Nanticoke

Trade press describes the origin plainly: "A garden store from its inception in 1973, Nanticoke first added hemp, then wholesale cannabis cultivation to its portfolio during the decade and a half since Shafer purchased it back in 2011."

Nanticoke describes its own team in the same grower's voice: "We are greenhouse growers who love to grow plants. We are privileged and excited to be participating in the legal Adult Use Cannabis Market in NYS. Our love of this plant shows in our final product."

The garden center side of the business, Nanticoke Gardens, continues to grow and sell ordinary bedding plants and nursery stock alongside the cannabis operation rather than being replaced by it.

Nanticoke's address is 1543 Union Center Maine Highway, Endicott, New York, in Broome County, where its Adult-Use Conditional Cultivator license, OCM-AUCC-22-000079, is also registered.

Trade press describes the physical layout: "Nanticoke's garden plants now grow on the same property as its retail store, but the cannabis greenhouse is 3 miles away in a repurposed and expanded facility that no longer houses the company's garden plants. Ditto for the production facility, which is another couple of miles north of the greenhouse."

The cannabis greenhouse itself started as "a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse" built for hemp, was capped at "12,500 square feet under the company's licensing tier" once cannabis regulation applied, and New York's Office of Cannabis Management has since approved doubling that growing space to 25,000 square feet.

Nanticoke's own site names its ownership directly: "Chip Shafer and Pete Shafer, the owners of Nanticoke, were born and raised in Endicott NY."

Pete's route into the business came from outside it: "Pete Shafer cut his teeth in the beer distribution industry, just a three-hour drive southeast in New York City. He burned out after a decade in the Big Apple and was ready to leave the hustle and bustle of city life for good, he says."

Chip's route came from already working there: "Chip was a Nanticoke Gardens employee at the time, working as the production manager and assistant grower for 12 years, and advised Pete that the store's owner was looking to retire."

Trade press traces the hemp pedigree to a research partnership: "In 2016, Nanticoke Gardens became one of New York's first hemp cultivators after partnering with Binghamton University, which had applied for one of the state's research licenses. Under the partnership, Nanticoke produced seeds and plants for the university."

That early hemp work led directly into adult use cannabis once licensing opened: "In May of 2022, Nanticoke was awarded an Adult Use Conditional Cultivation license."

Nanticoke now describes its own scope in cannabis as broader than growing alone: "Nanticoke is a Cultivator, Processor and Distributor of Adult Use Cannabis throughout New York State."

Trade press describes the naming decision as deliberate, not accidental: "Shafer and his marketing team spent weeks pondering a name to distinguish their cannabis brand from the garden center... 'Nanticoke Gardens' would continue to grow and sell regular plants, while the cannabis brand would simply go by 'Nanticoke.'"

The cannabis side of the business now employs its own staff under that separate name: "Shafer and his younger brother and co-owner, Chip Shafer, employ nearly 50 people across Nanticoke's cannabis cultivation and production facilities."

The split also shows up in licensing, where the cannabis brand's processor and distributor permits are held under a distinct legal name: "NYS Licenses: Nanticoke Hemp Inc. OCM-PROC-24-000002, OCM-DIST-24-000002."

Trade press lays out the regulation Nanticoke operates under: "New York's strict quality control laws for cannabis forced cultivators and producers to test products in their final packaged form before they could hit dispensary shelves... a five-pack of pre-rolls and an eighth ounce of flower has to be tested separately, even if their contents came from the same crop's batch."

That rule means two packages drawn from the same harvest, just packed in different formats, cannot share a single test result, adding real testing cost and time to Nanticoke's production process regardless of batch origin.