About us
Kombinat Konopny is a Polish company with global ambitions. Our registered office is located on the premises of the former Horticultural Combine near Elbląg.
40 hectares of fields, a rapidly growing team of hard-working people, machinery of our own design and plans that no one has ever dared to implement!
Our dream is that every person should have easy access to high quality hemp products.
We are Kombinat Konopny – we create for the love of hemp.
Maciej Kowalski
- a founder of Kombinat Konopny
The founder and originator of Kombinat Konopny is Maciej Kowalski – a man who has been professionally involved with hemp for several years.
He started his adventure with these plants from an activism in the form of publishing a hemp newspaper – Spliff. In the years 2011-2014 he was also a spokesman for the Free Hemp Association.
He was the first entrepreneur in Poland to obtain a permit for growing fiber hemp, which ultimately turned his initial fascination with hemp into a serious business.
What we
do?
We grow legal hemp in the whole EU, which is used to produce health- and environment-friendly dietary supplements. Each month thousands of satisfied people use them.
We want to reach the widest possible audience, who will see that they do not have to overpay for products with CBD, because these products do not have to come only from expensive foreign crops.
We are at your disposal here, on the spot, and we will be happy to share the fruits of our efforts with you.
Why are we doing this?
We want to restore hemp to its former glory. The hemp tradition in Polish agriculture dates back to the Middle Ages or even further. The last few decades have seen the decline of this industry, but we and our shareholders believe that it can flourish again.
Our mission is not just to provide unrivalled quality – we want to educate the public about hemp! We also believe that access to CBD shouldn’t be a luxury reserved only for the selected people –
that’s why we combine traditional solutions with modern ones, in order to simplify production processes as much as possible, and thus make our products available at prices attractive to everyone!
It is worth being with us!
There was a lot of buzz about Kombinat Konopny after our record-breaking first share issue. Another success in December 2021 only confirmed the gigantic interest in our business. The trust of private investors has surpassed our wildest expectations – the issue lasted about 420 seconds, and in this time we have raised 4.5 million PLN – thus setting a new record in Polish crowdinvesting, of which we are particularly proud!
We have very specific plans on how to invest these funds so that our products effectively meet the needs of our Customers. We have great hope that you will also like the idea of our company.
We fight for rights in hemp industry!
Court judgment: hemp is NOT a “Novel Food”, it can be used in food!
The Polish Main Sanitary Inspectorate (GIS) and its “experts” do not like hemp. After many years of groundless accusations against entrepreneurs, a historic judgment was handed down in our case against the GIS.
When we first launched our ‘Zioła na Dobry Nastrój’ (‘Herbs for a Good Mood’), the officials immediately sent us a letter, threatening us with court judgments and forbidding us to sell the product.
What is more, without any investigation, they posted a notice on their website stating that the product could not be marketed. Based on our experience, we filed a complaint against them in court. The first hearing ended up, unfortunately in a typical and scandalous way, with the officials being proved right, to such an extent that the “justification for the verdict” even included extensive fragments of copied (including typos!) GIS formulations.
Not giving up, we appealed the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court, which… agreed with us, ordering the case to be reconsidered by a lower court.
The verdict is probably the first case in Poland (or even in Europe!) where the court did not limit itself to a mindless repetition of the authority’s stance, but instead examined the case on its own merits and came to the only conclusion that could be accepted on a rational basis – that hemp is not a novel food. The decision opens the way for our “counter-attack” – the officials who knowingly committed fraud, concealment and misrepresentation will now be held personally accountable by us.
Below are a few highlights from the reasoning of the judgment – and for those hungry for more details, we encourage you to read the full text of the letter below in this article.
“Neither a public administration body nor a court, ruling again on the same issue, may disregard the NSA’s interpretation of the law”
“this plant (…) has a history of use and does not constitute a novel food”
“The GIS’s assertion in that situation that (…) only the following products are known to have been consumed as food before 15 May 1997: hemp seed, hemp seed oil, hemp seed flour, defatted hemp seed, constituted an unauthorised overinterpretation of the European Commission’s position”
“The GIS’s interpretation of the provisions of the Novel Foods Catalogue in the context of the ‘novelty’ of Cannabis sativa L. herb as food was flawed. The applicant is therefore right that the position of the GIS is wrong”
“A definitive finding of the ‘novelty’ of the herb Cannabis sativa L. as a food by the authority was also impossible because it was clear from the opinion of the European Commission of 18 December 1997 submitted by the applicant, also known to the authority ex officio, that the herb Cannabis sativa L. was excluded from the scope of the Novel Foods Regulation. It states that ‘it has been decided that food containing parts of hemp seed shall not be subject to the Novel Foods Regulation’.
“(…) the undoubted evidence presented by the party in the context of the procedure in question showed a history of consumption of hemp herb both as food and to supplement the normal diet”
“(…) the authority first misinterpreted the provisions of the Catalogue of Novel Foods (…) and then carried out an incomplete and minimal evidential procedure, while ignoring documentary evidence submitted by the applicant, as well as evidence produced by the authority itself and known to it ex officio”
Of course, we do not expect the GIS to come to its senses as a result and accept that it has been wrong for years. We believe, however, that “the truth will prevail”, so we carry on with our work and, in the meantime, we are happy to encourage you to share this good news with the whole hemp fraternity!
There would be no such verdict if it wasn’t for the enormous work of my wife, the author of the substantive part of all our pleadings, Dr. Beata Plutowska, who for a good few years has been collecting evidence not only for the “history of cannabis consumption”, but also building up a sizeable file of abuses and reprehensible acts of official “experts” – and she won’t hesitate to use it ?
(Maciej Kowalski)