For the Love of Hemp
Making sense of supply
On of the first things that we get asked about hempcrete (once the basics of what it is have been addressed) is where the hemp comes from. Given that the bulk of a hempcrete bio-composite is the hemp hurd, this question is worth diving into. Here we go!
Supply – European Hurd
Most of the projects with hempcrete components built in the US thus far have sourced their hemp hurd material from Europe. There have been a handful of projects built using hurd from North America and China but most projects in the US being specified right now are still relying on hurd from Europe. This is for several reasons.
The hemp hurd used for hempcrete is typically a byproduct of the fiber industry. In Europe the fiber, and more specifically the natural hemp fiber industries, have been established for decades already whereas in the US it has been harder to scale this segment as we are newer to relearning how to grow industrial hemp and sell it within the textile and related industries. Most North American suppliers have not yet scaled to be able to provide a consistent quantity that is needed now and more importantly will be needed as the industry grows rapidly over the next few years.
Because of the more mature nature of the fiber industry and the related building industry, they have honed their processes to be able to produce a higher quality hurd in terms of consistency of processing around retting (or breaking down/apart the outer bast fibers and inner cellulosic woody hurd core), uniformity of particle sizing, separation and limitation of fibers, separation and limitation of fines or dust, humidity, and inclusion of other organic and non-organic material.
In terms of cost competitiveness, despite a shipping load of around 40% the cost for imported material is typically less than most domestic supply and it is typically a higher quality material.
On the left is Kanabat from La Chanvriere, a cooperative grower and processor in France.
In the middle is a load we received in Massachusetts of Dun Agro from the Netherlands. O
n the right is a bag of Tradical Chanvribat – material used in several of the first hempcrete projects in the US.
Distinguishing a difference in the European Market.
Since Europe was decades ahead when the first projects started to be built in the US 10 years ago, most of these projects have sourced both their hurd and binder from Europe. There many manufacturers of fiber with hurd as a byproduct in Europe but there are only a handful of large suppliers who regularly export the hurd to the US.
In general, the European hurd is more consistently sized, cleaner and smaller which is also required when specifying a spray application. Now let’s look at one reason why the European hurd is currently better.
The control of the sowing, growing, harvesting, and retting is so important that many of the leading industrial hemp producers in vertically integrate or partner with famers to tightly the process and timing. Hanffaser is a hemp insulation manufacturer in Germany and is one such example where they partner with farmers, tell them what variety to plant, when to plant it and provide the seed, can provide the equipment to harvest and train and work with framers to guarantee they can control as much as the yield and quality as they can as an input into their processing.
Sourcing and supply details
Kanabat from France has one of the cleanest and most consistent hurd available. This hurd comes in 44 pound bags and yields about 6 cubic feet per bag when mixed with a binder and water. The company that makes Kanabat, La Chanvriere, is a farmer and producer cooperative from the 1970’s. They generally do not want to deal with a high volume of inquiries and individual shipping to customers so they prefer to ship to the US through a few key suppliers. For those looking to source this hemp hurd material it can be ordered through Cameron MacIntosh from Americhanvre out of Pennsylvania.
Dunagro from the Netherlands is a close second to Kanabat in terms of quality and consistency. Dun Agro is a vertically integrated grower, processer, builder, and supplier of hempcrete hurd. This hurd comes in 33 pound bags and yields about 4.5 cubic feet per bag when mixed with a binder and water. Dunagro hurd can be ordered directly from the company (and there are some logistics involved) or ordered through one of several intermediaries such as Hemp Tech Global out of Canada or HempStone in Massachusetts.
The hurd on the right is connected to Lime Technology in the UK and marketed in conjunction with their Tradical Hemcrete line of binders. A partnership between that company and the US Heritage Group in Illinois resulted in American Lime Technology. This group was involved in a lot of early US projects.
The retail marked up cost of European Hurd is currently around $0.50-$0.65/per pound or $3.33 to $4.75 per Cubic foot of installed material. As with most things, pricing is dependent on volume as it really depends on shipment size and the degree of handling that is required stateside. Full containers direct shipped are the best deal while palletized partial loads are at the higher end of the range.
Supply – Standards
In France, the hemp building industry, Chanvre Baitement has a Certification Label that sets the standard for hurd quality within their hemp building industry. They created the CenC (Construire en Chanvre) to oversee and create a testing standard for hempcrete and its constituent materials and training for installation and resources for sourcing materials from companies that test their material at accredited laboratories. This standard is used by Kanabat from La Chanvriere. While not all European producer countries have a standard or one this rigorous, in general they have had many more years to receive feedback and refine their processing to produce building quality hurd. This standard is not used by all of Europe and needless to say this is certainly not true in the US yet.
