Author: bfields

The Dime Episode 55 Transcript: Your Cannabis Tour Guide ft. Johanna Nuding, Host of the Casually Baked Podcast

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Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!

In this episode, Bryan Fields (Twitter: @bryanfields24) and Kellan Finney (Twitter: @Kellan_Finney) sit down with Johanna Nuding (Twitter: @jonuding), Host of the Casually Baked Podcast:

Her journey to becoming a cannabis lifestyle guide // Understanding dosage levels and balancing infused products // The average length of a high when using infused products // Cannabis tourism and how it works // The similarities between the cannabis and wine industry // Why a personalized experience is important for learning about cannabis

Johanna Nuding is an entrepreneur, cannabis expert, and educator based in Oakland, CA. She has twenty years of experience building brands and customer engagement in professional sports, media, real estate, concert and lifestyle tours. She’s served the cannabis industry and community for five years through her edutainment platform, Casually Baked, where she showcases the evolving landscape, research, and science of contemporary cannabis. Her weekly “potcast” is in its fifth year and highlights the responsible side of plant medicine through candid chats with cannabis scientists and researchers worldwide, heritage and regenerative farmers, military veterans, makers, wellness practitioners, and cannabis industry leaders building the nascent legal cannabis

Connect with Johanna

JohannaNuding.com

[email protected]

Casually Baked, the Potcast: casuallybaked.com @casuallybaked on FB IG, Twitter. Casually Baked YouTube Channel

[00:00:00] Bryan Fields: [00:00:00] This is the dime, dive into the cannabis and hemp industry through trends, insights, predictions, and tangents.

[00:00:11] Bryan Fields: [00:00:11] What’s up guys. Welcome back to another episode of the dime as always. I’ve got my right hand, man, Kellen city here with me. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Joanna nuding host of the very popular, casual, big podcast, as well as the cannabis lifestyle guy.

[00:00:24] Joanna, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing

[00:00:26] Johanna Nuding: [00:00:26] today? Nice. Thanks for having me. I’m great. It’s a beautiful day in Oakland, California. No.

[00:00:32] Bryan Fields: [00:00:32] And how you doing today?

[00:00:33] Kellan Finney: [00:00:33] I’m doing well, you know, enjoying another sunny day out in Colorado. So no complaints,

[00:00:37] Bryan Fields: [00:00:37] I think before we dive into these questions, I’d love to learn a little bit about your background and how you got into the cannabis space.

[00:00:43] Johanna Nuding: [00:00:43] So that’s a pretty big question cause I’ve been on one hell of a roller coaster ride, but back in 2012, I quit a corporate marketing director job in Austin, Texas. I gave away all my things. I sold my car and I [00:01:00] moved to bologna Italy to ponder the question, how can I get paid to be myself? What would that look like?

[00:01:08] So I took a mid-life retirement and posted up in Italy and spent the next 16 months. Dreaming up being host of casually baked to the podcast and your cannabis lifestyle guide. Amazing.

[00:01:22] Bryan Fields: [00:01:22] Amazing. So I think before we dive into the hard hitting questions, let’s start with the hardest one of them, all your go-to meal after consuming cannabinoids, you

[00:01:31] Johanna Nuding: [00:01:31] know, that’s interesting because I think you shouldn’t like once I consume.

[00:01:37] Like if I eat, then it, the buzz starts going away. So I like to to hold off and then of course I’m going to get into some pasta. I mean, like pastable and Yazzie is one of my specialties, so I really liked to get high and then get in the kitchen and cook [00:02:00] and like work up the appetite and get excited about it.

[00:02:03] And of course, Burn myself and maybe cut myself every now and again, but you know, harmless, harmless fun in the kitchen.

[00:02:11] Bryan Fields: [00:02:11] Amazing. See, wherever nature just takes you in your experience,

[00:02:15] Kellan Finney: [00:02:15] was Italy a motivation for the apostle love or did you go to Italy because of your love for pasta?

[00:02:20] Johanna Nuding: [00:02:20] I think I might’ve been Italian in a former life, but I wasn’t a cook.

[00:02:26] You know, I was nervous in the kitchen and I had been experimenting. With making edibles. I had, I’ve always been more adventurous with cannabis than my friends were. And so, you know, when those very first vape pens came out with the little, you know, ceramic and the battery and you loaded a tiny little bowl.

