Coloradan Operating Papa John's in Russia Also Owns Boulder Hemp Company

The co-owner of Miraflora Naturals, a Boulder-based hemp and CBD company, also operates nearly 200 Papa John's restaurants in Russia, and he's not shutting them down.

In a March 14 story titled "He's American, He Oversees Papa John's in Russia and He's Staying," the New York Times detailed Christopher Wynne's decision to keep open approximately 190 Papa John's locations in Russia — despite the fact that Starbucks, McDonald's and Yum Brands, the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, had already announced they were suspending operations in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Papa John’s International has also paused corporate operations in Russia — but Papa John's International doesn't own Papa John's pizzerias in that country. Russians largely do, according to the Times, thanks to a franchising agreement controlled by Wynne's company, PJ Western.

Wynne launched his hemp and CBD product manufacturing company, Miraflora Naturals, in 2020. "Chris, a native Coloradan, likes to pass himself off as 'a pizza guy,'" according to the Miraflora website. "But what that really means is that he built one of the largest pizza franchises in the world — bringing pizza to cultures where it wasn’t a thing and donating much of the proceeds to good causes along the way."

Although Wynne's Colorado representatives declined to comment on his business operations in Russia to Westword, he told the Times that he felt a need to "show compassion for the people, my employees, franchisees and customers without judging them because of the politicians in power," and that he believes keeping Papa John's open "is the right thing to do."

However, Wynne also has significant personal financial interests in Russia, where he's been conducting various business deals since the 2000s; since the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has warned that Russia could nationalize assets of foreign companies that left the country.

The Miraflora website points to a 160-acre farm in Boulder County — where Wynne lives with his wife and daughter — as the source of the company's hemp flower that produces the CBD oil that is bottled and blended into Miraflora products. Last summer, Westword spoke with Miraflora co-owner Brent Facchinello
about alpacas that live on the farm and help fertilize the hemp, but Wynne wasn't part of the interview.