IndHemp cancels Havre plans, shifts to Fort Benton

About a month after announcing plans to open a hemp processing plant in Havre, IndHemp LLC has decided to move operations to Fort Benton.

IndHemp Business Development Vice President Michael Herrmann said that after they started working on the property in Havre, located between Walmart and Torgerson's, they found it would not work for what they intended.

"We were looking at that property, but it ended up, we decided not to go forward with it right now for the use that we needed," Herrmann said.

IndHemp is a hemp processing company focusing on producing food-grade hemp products.

Herrmann said the location in Fort Benton is much better-suited for IndHemp's needs.

"There is a lot more room for us to expand," he said.

He did not say exactly when IndHemp made the decision to change the location to Fort Benton.

Herrmann apologized Wednesday for the delay in returning the calls.

He said that it is unfortunate things didn't work out in Havre this year, but the company is still interested in being in the town and the property may still be able to be used in the future.

Once they were able to measure the space, they determined the size constraints and condition of the building would have required significant work to update the building, he said. It was also physically tight and did not have as much operating space for grain bins or truck scales as IndHemp needed. He added that the easements on the property made it a little more challenging physically.

"There was nothing wrong with it, it just didn't fit our use the way we hoped," he said.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said that easements on the location are considerably wider than normal, 80 feet rather than the common 60 feet, restricting the space available for use on the property. He added that the easement is also next to another easementt.

The current land owner has to make a request to start the process to change the easement and bring it to the commissioners, he said.

"It's in a wait-and-see mode right now," Peterson said, adding that the decision is up to the land owner.

He added that he doesn't know why the easements were set up in that way, but when a property is subdivided it needs proper road access.

"It's one of them things that just got messed up when it was being done," Peterson said. " ... I have no idea what the thought process was in the past, no one else can figure it out, it's an abnormality," Peterson said. "We are just trying to fix it."

The issue of the easements arose the first week of May, but some people thought that they may be able to find a quick solution, he said, without naming anyone.

"There isn't a quick fix. You have procedures that you have to go through, the hoops to do it right, so we don't have mixups," he said.

IndHemp announced in late April that it planned to close on the property May 1 and immediately begin work on the building, but Peterson said the closing was later pushed to mid-May, then later and later because of the complexity of the issues. He added that some may want to expedite the easement changes to allow the company to move in but it has to go through the process.

Herrmann said IndHemp has already contracted several thousand acres of hemp in the area. Most seeds are already in the ground, a few being planted this week. Over the summer IndHemp will build its facility, and plans to be producing in the fall.

Herrmann said that although they will be moving operations to Fort Benton many of the producers they have contracted with are from around Havre, which is still a central point for many of their growers.

"We really do like the community," he said.

He added that IndHemp could possibly in the future open a facility in Havre for oils, packaging or processing fiber.

"We think there's a lot of opportunity and we hope we can be back up in Havre and potentially make use of that property," he said. "It just didn't fit our needs for our pressing operation as much as we had hoped when we first looked at it."

The oil they plan to produce would not contain cannabidiol, or CDB, but would be used for purposes such as food oil or for cosmetics and other uses.

Herrmann said the oil and other products they plan to produce are generally recognized as safe and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The products planned have an existing market for humans, with products rich in Omega-3 fatty acids and other vitamins and oils.

Herrmann said one product is commonly used around the world as feed for horses, helping coat and joint health.

In the United States it is currently not approved for livestock feed, but IndHemp is one of the coalitions of producers trying to get it approved for feed purposes.