[00:02:49] And so I was always trying out new products and then I started extracting. The oil and making butters and then cookies and [00:03:00] cupcakes and all kinds of stuff. You know, I was living in Austin, Texas, and it’s the music capital of the world. I believe we call it. So I would make cookies and brownies and rice Krispie treats and sell them to my friends before the major concerts and festivals.

[00:03:15] And those one day I sold. A thousand dollars worth of cookies in a day. So that was my comfort level in the kitchen was just baking edibles. But if I couldn’t invite somebody over for a meal, I was nervous wreck. I can’t make chicken. So, you know, when I moved to Italy, my whole process was I’m going to learn the art of doing nothing.

[00:03:39] I’m going to learn how to cook. And I’m just gonna, you know, be high and absorb this culture and figure it all out. And I cooked myself three meals a day and would, you know, I had, my refrigerator was the size of one of those in our dorm rooms in college. So it’s not like you can go to the store or, you know, fucking Costco or [00:04:00] something.

[00:04:00] So I was buying food every two days and having such a good time learning to cook and I didn’t speak Italian and I didn’t really have any intention of setting in a classroom. So I started learning more Italian by hanging out with people in the kitchen. And so I learned, started learning how to make really amazing sauces, how to turn leftovers into a, you know, a gourmet meal.

[00:04:27] And I kind of started learning Italian that way. And so when I came back, To the United States. I was a really confident chef and I was super confident to talk to people because everybody could understand the words coming out of my mouth and I, them. So that really was the best gift I ever gave myself.

[00:04:48] And you know, I’m, I’m single. Hello everyone. So I’m single and I know how to cook now. So I feel like it made me a more marketable partner,

[00:04:59] Bryan Fields: [00:04:59] strong characteristics [00:05:00] will pack all the single men out there. Have we experimented with any infused pastas, any sauces? This is a personal question of mine, because for me, the experience of eating pasta is one of my favorite things.

[00:05:12] And it’s, if I can get an infused dinner at the same time, I mean, we are checking two at the same time. That’s something that you’ve kind of dabbled

[00:05:18] Johanna Nuding: [00:05:18] with. Well, what I do is keep an infused olive oil in my kitchen. Right now I have a Humboldt blend. It’s got three or four different strains from different farmer friends around Humboldt.

[00:05:32] And, you know, you have to be really careful about heating it to a certain point where you’re not. Breaking it and, you know, losing all of the functional parts of the plant. And so what I end up doing is it’s a drizzling of over your sauce at the end, you know, right before you serve it to somebody or it’s incorporating it into some sort of a salad dressing or something like that.

[00:05:56] But, you know, you don’t want, after you’ve made the oil, you don’t want to [00:06:00] heat it up again. So it’s just being clever with how you use it. But. You know, in my kitchen, I’ve got my GrapeSEED oil, my olive oil, my infused olive oil and my avocado oil. And so, you know, you just pull what you want and, you know, drizzle a little here and there, but I do add it to my granola recipe.

[00:06:20] And so then in the mornings I get a little shot of THC with my breakfast every day,

[00:06:28] Bryan Fields: [00:06:28] best way to start the day. So how do you know, like how much you’re consuming when you’re pouring it? Because. Sometimes for me, especially with infuse Volvo more is always better until it’s too much more. So how do you kind of balance that?

[00:06:40] Can you,

[00:06:40] Johanna Nuding: [00:06:40] it, well, I think it’s mostly making sure, you know, how much. Flower you have in the original recipe. So like, I am creating an oil that is a microdose, you know, it’s, it’s not something that’s going to kick you in the pants. Now I [00:07:00] do have some other stuff that will kick you in the pants, but I don’t put that in my food.

[00:07:05] So if you know how much flour is in there in the beginning, then when you’re just drizzling some on you, you don’t have anything to worry about. Now I make it to where one fourth of. A cup because that’s typically what a lot of dessert recipes like muffins, cookies, that kind of thing. It’ll want to afford a cup of oil.

[00:07:23] And so I made it to where that one fourth, a cup of oil makes a. Casually baked edible. Does that make sense? Cause casually baked Is art of being functionally high

[00:07:36] Bryan Fields: [00:07:36] failed miserably at bat being functionally, because for me sometimes it’s it’s this is awesome. I just need more and more. And for me it gets harder to stop.

[00:07:43] So I guess like, I’m just thinking about the experience of making that with, with my buddies and making the chicken wings and how amazing that sauce was and just how we just kept eating that. And. I guess if Kellen your experience with that, you know, take us through that. Have you any dabbled with the infused olive oil?

