• Insight · Europe · Supply chain
Europe’s medical cannabis supply rests on 741t a year of GMP-certified flower capacity, far more than any market imports. But 311t of it only finishes flower grown by someone else. Take that conversion away and certified cultivation roughly meets demand, while the surplus it creates is already pushing wholesale prices down.
Arnau Valdovinos · Cannamonitor · October 2026
We decoded the GMP certificate of every flower site in the EU’s EudraGMDP register and added the sites the EU recognises in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Jersey. Together they can certify an estimated 741t of flower a year, but 311t of that is conversion: sites in Portugal, Germany, Czechia, Switzerland and Canada that take GACP flower grown elsewhere and release it as EU-GMP. Certified cultivation alone is 427t, of which Canada grows more than the entire EU. That is roughly what Germany, Australia, Israel and the UK import between them, so the surplus rests on conversion, the layer German regulators have started to tighten. Meanwhile it is already in prices: the EU-GMP wholesale floor in Germany halved in a year.
• Supply structure
The system was built to import, then certify
741t of certified capacity, and 311t of it is conversion
GMP-certified flower supply capacity in place, tonnes a year, October 2026
Source: Cannamonitor facilities tracker, built from EudraGMDP certificate scopes (224 EU-GMP sites) plus TGA, MHRA and Medsafe registers (17 recognised-GMP sites). Capacity in place, not sales. 28% of the EU-GMP figure rests on Cannamonitor estimates for sites that publish no volume.
EudraGMDP lists 224 sites whose EU-GMP certificate names cannabis, but most of them never touch a growing plant. 57 are importers and batch-release sites that handle flower already certified elsewhere; 35 extract or manufacture APIs; the rest are contract manufacturers, laboratories and sterilisers. Decoding each certificate’s scope leaves 93 growers and processors with certified flower capacity: 65 grower sites and 28 specialised processors.
Those 93 sites hold 704t of EU-GMP capacity, and only 394t of it is a grower certifying its own crop. The other 311t is conversion: 180t at specialised processors and 131t of spare capacity at 14 growers that also process for others. Conversion exists because most of the world’s export-grade flower is grown to GACP, not GMP. A converter dries, trims, tests, packs and releases that flower under its own certificate, and a German importer can then buy it as EU-GMP.
The scale of single sites shows how concentrated that service is. AgMedica in Chatham, Ontario, processes for more than 50 Canadian growers on about 60t of capacity, running at roughly a third of it. Tilray’s Cantanhede site in Portugal finishes about 30t of Quebec-grown flower on top of its own 30t.
Germany is the clearest case of a market that certifies rather than grows. It hosts 70 certified sites, more than any other country, yet only 11t of its 68t of flower capacity is grown on German soil. The rest is contract processing at sites such as Canify and Tonnex, and a further 78t of import and release capacity sits at 46 importers. Germany is the demand centre of the system, not a supply origin.
• Fragility
Without converters, supply and demand roughly meet
Strip out conversion, and certified cultivation meets demand
Certified flower capacity in place against the flower imports of the four largest medical markets, tonnes a year
Sources: Cannamonitor facilities tracker (capacity, October 2026); German Federal Ministry of Health projection for 2026 imports (via Apotheken Umschau, 15 September 2026); ODC for Australia (2025); Statistics Canada exports to Israel (2025, a floor for Israeli imports); Home Office FOI for the UK (2025). Conversion includes 3t of recognised-GMP packing capacity.
Take conversion out and 427t of certified cultivation remains: 394t of integrated EU-GMP and 34t at recognised-GMP growers. Set that against what the largest medical markets import. Germany’s health minister expects around 300t of imports in 2026; Australia imported 81t in 2025, Israel at least 40t from Canada alone and the UK 30t. Together that is more than 450t, before Poland, Switzerland, Czechia or any smaller market.
Capacity also overstates what certified sites deliver. Only 28 sites publish or reveal their actual output, and they demonstrated 246t against 59% of the capacity base. The surplus that has driven prices down is real, but it is a conversion surplus: it exists because converters can turn an effectively uncapped supply of GACP flower, from Canada’s 276t of exports to Thailand’s 217 GACP farms, into product a German pharmacy may dispense.
