Green Aloha Ltd. has reached an agreement with United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 480, according to a Bizjournals.com report. The union represents more than 1.3 million retail and grocery workers across the state, including members of its Cannabis Workers Rising program.
“This is a new industry here for Hawaii but it’s not a brand new industry nationally, and it’s something that the UFCW Cannabis Workers Rising union has been working on since 2008,” Casey Rothstein, operations manager at Green Aloha, said in the report. “They had a lot of experience and already established training programs in safety protocol and procedure. We thought through a partnership with the union we’d be able to take advantage of their industry experience and background, and it would allow us to hit the ground running should we be privileged and honored to be awarded a license.”
Green Aloha is one of the consortiums competing for Hawaii’s first medical marijuana license. It is headed by Justin Britt, co-owner of real estate brokerage firm Hawaii Life, and includes individuals from the business, healthcare and agricultural sector.
“Whoever is awarded this license is given a great responsibility to produce the best medicine,” Britt said. “We feel it is a smart business decision to partner with UFCW because we’re providing ourselves with the expertise to set ourselves apart from other applicants and hit the ground running.”