[00:07:58] Kellan Finney: [00:07:58] I haven’t dabbled with infused [00:08:00] olive oil. I have made butter and use the butter to make cookies. Right. And it’s very similar. Actually, the first time we did it, we bought a bunch of a shake in college. Right. And did the whole thing into a whole ounce into 10 steaks of butter. And we used all the butter to make.

[00:08:15] Four or five brownies. And like we made the bottom of one night and one of my roommates got up early in the morning and actually went and made the brownies. And he was like eating the batter during the whole process. Then you have like a brownie and a half, like me and my other roommate came downstairs at like 10 in the morning.

[00:08:30] And we were like, oh, well, like let’s, let’s have a brownie. We’re like, where’s, where’s our other roommate. And we like, couldn’t find him. And we didn’t see him for 24 hours. Right. And like, we talked to him the next day, he comes out of his room on Sunday and he was like, I just had the craziest experience of my life.

[00:08:47] Like I was hallucinating. And like, we like ended up doing the math and we’re like, oh yeah, he consumed a, a quarter ounce in one city. And that quantity of THC is definitely, I mean, there’s a [00:09:00] reason it’s called a hallucinogen. Right. Like consume a ton of it. But I did actually have a really pleasant experience at an infused dinner in 2018 at the MJ biz conference out in Vegas.

[00:09:11] And it was done by the herbal chef. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but he does a lot of really cool infusion soft and everything he was talking about was making that oil and exactly what you mentioned in terms of dosing it out properly for that quarter cup. And it was one of the most unique, awesome experiences in my life.

[00:09:28] It was like a seven course meal and like none of the actual food had it, it was all the sauces that were infused. Right. And like that balance of like the actual casually baked aspect of it, it was, it was phenomenal because like, throughout the course of the night, you could just look around and see everyone just kind of like getting like giggly and more happy.

[00:09:47] And like, no one like actually hit that like super stone wall. You know what I mean? Like everyone was still very, very social. So. It definitely is an art form in my opinion, and in terms of managing that. And so I give my hats off for [00:10:00] anyone that can make that, make that a reality, because it’s beautiful when you’re able to experience

[00:10:04] Johanna Nuding: [00:10:04] it.

[00:10:05] There are a couple of fun ways that you can manage that. I have been at a party once where someone made some amazing dessert and they made the exact same dessert. Where I call it unleaded, you know, without the weed in it. And so everybody, you had one of those and then she replaced the plate with the unleaded version.

[00:10:30] So when people came back and wanted more, they didn’t accidentally keep consuming more THC. And then the other thing is to have a CBD infused oil. So that you can have that little roller coaster of the THC takes you up. And the CBD brings you down a little bit and you know, that’s a fun, little ride, but easy ways that you can help manage it.

[00:10:53] Bryan Fields: [00:10:53] It kind of kick in after you put the olive oil in any of your

[00:10:56] meals.

[00:10:57] Johanna Nuding: [00:10:57] Well, I think we’re, you know, we’re all different. I tell [00:11:00] people we’re all precious snowflakes and you know, the way our genetics are, you know, I metabolize THC. I’d metabolize cannabinoids faster than most people. So I can be high and back down again, where I know people that have had an edible and they felt it for two and a half or three days.

[00:11:23] And I always thought they were full of shit until I had an epigenetic. Panel run. And I found out exactly how cannabis interacts with my body. I know exactly how it all works. And so then I’m like, oh, they weren’t crazy. That actually happens to some people. So, you know, I think 30, you know, for some within 30 minutes, they’re probably feeling it.

[00:11:48] Some people, it may take a couple hours before they’re really feeling something, but, you know, with CBD though, You just feel a lightness of being, you know, and some somebody that doesn’t consume [00:12:00] cannabis will be like, I’m high. You said, I wouldn’t feel high I’m high. And I’m like, no, you just have, you know, the weight off of your shoulders.

[00:12:08] And that’s a lovely thing.

[00:12:10] Bryan Fields: [00:12:10] Yeah. That’s I think that’s perfectly said. And I think for the people who are on Botanic Cheerios, when they take CBD for the first time therein, it’s a painting to be high, so much. At any sort of alteration in their normal feeling, even if it’s just kind of a placebo effect, I kind of makes them believe, Hey, I’m really high.

[00:12:27] Maybe they received sin. And you’re like, no, like just take a deep breath, like reset and then realize that like you’re just starting to relax and feels

[00:12:35] Johanna Nuding: [00:12:35] slightly different. Yeah. And the placebo effect is a huge thing. Like our minds are so powerful. It’s. You know, we think it, we become it, you know, that is our thoughts become things.