That makes the regulatory definition of where GMP starts the single most important variable in European supply. In June 2026 Hessen’s inspectorate set out that flower released in the state must be dried and trimmed where it is harvested, treating drying as a GMP step, and its August guidance requires a per-supplier application mapping every GACP and GMP step. Düsseldorf took the opposite view in 2020, placing GMP after harvest. If more Länder follow Hessen, third-country growers without a certified post-harvest step lose access, and the converters lose their input.
A second door is already open. Australia and Jersey’s Northern Leaf supplied 7.8t to Germany in 2025 on national GMP certificates the EU recognises through mutual-recognition and trade agreements, with no EudraGMDP record at all: 3.9% of German imports, more than Colombia. Supply agreements signed since point to 8–15t a year by 2027.
• Geography
Canada grows more certified flower than the entire EU
The map separates the two layers. The dark core of each bubble is a country’s own certified cultivation; the light ring is conversion capacity, flower finished there but grown elsewhere. Read that way, Europe’s supply has two centres of gravity: one in Ontario and British Columbia, where the flower is grown, and one running from Portugal through Germany to Czechia, where much of it is finished.
Grown in Canada, finished in Europe
Certified flower capacity by country, tonnes a year. Bubble area is proportional to capacity; dark core = own cultivation, light ring = conversion.
Bubble area is proportional to capacity. The dashed box is enlarged below.
Europe and Israel: 440t of EU-GMP capacity, plus 10t recognised in the UK and Jersey
Enlarged view; dark core = own cultivation, light ring = conversion, gold = recognised GMP
Source: Cannamonitor facilities tracker, October 2026. GACP-only origins (Uganda, Thailand, Argentina, Jamaica, Morocco) carry no certified capacity of their own; their flower reaches the EU through the converters shown.
Canada holds 241t, a third of all EU-GMP capacity: 163t of its own cultivation at 15 grower sites, plus 78t of conversion at AgMedica and Northern Green. Its sites are large. Pure Sunfarms in Delta alone is certified for 75t, Aurora River for 30t and Canopy’s Kincardine site for 17.5t, and Canadian sites account for 135t of the 246t of output we can evidence. Canada exported 276t of flower in 2025, and Germany booked 93t of direct imports from it (BfArM). Canadian flower is the origin of roughly half of what Germany and the UK import, more than 80% of Israel’s and around two thirds of Australia’s, before counting what is finished in Portugal.
Portugal, with 149t, is the EU’s hub, and it is mostly a converter. Its 67.5t of own cultivation is matched by 45t of spare capacity at five hybrid growers and 37t at seven specialised processors. Infarmed reported 79.9t of exports in 2025 and 66.3t in the first half of 2026 alone, and roughly half of the input is Canadian GACP flower.
Further east the pattern changes. North Macedonia (51t) is a grower, with seven sites certified almost entirely by Polish, German and Croatian inspectors for buyers in those countries. Czechia (25t) is a GACP-to-GMP hub: six of its seven growers also process third-party flower. Denmark (28t) and Greece (19t) grow but barely convert, while Switzerland (24t) is almost all processing. Israel’s 30t sits at a single converter serving its domestic market.
Two numbers explain why Europe converts rather than grows. A Canadian grower site averages 11t of its own cultivation; an EU one averages 4t. And the GACP origins marked on the map, from Uganda and Thailand to Argentina and Morocco, carry no certified capacity of their own: their flower reaches Europe only through a converter.
Certified cultivation by country
Own-crop capacity of EU-GMP and recognised-GMP growers, 427t a year
| Canada | 163.4t | 38% |
| Portugal | 67.5t | 16% |
| North Macedonia | 45.6t | 11% |
| Denmark | 27.8t | 7% |
| Australia (TGA) | 22.1t | 5% |
| Greece | 19t | 4% |
| Spain | 18t | 4% |
| Other 11 countries | 63.8t | 15% |
Source: Cannamonitor facilities tracker, October 2026. With North Macedonia and Switzerland, Europe holds 49%; recognised GMP 8%; Colombia, South Africa, Uruguay and Lesotho 5%.