The French standard looks at several attributes to ensure a uniform and dependable source of supply for their hempcrete industry.
Construire en Chanvre - testing standard for hempcrete hurd materials
A few of the essential characteristics of this standard are…
· No additional non-hemp organic matter or bio materials
· Uniformity of particle or aggregate sizing.
· Moisture content of the raw material and final hurd is monitored
· Dust or fines – need to be limited as they rob the water from the mix and can prevent the lime-based binder from properly bonding to the hurd.
· Outer (bast) fibers are ok in limited quantities but too much can impact the mixer and other equipment used resulting in improperly mixed batches or equipment that gets wound up with fiber. Some have had the idea that fiber can act as reinforcement like GFRC - Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete and this is true to a limited degree but again can also interfere with proper bonding of the binder to the hurd matrix.
CenC Standards include hurd sizing, fiber content, and color conformity
The US hemp hurd sample in the middle image still has a long way to go in terms of processing to be ready to use in hempcrete. HempStone provides hemp hurd analysis for processors and farmers in order to support the development of the hempcrete building industry.
Supply – North American Hurd
While the US has had some false starts and remains a work in progress, the Canadians have had a few more years and thus now have longer track record of supplying hemp hurd though inconsistency of material can still be a problem.
In the US and Canada there have been a handful of players that have gotten in the hurd supply game and again this is usually as a secondary market for attempts at industrial hemp fiber growth, processing and sale, which has been more successful North of the Border. Several companies on both sides of the line have come and gone and only a few exist and not yet at a scale to meet our needs. However, this is quickly changing…. In order to break the barrier of scale, we need a build-up of textile and manufacturing industries to drive farming and processing of industrial hemp.
Plains Hemp was around for decades and was based in Southwestern Manitoba, Canada. They have supplied hemp for projects done by Chris Magwood and the Endeavor Centre in Ontario for example. Unfortunately, Plains Hemp went out of business.
Canadian Rockies Hemp Corporation is another provider in Central US and Canada. Presently, their supply is quite limited, but they are opening a new production facility in early 2021 that will increase their monthly production 20 fold to 5,000 tons per month. These Canadian hemp materials can be ordered directly through the manufacturer.
Valley Bio has been around 8-9 years and is based in eastern Ontario. It was the hemp supplied for the first hemp house in New England in Barnard, Vermont along with a very few bales of European hemp when the hemp was held up at the Canadian/US border. These Canadian hemp materials can be ordered directly through the manufacturer.
Nature Fibres in South Central Quebec (halfway between Montreal and Quebec City) is the closest Canadian supplier of hemp material to New England, although they are primarily marketing a hemp wool batt insulation. This can be acquired through a couple key suppliers in the US. West of the Mississippi through Hempitecture and on the East coast through Will Grupenhoff at Global Wholesale Supply.
We have had two large suppliers in the US, Hemp, Inc. in North Carolina and Sunstrand in Kentucky who were promising but never fulfilled their potential. Sunstrand failed when it got squeezed between a bad crop year and its larger than could be delivered contract commitments.
At this point the fiber/hurd processing capacity in the US is very limited and the quality had not yet been consistent enough to be relied upon as a stable source for building. The US currently has several suppliers who are in the process of gearing up both their volume and quality of material. Bastcore on the left in Alabama and the Hempville on the right in North Carolina.
Of the US companies we have relationships with, The Hempville in Siler City is presently the most promising hemp hurd supplier in the Eastern United States. Our initial hemp product evaluation illustrates that comparing their material to the CenC standard has the potential for a US source of hurd that has the potential to meet this strict standard.
The retail marked up cost of United States Hurd is currently around $0.70-$0.85/per pound or $5.25 to $6.75 per Cubic foot of installed material. As with most things, pricing is dependent on volume and distance traveled as it really depends on shipment size and the degree of handling that is required stateside. Full containers direct shipped regionally are the best deal while palletized partial loads are at the higher end of the range. Caution: there is a point where distance travelled does not make financial sense for hemp. Call your supplier to find the best price for hurd in your specific location.
Don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’ve hit a roadblock on your material sourcing? Give HempStone a call, we’d be glad to help!