[00:12:48] So yeah. If you think you’re high, guess you can probably will it to be.

[00:12:52] Bryan Fields: [00:12:52] Yeah. All right. Let’s dive into some fun questions, cannabis, tourism. What does that currently look [00:13:00] like?

[00:13:00] Johanna Nuding: [00:13:00] Well, right now, I’m not sure what it looks like. Anywhere outside of where I live. And I think COVID has, you know, made it to where it’s kind of non-existent, but as things are opening back up, you know, there are, besides the tours, you know, the tour buses that you can get on, that’ll take you to some dispensaries and.

[00:13:23] You know, in Colorado, I think it’s, there’s more of a party bus feel to it. In California, in Northern California, specifically, they’ve got this cannabis trail that’s opening up where you’re exploring the history of the cannabis culture in San Francisco and, you know, driving up the 1 0 1 there’s the cannabis trail, I think is what they’re calling it, but there will be placards up along.

[00:13:49]Historical markers that are showing like, this is where the first cannabis farm has been found, or this is where this person lived, or this is what happened here. And so, you know, I [00:14:00] think it’s going to depend on where you are as to what that might look like, but if somebody’s visiting from illegal state, the thing that I’m trying to do as a cannabis lifestyle guide is, you know, if you’ve never experienced cannabis, I want you to be able to come.

[00:14:18] To my state, my area, and have a positive experience because you have all of the basic knowledge and you have an idea of what you want and how you want to feel. You know, so we kind of craft an experience for somebody based around who they are and who they’re hanging out with, you know, set and setting sort of things.

[00:14:42] And you know, for me, what I offer people is behind the scenes looks at craft cannabis in the Emerald triangle and what sustainable farming is and what home gardening cannabis looks like. And how do you pick [00:15:00] herbs? To help make your own medicine. And I do, you know, medicine making classes with people and we cook a meal together.

[00:15:09] We play with the oils and, and all the time, while we’re hanging out there having a one-on-one or a small group setting with a cannabis lifestyle guide, who’s been living this life for 20 years and. You know, I think that there is so much nuance that for somebody to just come in and, you know, they hit a dispensary, they overbuy, they get gummies.

[00:15:36] Everybody’s like, well, I got to get the gummies. And then, you know, they had home and they’re nervous to fly with it. So then they’re like, you know, giving away gummies, I end up with more gummies and I don’t even eat them very much, but you know, the thing is. There’s such a diverse culture within cannabis.

[00:15:58] And I want to be [00:16:00] able to show people exactly what they want to see. You know, I mean, some people that are, you know, they’ve loved their Colorado cannabis and they want to see what a giant indoor grow looks like, you know, and take them up the street to my friends at nug and, you know, see a huge operation where it’s.

[00:16:20] Seed to sale in this one building, you know, or we go up the road to Northern California and, you know, drive on a windy road for an hour and come to a clearing and there are water tanks and, you know, a giant cannabis farm. And, you know, there’s just so much to see. And I think. It’s just enticing people with their current curiosities and, and giving them an experience that they couldn’t buy anywhere

[00:16:47] Bryan Fields: [00:16:47] else.

[00:16:48] Sounds amazing. And I think it’s so perfect for, for, as you describe the people, for example, on the east coast, we just haven’t experienced these things, but have heard what’s going on in Colorado and California and are interested in [00:17:00] kind of seeing that because for some of the older generation here on the east coast, you know, they have the experience of cannabis from back in the college or some of the tours and.

[00:17:07] You know, getting to one of these facilities like you’re describing it has to be eyeopening for them. So where’s the first place you take them when you, when you get a small group, that’s kind of really interested in ready to go, because obviously that first impression is so perfect when you see their faces and their eyes.

[00:17:21] Johanna Nuding: [00:17:21] Yeah. It’s it’s overwhelming for people when they walk into dispensary. And I really do love watching people’s faces when they walk in. But the very first thing that I do is I bring them into my studio and we have. A lifestyle session. I’m just like, you know, when was the last time you smoked cannabis?

[00:17:41] When was the time before that, you know, like, let’s see how often you do this. And. And, you know, what’s your lifestyle? Like what, you know, what, how comfortable are you being intoxicated? You know, have you ever consumed cannabis and alcohol simultaneously? [00:18:00] Like all of these things are important, especially in California, where we have this trifecta of wine country, weed country and craft beer and cider.

