Heartland Industries to Open Industrial Hemp Processing Facility

Industrial hemp material supplier Heartland Industries has secured financing from Bank of Ann Arbor to open a lab-scale manufacturing facility in Holland, Michigan, this summer.

The facility will process up to 1.5 million lb/yr of hemp to produce biobased replacements for traditional reinforcing additives and fillers currently used in plastics for product development.

With this state-of-the-art facility, seed secured for the 2022 planting season, and a network of qualified farmers, Heartland is on track to create the first reliable industrial hemp supply chain for U.S. manufacturers. This development will allow industrial hemp to move beyond R&D labs and into end products.

Throughout the last six months, the Heartland team has made huge leaps forward in securing interest from top companies in the automotive, packaging, marine, aerospace and healthcare industries. The company’s industrial hemp products provide a sustainable, biobased replacement for traditional reinforcing additives and fillers like fiberglass, carbon fiber, talc and calcium carbonate that are currently used in the plastics industry.

Said Heartland’s founder and CEO Jesse Henry,“Michigan is the leading state for advanced manufacturing, and companies from many industries are interested in finding the next sustainable material that will change their business. Low-cost, carbon-negative materials such as hemp have the ability to fill that need, but are only viable with a consistent, reliable supply chain. We developed our products with these qualities in mind to create North America’s first supply chain of hemp-based materials for a new generation of sustainable products.”

By the end of 2021, Heartland plans to secure additional funding to begin construction of a flagship facility in Detroit. This larger facility will have the capacity to process over 300 million lb/yr of industrial hemp to serve the growing demand for sustainable materials.