This week on the show we talk with Ken Meyer of Complete Hemp Processing in Winfred, South Dakota. As of last week, Meyer is also a co-founder of Renewabuild Great Plains — the first U.S.-licensed manufacturer of structural hempcrete blocks.
We've been telling the story of these structural blocks for a long time on the podcast. We first encountered them back in 2019 — they look like giant Lego blocks and work much the same way — at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, where the Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council had them on display.
Back then, the blocks were made by a Canadian company called Just BioFiber in Alberta. Today, the technology is licensed and administered by another Canadian company, Renewabuild Field to Form, which has made improvements to the original design of the block.
The structural hemp blocks differ from traditional hempcrete construction because their internal frame makes them load-bearing in a way that spray-applied or cast-in-place hempcrete cannot offer.
"It has a frame inside it. It's a glass-filled biocarbonate frame ... and then the hempcrete is pressed around it," Meyer said. "And that frame provides a structure in the wall. So that makes the block a structural block, and the block itself in a wall system replaces the sheet rock, the insulation and the timber."
The story of the blocks continues now, as the first U.S. company prepares to manufacture them at a plant in Rock Valley, Iowa.
"At Complete Hemp Processing in Winfred, South Dakota, we decorticate hemp stocks. And we need a place to sell the hemp hurd. And our farmers need us to have a place to sell hemp hurd so they can put hemp in rotation with corn and soybeans," he said.
This is how an industry scales. Dedicated, passionate people working tirelessly to build a supply chain.
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The Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast returns this week with an interview featuring Ken Meyer, owner of Complete Hemp Processing in Winfred, South Dakota, and one of three co-founders of Renewabuild Great Plains — the first U.S.-licensed manufacturer of structural hempcrete blocks. Host Eric Hurlock sits down with Meyer to discuss the new hempcrete block factory being built in Rock Valley, Iowa, the long journey of the structural hemp block from Canada to the United States, and what this milestone means for the American industrial hemp industry, hempcrete construction, and the future of sustainable building materials.
Renewabuild Great Plains is the first U.S. company to license the structural hempcrete block technology developed by Just BioFiber of Alberta, Canada, and now administered by Renewabuild Field to Form. Unlike traditional hempcrete construction methods — including spray-applied hempcrete and cast-in-place hempcrete — the Renewabuild block features an internal glass-filled biocarbonate frame, making it a load-bearing structural wall component. A single block replaces sheetrock, insulation, and timber framing in one product, offering builders, architects, and engineers a scalable, lower-carbon alternative to conventional wall systems with improved fire resistance, durability, and building-envelope performance.
The new Rock Valley, Iowa hempcrete block factory is scheduled to receive its equipment in December 2026 or January 2027, with the capacity to produce two blocks a minute, more than 900,000 structural hempcrete blocks per year running three shifts. At full production, the facility will manufacture enough wall material for roughly 500 perimeter walls of 2,000-square-foot homes annually. The factory's entire production equipment fits inside two shipping containers, making the model regionally scalable across the United States — a key part of Renewabuild's strategy to support local farmers, local hemp processors, and local hempcrete construction supply chains. Meyer is joined as co-founder by John Peterson of Dakota Hemp and Bill Brehmer of Renewabuild Great Plains, alongside a group of Iowa farmers who have invested in the project.
This episode of the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast also revisits archival audio from January 2019, when Pennsylvania hemp historian Les Stark first introduced the Just BioFiber structural hempcrete block at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, alongside the original podcast interview with Just BioFiber co-founder Michael D. Champlain. Listeners will also hear from David Geertz of Renewabuild, recorded at the International Hemp Building Symposium at Kansayapi in Minnesota. Plus, host Eric Hurlock follows up on last week's interview with Pennsylvania farmer Steve Groff with a statement from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture regarding agricultural innovation grant reimbursements. Subscribe to the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast for in-depth coverage of industrial hemp, hemp farming, hempcrete construction, hemp processing, and the people building the American hemp supply chain.
