The M&A scramble for Europe has continued at a fearsome tempo over the previous couple of weeks. Organigram has closed its landmark acquisition of Berlin-based Sanity Group in a deal value as much as €250 million.
Aurora Hashish this week introduced the acquisition of Safari Flower Firm, including a purpose-built EU-GMP licensed facility in Ontario to feed its European export pipeline.
Tilray, having spent years assembling a 20-country distribution community, has moved to accumulate UK medical hashish clinic Lyphe, alongside its buyout of main alcohol model Brewdog.
Canadian licensed producers already dominate European medical hashish provide chains. Based on Statistics Canada commerce knowledge, exports throughout dried flower, extracts, and medicament classes totalled CA$51.6 million in February 2026 alone, with Germany absorbing greater than 60% of that by worth. Now, the identical producers are shifting to dominate European operations.
One Canadian frontrunner, nevertheless, is notably absent from this fervent land-grab. Canada’s largest dried flower producer and one of many world’s largest EU-GMP licensed hashish operators, Village Farms, is watching this flurry of M&A exercise from the sidelines patiently.
“Our business has traditionally suffered from a bit of little bit of shiny object syndrome,” Sam Gibbons, Senior Vice President of Company Affairs at Village Farms, instructed Enterprise of Hashish.
“We often see loads of overzealousness and capital will get thrown on the subsequent thrilling factor… We actually wish to make certain that any selections we make from an M&A standpoint are going to be sensible long-term investments with companions who wish to be in it for the lengthy haul.”
This extra cautious method is all of the extra notable provided that Village Farms is in a major place to make such strategic acquisitions. Based on its newest monetary filings, Village Farms ended 2025 with $86 million in money, report full-year internet earnings of $21 million, and $58 million in working money move.
A sleeping dragon
Though the corporate might have remained absent from the latest spate of headline transatlantic M&A offers, it’s certainly not ignoring the European alternative.
Presently, Village Farms’ European technique has two most important arms. The primary is a medical export enterprise run from its EU-GMP licensed manufacturing campus in Delta, British Columbia, a 4.8m sq. foot facility operated by its wholly-owned subsidiary Pure Sunfarms.
From there, the corporate ships pharmaceutical-grade dried flower to Germany, the UK, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand, and it’s within the technique of including additional markets, with new nation bulletins anticipated later in 2026.
Based on its newest monetary filings, it’s at the moment the biggest exporter of medical hashish to Europe, with three of Germany’s prime 5 cultivars by gross sales rating, primarily based on knowledge compiled by market tracker Flowzz.
The second is on-the-ground operations. By means of its wholly-owned subsidiary Village Farms Worldwide B.V., within the Netherlands, the corporate holds one in all simply ten licences to provide and distribute leisure hashish beneath the Dutch experiment, one of many first and most carefully watched regulated adult-use hashish programmes in mainland Europe.
Its Section I facility in Drachten has been working at full capability since mid-2025, with merchandise represented in 91% of collaborating coffeeshops. Development on a Section II indoor facility in Groningen is now nearing completion, with the primary develop rooms anticipated to be planted inside weeks.
As soon as the ability is totally accomplished, later in Q2, the Groningen facility will add roughly 8,000kg of annual capability, bringing the corporate’s complete Netherlands manufacturing to round 10 tonnes a yr.
“We anticipate to have our first rooms planted throughout the subsequent couple of weeks,” Gibbons instructed Enterprise of Hashish in late March. “Submit-processing and manufacturing ought to be accomplished by Could, and the ability ought to be totally operational by that timeframe, ramping by way of Q2 and reaching full capability by the tip of Q3.”
This can see the corporate’s manufacturing capability within the Netherlands quintuple, not solely quietly making it a serious power within the area, but additionally placing the corporate ready to instantly handle considerations over whether or not licensed operators within the Dutch experiment can provide sufficient product throughout sufficient codecs to displace the deeply embedded illicit market.
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The hash alternative
Some of the carefully watched provide gaps within the Dutch programme’s early months was hash. When Enterprise of Hashish reported on the experiment’s transition section in August 2024, hash manufacturing among the many then-operational licensees was working properly beneath the minimal inventory thresholds required by the federal government, and ministers had written to parliament flagging the shortfall as a selected concern.
Village Farms was not but on-line at that time, however Orville Bovenschen, now International President of Operations for Village Farms, and beforehand the general public face of the Netherlands subsidiary, had already flagged it as a possibility.
“We’ve been producing hash in Canada for a very long time and have gained loads of experience within the course of,” he instructed us on the time.
The Section II enlargement in Groningen is, partly, designed to capitalise on precisely that experience, with Gibbons noting that elevated capability will allow improved hash choices alongside stronger pre-roll and flower provide.
As seen throughout a lot of Europe over the past yr, the Dutch experiment’s longevity has been thrown into query amid latest political turmoil.
Based on Gibbons, a parliamentary debate in late March addressed the programme instantly, with opposition from at the very least one Christian social gathering. The end result, he stated, was broadly optimistic with the coalition agreeing to see the experiment by way of its full four-year time period.
“There’s a social gathering who’s not enamoured with the thought of the pilot,” Gibbons explains, “however they’ve agreed to see it by way of at the very least the complete 4 years of the programme.
“There may be loads of work that must be carried out to coach native stakeholders and proper some misperceptions that aren’t actually relevant. If the targets of this program are to cut back prison exercise and enhance public well being and security, then our expertise in Canada is a good mannequin for fulfillment. In Canada, we’ve seen the authorized market attain round 75 to 80% of the whole market within the span of simply eight years, which is a good reflection on the advantages of regulating hashish and proves that when given a selection, customers desire secure and examined merchandise from respected sources..”
The M&A query
Regardless of its chorus from speeding to purchase up European positions up to now, Village Farms’ posture might be starting to shift.
In late March, it introduced that long-serving CFO Stephen Ruffini, a 17-year veteran who oversaw the corporate’s NASDAQ uplisting and its transformation right into a hashish CPG operator, would transition out of the finance position and right into a newly created place centered completely on mergers and acquisitions.
The transfer was described by CEO Michael DeGiglio as reflecting the corporate’s dedication to ‘complementing continued natural progress investments with accretive acquisitive alternatives globally.’
Gibbons, nevertheless, instructed that the corporate’s long-term technique stays intact. “We’re getting pitched loads of issues proper now, particularly in Europe, and we’re simply not feeling like we have to rush into something,” he says.
“We’re attending to know loads of operators, constructing relationships, issues extra strategically. We gained’t rush into something or overpay till we really feel snug we’re getting a long-term resolution.”
“We really feel like we’ve acquired actually stable visibility for the subsequent two years or so. Within the meantime, we’re being very considerate, prudent, and affected person, and there are loads of alternatives on the market.”