[00:18:10] You know, you do all three of those things. I’ve seen somebody get, so crossfaded and fall out in the middle of a restaurant at like six 30 in the evening. Like we’re barely getting started. And so, you know, there are these cautionary tales that I like to be able to share with people after I kind of assess where they are and then, you know, I think that dispensary’s are also unique.

[00:18:37] I would take, I take people to different dispensaries based on who they are, you know, whether it’s a couple or, you know, a single person, somebody who is curious about the California sober lifestyle and once. To explore. Drinkables I’ve got to take them to a dispensary that has a really good drinkable selection.

[00:18:57] So, you know, for me, it just, I do a little bit of [00:19:00] homework based on the people that I’m with so that I can give them a completely unique experience.

[00:19:05] Bryan Fields: [00:19:05] Yeah, and I want to go to you on this because on this podcast, we always talk about the education and the stigma and the massive challenge that it is and removing the kind of common stigma of the canvas stoner.

[00:19:16] So from your perspective, I mean, it, it seems like she’s nailing exactly the educational level. And I think, you know, what does the, the feeling on the west coast have with, with these, these posters, with these wide eyes coming out and kind of experiencing this for the first time?

[00:19:30] Kellan Finney: [00:19:30] Yeah. I mean, education is absolutely the most critical aspect associated with de stigmatizing cannabis nationally.

[00:19:39] Right. And I mean, it is a completely different world from the east coast, just from the type of people that inhabit the west coast versus the type of people that didn’t have it, the east coast. And so. You do have to walk that really, really delicate line that a generalist describing because blasting the industry needs is someone to come [00:20:00] out and go explore these things and be like, oh my God, it is the devil’s lettuce.

[00:20:05] And I’m going to go tell everyone that I got so messed up, that I couldn’t even see straight. And it’s worse than alcohol. And like, I was not like, all these things are just, it’s not what the industry needs. And so. You the way that she’s approaching this as exactly how it needs to be, you know, from a de-stigmatizing cannabis as well as educating, right?

[00:20:23] Like that balance is so crucial right now for the industry, especially where it’s at. And so, I mean, what, what’s your stance on that coming from the east coast, Brian being kind of a younger generation, right? I mean, how was your parents Perceive going out to California and jumping on a nice like wine tour van situation, but instead of wine, they’re going out and seeing these pot farms, like what would be, what would be your father’s kind of reaction to something like that?

[00:20:49] I

[00:20:49] Bryan Fields: [00:20:49] think in his mind is, might be the greatest thing that ever existed. And this might be worthwhile to move out forever because like, I can’t wait to go share with him this idea and this concept and him the [00:21:00] return, like how quickly can I get out there because. You know what he used experienced from like rolling tiny joints, what he could experience.

[00:21:06] I knew work tour. It’s just an open his eyes to all these other things. And I guess I want to follow up with like, what’s the typical age group that does something like this? Is it more on the younger side? Do you think it’s better for the older side? Because obviously the tour is, is dependent on the age group because you’re wanting to cater to them, like you said.

[00:21:21] So I’m just curious, you know, where does, where does the age

[00:21:24] Johanna Nuding: [00:21:24] fit in? You know, it’s really. I believe it can be all over the map, but when you’re thinking about somebody who can afford to do something like this, I’m like, you know, mid thirties, but I have a woman coming out from North Carolina, I’m in the middle of July and she lives a sober lifestyle.

[00:21:44] And she is curious about the California sober thing. And you know, she and I have had sessions before over the phone or, you know, zoom. And she’s also a patron of the podcast, patrion.com backslash [00:22:00] casually baked. And so I had said,

[00:22:06] you know, you gotta do what you can when you’re a coordinator. And so I had put this out there. I was like, okay guys, I now have access to a farm, stay in the wine and weed country. I’m thinking about doing personalized experiences. And she immediately was just sign me up. I, first of all, adore you and I want to have you to myself for a few days, but I also want to experience being able to go to happy hour and have a cocktail, but it not be booze.

[00:22:40] And you know, and so she and I are going to explore the California sober lifestyle. And like I said, I’m going to teach her how to make her own. Tinctures and stuff, so she can create this at home for herself, but then also let her try. You know, the Hi-Fi [00:23:00] hops by, you know, log Anita’s and the paps blue ribbons, new lemon seltzer and, you know, Wonderland and all of these great drinkables, you know, one of the things that I liked to explore within the drinkables market, because I’m into that as well is, you know, the low sugar options, you know, you’ve read the label and it’s like, oh, well, this only has.

