence, Harbor Farmz is exploring new possibilities in its tissue culture lab to bolster the company’s—and the state’s—genetic inventory with optimized cannabis strains while maintaining its high standards of plant consistency and quality.

“We’re proud to partner with the cutting-edge cultivators at Harbor Farmz to advance what’s possible in cannabis production,” said David Cohen, CEO of Fluence. “What Michael and his team at Harbor Farmz are accomplishing within their facility is truly groundbreaking. At Fluence, we are dedicated to investing in and exploring how light affects cannabis plant quality and consistency. The Harbor Farmz team is not only advancing our own understanding of the interaction between light and plant development, but also establishing new industry standards for growing and producing premiere cannabis strains and products. Michael’s commitment to incorporating the industry’s leading technology and best manufacturing practices into his operation is creating an unbeatable model for cannabis production I encourage the industry to pay attention to.”

Harbor Farmz’s world-class microbiologists utilize a multitude of tissue culture techniques to study, analyze and optimize cannabis plant genetics, ensuring only the highest-quality plants are introduced to the Michigan market. According to data gathered from LeafLink, Harbor Farmz ranks fourth out of more than 100 providers in Michigan that retailers purchase cannabis flower from. The company also holds three of the top 10 best-selling varieties of cannabis flower in the state since completing its first harvest and flower sale in late 2020.

About Fluence by OSRAM

Fluence Bioengineering, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of OSRAM, creates powerful and energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial crop production and research applications. Fluence is a leading LED lighting supplier in the global cannabis market and is committed to enabling more efficient crop production with the world’s top vertical farms and greenhouse produce growers. Fluence global headquarters are based in Austin, Texas, with its EMEA headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands. For more information about Fluence, visit https://fluence.science.

About Harbor Farmz

Established in 2017, Harbor Farmz has become the premier choice for handcrafted cannabis products in Michigan. We control our cultivation, extraction, manufacturing and packaging practices all in house so that we can maintain our Harbor Farmz quality from tissue culture to sale. Since our inception, our goal has been to create a naturally potent medicine that our customers can depend upon. We focus on using organic cultivation methods to provide the highest quality flowers which then go on to become our brilliant line of extracts, concentrates and edibles. Our belief is that the highest quality inputs equal high-quality outputs. With this in mind, we developed a workforce based around a positive work culture, teamwork and equality, allowing us to ensure our passion for the industry stays as potent as our products.