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About Us
Shore Organics is your local New Jersey Hemp farm. We bring high-quality and fresh harvests to New Jersey. As an organic Farmer, we grow and process at the highest food grade standards. Our passion and care for our plants allow our smokable hemp flower and (soon to offer) CBD products, to be consistent, and reliable.
Shore Organics will grow locally, process locally, and be available direct to our local communities. Although we are starting as a small hemp farm, we deem this as an advantage to be able to provide careful watch to our harvests and to be able to have creative control over our products. Shore Organics is providing the New Jersey hemp market with a seed-to-table experience. Our clients can be confident our hemp flower and CBD products are 100% pesticide-free, 100% organic and ready for safe consumption.
Shore Organics is a family run business. Heather and Michael Scannell began their aquaponics journey in 2015. As a young family, Heather had large gardens in the spring and summer that she missed tremendously in the winter months. She and Michael researched and decided to create an aquaponics garden in the garage for the winter. What started as a way to have their own produce year-round, grew from the garage to a small green house in the back yard, to their current farm, to a home delivery produce company - HS Farms Inc. HS Farms Inc. is a USDA Organically Certified Aquaponics Farm in Ocean County delivering leafy greens and seasonal vegetables to local families as a seed to table experience.
HOW IT STARTED
“Our children had food allergies and intolerances, severe eczema and some autoimmune concerns. This was a driving force for us to research where the food we were buying was coming from. Although we were buying organic produce it never tasted as good as what came from the gardens. We knew we could do better. We started to look at organic practices versus organic certified. Wow, what a difference. We wanted fewer chemicals in the food we ate to make sure we were doing best by our kids. We decided that home grown was best. We grow our farms with practices we want to feed our family with – no synthetic chemicals, no GMOs, and no pesticides.” - Heather
SEGWAY TO HEMP
Heather and Michael’s farming experience lends perfectly to their new adventure with hemp. In addition to their farm, Heather is a physical therapist. A portion of her patient population started using CBD products as they became more mainstream in NJ. Patients with chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, crippling anxiety, and specifically her oncology case load were able to see the benefits of this non-addictive symptom management.
The hang-ups were inconsistencies and a general lack of knowledge by the consumer. Patients would find something that was beneficial and could not get the same product again the next time they were at the store. Or they would go in and have no idea what to get and either get nothing or get something and just cross their fingers. In the process of self-learning to be able to answer general questions for her case load, Heather thought their aquaponics farm would be an ideal way to create local hemp with a known chain of custody. With CBD products not being regulated by the FDA, it was a similar issue to the organic certified versus organic practices Heather and Michael found when starting their produce farm. Michael and Heather are passionate about doing things right.
”Hemp can be such a great product for many of us, if only we had access to a trusted source of true organic hemp. We feel that the people of New Jersey deserve the highest quality hemp and CBD products and we believe with the experience we have from HS Farms Inc., we can be that source of trusted local organic hemp.” Michael
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Medical background as a manager and physical therapist with Kessler Rehabilitations for 20+ years.
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Master's degree from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
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Agricultural background as a farmer and owner of HS Farms LLC.
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Agricultural background as the COO for HS Farms LLC.
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Driving force of our green technology and building our specialized aquaponics systems.
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20+ years of private financial services and college funding.
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Cannabis Scientis and educator, specializing in genetic and phenotype variation.
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PhD, Master's and Bachelor's degrees from the University of Northern Colorado.
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Published researcher.
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Academic and research consultant.
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Cannabis Initiative Leader and Managing consultation at Berkley Research Group LLC.
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Master's degree in finance from the University of Amsterdam.