Strip conversion out and the ranking sharpens. Canada holds 38% of certified cultivation (163t), the EU 37% (158t), so a single exporting country grows more certified flower than all 27 member states combined. Portugal (16%) and North Macedonia (11%) are the only other countries above a tenth. Australia’s 22t of TGA-certified cultivation is already larger than Greece’s or Spain’s, which is why the recognised-GMP layer matters more than its 8% suggests.
• Certification
Certificates follow the importer
An EU-GMP certificate is issued by a national or regional inspectorate, and for a site outside the EU it is issued by whichever authority an importer asks to inspect it. That makes the certificate register a map of buyers. 42 of the 224 EU-GMP sites hold a certificate from an inspectorate in another country, carrying an estimated 345t of capacity, and 29 of those 42 were issued by German Länder authorities.
Europe converts, German inspectors certify
Converter sites by country (top), and inspectorates certifying EU-GMP sites outside their own country (bottom)
| Portugal | 12 | 29% |
| Germany | 8 | 19% |
| Czechia | 8 | 19% |
| Switzerland | 5 | 12% |
| Canada | 2 | 5% |
| Poland | 2 | 5% |
| Malta | 2 | 5% |
| North Macedonia, Israel, Italy | 3 | 7% |
Sites certified abroad, by inspectorate
Source: Cannamonitor facilities tracker, built from EudraGMDP certificate texts, October 2026. Converter sites are specialised processors plus hybrid growers (42 sites; by coincidence the same number as sites certified abroad). Capacity per converter is not shown because most publish no throughput.
The converter donut shows where finishing happens: Portugal holds 12 of the 42 converter sites, Germany and Czechia eight each and Switzerland five. Converters cluster where importers and regulators sit, not where flower grows; only two of them are in Canada.
The inspectorate chart shows who decides which foreign growers reach Europe. Bezirksregierung Köln certified AgMedica’s 60t site in Ontario and growers in North Macedonia, Colombia and South Africa; Düsseldorf certified Pure Sunfarms’ 75t; Berlin’s LAGeSo five Canadian sites, including Aurora’s 30t River facility. Poland’s GIF certifies the Israeli, Colombian, Lesotho and North Macedonian suppliers of Polish importers, including Bazelet, Pideka, MG Health and NYSK. Portugal’s Infarmed is the largest single inspectorate, with 30 sites, but has certified only one site abroad.
Because certification follows demand, a new importing market shows up first as new certificates abroad. And because each Land interprets where GMP starts for itself, there is no single European answer to whether GACP flower can be converted at all, which is what makes the Hessen decision consequential.
• Prices
The surplus is already in prices
Capacity running well ahead of what pharmacies dispense has kept sustained pressure on wholesale prices, and competition to acquire patients is squeezing margins from the other end. Our German price reset analysis traced the first leg of the fall in the summer. The autumn data shows it deepening across every tier.
German wholesale prices fell across every tier in a year
Indicative wholesale price bands for flower sold into Germany, euro per gram, by certification and potency tier
| Tier, German wholesale | Autumn 2025 | Spring 2026 | Autumn 2026 | Floor, 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GACP, under 20% potency | €0.8–2 | €0.6–2 | €0.4–1.2 | −47% |
| GACP, over 20% potency | €1–2.3 | €1.1–2.5 | €0.8–2 | −20% |
| EU-GMP, under 20% potency | €1.8–2.5 | €1.2–2.5 | €0.8–1.9 | −51% |
| EU-GMP, over 20% potency | €2.1–3.5 | €2–3.5 | €1.3–3.1 | −40% |
Source: GCX Global Cannabis Report, autumn 2025, spring 2026 and autumn 2026 editions. Indicative lower and upper quotations from executed and brokered trades, not volume-weighted averages. Floor change compares the lower bound, autumn 2025 to autumn 2026.
The EU-GMP floor for lower-potency flower fell from €1.8/g to €0.8/g in twelve months, and the certification premium is narrowing: lower-potency EU-GMP now starts at €0.8/g, below where high-potency GACP started a year ago (€1/g). Even high-potency EU-GMP, the tier that held up best in the spring, now starts at €1.3/g. Customs data confirms the direction independently: Canada’s declared price for flower shipped to Germany fell 17% year on year to CA$2,761/kg in January–August 2026 (Statistics Canada), even as volume rose 68%.
