1. Hempitecture detail
2. ISDA hemp program detail

Hempitecture plans to broaden its product line of sustainable building materials, learning from its first year operating a Jerome, Idaho, manufacturing plant that handles hemp fiber.

The Ketchum-based company incorporated in 2018 and was focused on its Hempcrete cast-in-place wall insulation system.

Founder and CEO Matthew Meade, an architect, pivoted to HempWool — which sold well but was substantially more expensive than other insulation largely because it was imported. He focused on U.S. manufacturing in response to COVID-19 challenges with supply chains and transportation costs.

Gross revenue from HempWool, targeted at about $1 million a year, is expected to keep growing, he said.

Planned new offerings include rigid items such as panels, carpet underlayment and acoustic products, Meade said.

“By the end of 2024, Hempitecture will grow from a company that is just focused on one product to a focus on whole-home solutions that improve sustainability, health and safety as well as performance in the home,” he said.

Making adjustments to variety of hemp fibers 

Along with opening new market segments, the broadening aims to position the company and its crew to make the most of lessons learned using precise, exacting equipment on an inherently variable natural material.

Uniformity is a characteristic of many building materials that incorporate synthetics. With hemp fiber, “from one field to the next and one seed genetic to the next, it is going to be different,” Meade said.

“We had a hard time getting the manufacturing line operational,” he said. “We went through a whole truckload of fiber without producing a product.”

Meade and staff realized they must make adjustments to the state-of-the-art equipment each day in response to the “reality of the fiber, the conditions and the product,” he said.

Running the manufacturing line as quickly as possible to maximize efficiency always was the goal, and “we learned to respond to what the natural fiber was telling us to gain that production efficiency.”

Partly because of that experience, “we’re excited about the future and for what is possible because there is such a range” of products and uses, he said.

U.S. hemp suppliers growing

Meanwhile, the relatively young U.S. hemp industry is maturing.

“As Hempitecture has grown, so have our suppliers,” Meade said. “And we’ve seen an evolution in not just our own quality, but the suppliers’ quality — which in turn has a synergistic effect.”

Hemp fiber separated by type sources the Jerome plant. Most comes from Montana and Alberta, Canada.

Idaho recently completed its second season of industrial hemp production. Acreage more than doubled from 2022, according to the state Department of Agriculture.

“With more industrial hemp being grown and processed in Idaho, Hempitecture looks forward to the possibility to localize our supply chain” as well as “supporting Idaho farmers and processors as they seek to introduce a new agricultural commodity into cropping systems,” Meade said.

Jerome staffing, roughly six full-time-equivalent jobs, may double by the end of 2024 depending on business volume, he said. Machinery additions and modifications are expected, in part to use byproducts from manufacturing.