Photo Karen Graham.
Pictured is Purity Hemp owner JoAnne Kennedy in front of the press she uses to extract oil from hemp seeds. The oil is bottled on site and along with hemp seed is sold directly to consumers at the farm and through other retailers or custom packaged for private label customers.
The farm on Mount Pleasant Road has been in the family since 1966. When JoAnne Kennedy was growing up here, her family raised beef cattle.
Like many young people, JoAnne’s future plans took her away from the farm and she trained and began to work in Toronto as a cartographer. Early in her career, a family event led her to make a u-turn. A serious brain aneurism left her mother with significant health challenges, so JoAnne returned home to help. She also turned her energy to finding ways to improve her mother’s condition and mitigate the chances of it happening to others. In her research, she began to focus on the little-known benefits of hemp.
Hemp is often confused with marijuana, and while it is a related crop, it has very different applications. Hemp contains minimal amounts of TCH, which is the chemical in marijuana associated with getting high. Hemp seeds or hearts, are a powerful food source, offering dense nutrition. They are packed with protein, fibre, omega fatty acids and a variety of vitamins minerals including vitamin E, zinc, calcium and iron. The best news was that it could be produced on the family farm. It is a hardy crop suitable for local growing conditions, is drought and pest resistant, and grown without pesticide, herbicide or fungicide.
Purity Hemp Products was established in 1999, and soon JoAnne had 400 acres of hemp growing on and around the family farm. Seeds are pressed to produce hemp oil, or hulled to reveal a small, nutty core or heart which can be incorporated into salads, pastas, smoothies granola and baked goods, providing a plant-based protein source for vegetarian and vegan diets.
In 2016, land costs convinced the business owner to streamline her operation and switch from cultivating the hemp in her products to purchasing the seeds. Processing on site involves cold pressing to extract the oil, or removing the outer shell to extract the seed. By-products are also used to produce pellets and oils for pets.
Today much of Purity’s product is sold under private labels, where it is sometimes ground into powders or mixed with flavourings such as cocoa or maple sugar. Customers can purchase Purity products directly from the farm shop located at 1657 Mount Pleasant Rd. or at health food stores across the region, including Jo Anne’s Place locations, The Main Ingredient and the Lakefield Pantry, as well as stores in Pickering, Port Perry, Port Hope, Cobourg and Toronto.
JoAnne attributes hemp with playing a significant role in the convalescence of her mother, suggesting that it helped her recover brain function. Hemp consumption is also associated with improved heart health, reduced inflammation, boosting immunity and digestive health and offering an easily digested, complete protein source.
For over twenty years Purity Hemp has been providing quality Hemp Hearts and Hemp Seed Oil grown in Ontario grown and produced onsite. For more information, visit www.purityhemp.ca. KG