Converters feel it first. Canadian flower shipped to the Portuguese, Czech and Maltese hubs rose 62% to 80t in January–August 2026, but its declared price fell 33% to CA$1,297/kg, under half the direct German price. Volume is moving to the cheapest hub: Czechia took 36t against 3t a year earlier, at CA$1,047/kg. GCX now quotes Portuguese upgrading fees at €0.3–0.8/g. Converters are keeping the volume and losing the margin.
At the pharmacy end, specialised cannabis pharmacies multiplied roughly fivefold to more than 250, and self-pay telemedicine patients compare prices online. Bloomwell’s Cannabis Barometer put the average flower price at €3.8/g in Q3 2026, with 83.5% of products under €4/g. With wholesale under €1/g and retail under €4/g, the remaining margin pays for fulfilment and patient acquisition, and that is the next pool under pressure.
• Outlook
What to watch in 2027
The question for 2027 is not whether Europe can be supplied. It is which of these 93 certified growers and processors still has a customer at today’s prices, and three things will decide it.
Where GACP flower gets its EU-GMP status. At a third-party converter or at the place of harvest. Every Land that follows Hessen moves value from converters to growers with their own certified post-harvest step, and Canadian producers are already certifying directly: Canopy, Aurora, Green Karat and BZAM all obtained direct EU-GMP certificates in 2026.
The recognised-GMP layer. Australian supply agreements (Bioxyne with Adrex, ECS Botanics with Nimbus) and Jersey’s second MHRA-certified site point to 8–15t a year reaching Germany by 2027 without any EudraGMDP record. Any model that counts only EudraGMDP will undercount the supply German regulators actually accept.
The price floor. With the lower-potency EU-GMP floor below €1/g, distressed capacity is already visible: 71t of the certified base sits at operators that are insolvent, in creditor arrangements or have lost a licence. How much of that capacity leaves the market, rather than selling below cost, will set the floor.
Cannamonitor Decide
Every certified site behind these charts, in one tracker
The facilities tracker in Decide holds all 224 EU-GMP sites with cannabis in scope and the 17 sites on a GMP the EU recognises, cross-linked to their companies, regulators, trade flows and news, and updated as certificates change.
- Decoded certificate scope and issuing inspectorate for every site
- Capacity in place, demonstrated output and evidence grade, site by site
- Status flags for insolvent, distressed and lapsed operators
- The trade data behind it: BfArM imports, Statistics Canada exports, Infarmed
| Site | Supply role | Certified by | Capacity | Output | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pure Sunfarms, Delta Canada | Integrated grower | Düsseldorf | 75t | 00t | Firm |
| AgMedica, Chatham Canada | Hybrid grower | Köln | 60t | 00t | Firm |
| Tilray, Cantanhede Portugal | Hybrid grower | Infarmed | 60t | 00t | Firm |
| Bazelet, Or Akiva Israel | Processor | GIF Poland | 30t | 00t | Firm |
| Aurora River, Bradford Canada | Integrated grower | LAGeSo Berlin | 30t | 00t | Firm |
| NYSK, Skopje North Macedonia | Integrated grower | GIF Poland | 15t | 00t | Firm |
| Northern Leaf, Jersey UK (Jersey) | Recognised GMP | MHRA | 8t | 00t | Firm |
Method & sources. EudraGMDP certificate texts (sweep of 20 October 2026), decoded by scope into growers, specialised processors, hybrid growers and non-flower roles; TGA, MHRA and Medsafe registers for recognised-GMP sites; BfArM import statistics via ABDA (Zahlen Daten Fakten 2026); Statistics Canada HS 1211.9.10 (through August 2026); Infarmed export statistics; GCX Global Cannabis Report (autumn 2025, spring and autumn 2026); Bloomwell Cannabis Barometer Q3 2026; HLfGP Hessen letter of 8 June 2026 and August 2026 guidance. Capacity in place is the stated capacity of a built, certified facility, trimmed where the facility cannot support it; hybrid growers are carried at twice their own cultivation unless they publish a processing figure. 28% of EU-GMP capacity rests on Cannamonitor estimates, and 71t sits at distressed operators but is kept because the certified facility exists. Demonstrated output is a floor, not a forecast.
