Once upon a time, as summer 2025 was drawing to a close and the GLO contractors were breaking ground on the cultivation construction site – the team started to get a few strange messages. Subsequently, we noticed a flurry of online concern about GLO going bust, which made for a very confusing cup of tea in the office! We quickly realised that some eagle-eyed members of the cannabis community had found our original UK entity registered online, no longer in use, and simply waiting to be wrapped up, and had jumped to a conclusion that the company was no more. The real action is of course happening on the Isle of Man, where GLO is fully operational and making progress. 

One really brilliant thing that came out of this slightly confusing moment for us, was that we realised we’d never told our story. Not properly. Not from the beginning. And if the great comic book universe has taught us anything, it’s this; every mission needs a backstory. Every hero has an origin story. So here we are, to tell you ours.

To set the scene, we have to go back to 2019. The early days. The first sparks of what would become GLO – close friends, family and some seeds.

We had a bold vision: to grow medicinal cannabis and become a trusted force in an emerging industry. But we knew the path to that goal required more than ambition, it needed a deep understanding of the plant, a proven relationship with regulators, and a bit of boots-on-the-ground resilience. We needed a training ground.

That’s where hemp came in.

Now, hemp isn’t just cannabis’ well-behaved cousin, it’s a plant with real superpowers. It captures carbon from the air, it restores tired soil, it can become paper, textiles, biofuel, building materials, even food. In short, it’s one of the most versatile natural tools on the planet.

To learn, to build credibility with the regulator, and to begin our journey in a real and tangible way, we rolled up our sleeves and grew our first hemp crop. 

We chose three cultivars for our first crop: Futura, Santhica, and Finola. Finola became our original hero strain, with a short growing season of around 120 days and strong seed yields. Santhica cultivars were rich in CBD and CBG and excellent for fibre production. Futura, a great all-rounder, produced seeds with a high polyunsaturated fatty acid content and was especially good when pressed into oil.

What struck us most about growing hemp was its sheer resilience. It grows strong against the odds, which was fitting, because that described our journey too. We hit a few surprises early on. Some of our plants grew way beyond expected heights, reaching nearly three metres tall. One of them even came close to toppling a neighbouring farmer’s £1 million combine harvester during harvest. Another year, when we grew an entire field of Finola, we ended up with a bumper seed harvest. It was intense, but it was also a lot of fun to bring in.

The fruits of those harvests didn’t go to waste. Some of the hemp was baled for animal bedding, some was cold-pressed into a beautiful, high-quality hemp seed oil, and the seeds were sold into the pet food supply chain. If you had a pet fish in 2020, there’s a chance it dined on our original GLO crop. We can’t say for sure if it led to any aquatic superpowers, but we’re confident it was a nutritious meal.

We also had interest from potential partners who wanted to turn our hemp into paper and packaging, or even use it for furniture stuffing. These conversations were exciting, but we always knew where our focus lay. Our mission was cannabis. When we became the first company to receive a licence to cultivate medicinal cannabis on the Isle of Man, it was a major milestone. There were definitely some celebrations, but we also knew the real work was only just beginning.

Those early hemp days gave us more than experience. They gave us a foundation, a deep respect for the plant, and valuable insights that shaped who we are today. We’re now preparing to build our first facility and take the next big step in our journey.

We’re grateful for the lessons, for the land, and for the amazing community of people who’ve believed in this mission from the start.

Onwards we GLO.