The first in our series of interviews with people in the hemp industry.
Jace Callaway is the founder of the Finnish company, Finola Oy. Over the last 30 years, Jace has bred the worlds most recognised hemp variety, FINOLA.
The FINOLA oilseed hemp varieties provide an excellent source of sustainable food and proteins which need no specialist machinery for harvesting making it extremely attractive for UK farmers.
You can read more about FINOLA here: https://ukhempltd.co.uk/blogs/resources/farming
UK Hemp are exclusive UK distributors for Finola cultivation seed. Please contact us at info@britishhempco.com for more information.
The following is taken from the interview that we did with Jace in September 2024.
How did it all start?
In Finland, 1995, the situation was rough, chaotic, unfunded and not at all planned. We basically put some seeds in the ground, called up the media and then kicked back to see what might happen. Much like the situation when a child hits a wasp nest out of curiosity, and without much of a plan. Of course the police became involved, and the media enjoyed a deliberate confusion of hemp and marijuana during that summer. Such little effort garnered more news space than any other topic in Finland during that year. The main outcome of our work was a raised awareness of hemp and the development of the FINOLA variety of hemp, which we registered in 1999. With the help of our Ministry of Agriculture we even caused the EU to create an entirely new crop in 2003 called "oilseed hemp". Prior to that only fibre hemp varieties were acceptable for the agricultural subsidy in Europe, essentially for French hemp varieties, grown in France by French farmers.
Did you experience the usual growing pains of a business?
Yes, and still experiencing these pains! The growth has not stopped.
Fortunately, my wife/partner/CFO- Anita Hemmilä was involved from the very beginning of the storied adventure. We've taken turns supporting each other along the way. Neither of us had any business experience or money to pay employees, much less ourselves, and our company was not even profitable enough to pay us both a living wage until 2012. So we continued to work our day jobs; Anita as a teacher and graduate student in linguistics, while I continued my work as a research scientist at the University of Kuopio (now the University of Eastern Finland). Fortunately, my academic background in food and drug research prepared me to handle both, but I never had to deal with both in one project. I was initially surprised to realise that no research had published on hempseed nutrition since the 1940s. So, this work was something that I could do. After I had this basic nutritional information, I published those results:
https://finola.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Hempseed-Nutrition.pdf
Next, my university colleagues and I secured funding to conduct two human clinical trials on hempseed oil; one was a safety study with normal volunteers, and the second was with a patient population that had eczema (atopic dermatitis). Both trials were surprising successful. The results from these studies were published in peer reviewed journals:
https://finola.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/FinolaOil-and-Atopy.pdf
https://finola.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/LinseedOil.pdf
After the funding for our research projects came to an end, I began to make the transition from adjunct professor to CEO of a start up company that was barely profitable. With very little understanding of what we were getting into, Anita and I continued to overcome the various economic, administrative and legal obstacles that have littered our path during the last 30 years. We now look back and wonder- did we do that? Yes, we did that.
As a consequence, we managed to cause certain useful changes in hemp regulations for the benefit of the hemp community, in order to have hemp foods acceptable both in Europe and in North America. Also, the auto flowering trait that we discovered in the FINOLA variety has been used by many other people since 1995, to create new varieties of auto flowering hemp for various purposes. This innovation has caused many new markets to open expand in ways that were not possible for just one variety from one small company on the north eastern edge of the civilised world.
So, our experience with hemp began out of curiosity, with the thought of doing something with fibre, which morphed into food, and eventually we settled on the production and distribution of certified planting seed for the global hemp community. Instead of a vertically integrated business model, we inadvertently turned this on its edge to create a horizontally integrated model, which has allowed for many more people to come in and take part in this action.
Can you say roughly how many hectares of Finola are grown throughout the world and in which countries? How has that been developing over the years?
In 2024, in conjunction with our partners around the world, we managed to produce about 454 metric tons of certified planting seed in Europe and Canada. This count does not include the used of uncertified saved seed in some places, so this is an underestimate of the actual amount. At a sowing density of 25 kg/hectare, 454 t of seed is enough to cultivate just over 18 000 hectares. It has taken us about 20 years to get up to this level, by gradually increasing year after year. The main reason why we have been successful is because FINOLA continues to be the highest yielding hemp variety in terms of grain yields. It has literally taken on a life of its own. FINOLA's short stature and soft stem make it it easy for the farmer to harvest with a standard combine, relative to other hemp varieties. This means that it fits into the existing agricultural infrastructure, from seeding to processing, without retooling.
Can you say in how many countries multiplication is being carried out?
Our seed multiplication is done in Finland, German and Canada.
Can you say what generally people are doing with the seed in terms of processing?
Our planting seed is primarily used for the production of grain (hempseed), which is either de-hulled or pressed to make hempseed oil. The seed cake is a secondary product that is sifted to produce proteins that have many applications.
Any exciting developments?
1) This year we commercialised our new variety, which we decided to call FINOLA2. This new variety is like a larger version of the original FINOLA; a bit taller, slightly thicker stem, more biomass and a seed that is nearly twice as large as the FINOLA seed. The THC level for FINOLA2 is at least half that of the original FINOLA.
2) I officially retired at 66 years of age last May. Anita has a few more years to go, so I continue my usual work for our company.
JC Callaway, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio, and (still) CEO of Finola Oy