[00:23:24] Four grams of sugar, but then it says, once you get a little bit further down, it’s like, oh, Well, that’s four grams of sugar for a three milligram dose, and I want 10 milligrams. So now it’s not really feeling so low sugar to me anymore. So, you know, it’s also educating people on how to explore that kind of stuff, because if you are interested in a cannabis for wellness lifestyle, like I live, then you do care about the sugar content, but that’s why I hate most of the gummies.

[00:23:59] Is it [00:24:00] because, you know, it’s a gummy that’s then, you know, covered in sugar crystals. And it’s just like, why did you do that last part? I didn’t need that, but they’re just doing all this taste masking with sugar. And I just think that there’s more competition in the industry. We’re going to have a lot better options.

[00:24:18] Soon people that are utilizing say Monkfruit or, you know, date juice or something like that versus just raw sugar. I kind of went off on a tangent. Sorry.

[00:24:29] Bryan Fields: [00:24:29] No, it’s perfect. And for those who are just unfamiliar with the California sober wellness pro can you just kind of share just quickly what that is, just so that they have some understanding?

[00:24:39] Johanna Nuding: [00:24:39] Sure. So, you know, I am somebody who I still drink alcohol on occasion. It’s mostly a really nice glass of red wine or an Aperol spritz on a hot afternoon, but it is replacing. You know, no hard drugs, you know, there any it’s [00:25:00] natural whole plant medicine for both wellness and entertainment. And so it’s just a more mindful approach to socialization and, and being with your friends and imbibing.

[00:25:14] And so the opportunity really is, you know, to try it out and and start kind of figuring out what that’s like. And then, you know, Incorporating alcohol in maybe the next day and seeing how you feel like what’s different. You know, for me, once I got north of 40, I started waking up with really bad headaches after not drinking very much.

[00:25:41] And so there was just this like Seesaw effect of like, well, this night, I had cannabis infused drinks and I woke up and I felt just fine. And this night I drank wine and I had a really rough day the next day. And so I think for people that live here and [00:26:00] participate in it, You know, it, it starts out as an experiment and then it quickly becomes a no brainer

[00:26:06] Bryan Fields: [00:26:06] music to my ears, because for me the same way that one gods flying and my body doesn’t handle it so well where those Intuit’s beverages, I feel great at night.

[00:26:15] And the next day I feel normal. And if I was given an option right now of never having a hangover again, I would sign up every single time. And in fact means never having booze again. You know, I mean, sure. I would of course have the occasional drink here and there, but you know, that option and that be ability to go to a beverage that kind of relaxes me and makes me feel good.

[00:26:34] And wake up with that. Anglers said no

[00:26:36] Johanna Nuding: [00:26:36] brainer. And you know, I will admit that. Being a little bit red wine drunk and high is a fucking amazing feeling. But you know, it’s like, okay, now we got to hit stop at like eight 30 or 8 45 and chug a liter of water before we go to bed. So, you know, I’m S I’ll still do that, but I just know that I have to completely [00:27:00] hydrate and be fine before I go to sleep.

[00:27:02] It’s hard to do. It is hard to do. And, you know, and that’s one of the things where I’m like, I constantly have to defend my lifestyle to my parents when they’re like, you spend how much for rent, why are you still living in California? I’m like wine, weather and weed. Like you can’t give me all of those things in Texas.

[00:27:21] And so, you know, when people come out here, I still want to showcase the amazing wine culture of California. And so, you know, when I do tours with people, it’s like, there will be a Y if you’re into it, there’s a wine day. There’s a weed day. You know, we can hit the mountains or we can hit the redwoods and go for a hike.

[00:27:44] Like I want to showcase wine, weather and weed in the states and specifically in Northern California. And it’s, it’s just a beautiful mixture. Like when you can have all three of those things working. Together, like it’s magic. [00:28:00] You

[00:28:00] Bryan Fields: [00:28:00] think vineyards will slowly adapting and kind of integrate that area into their facilities as well.

[00:28:06] Because if you could go to one destination, incorporate a little bit of both. I mean, you’re now opening yourself up to such a wider consumer base. And at the end of the day, right? Like you were saying that pairing of the red wine and the nice little J works beautifully together and sure. They’re not upselling each other, but if it’s both available, One might lead to

[00:28:25] Johanna Nuding: [00:28:25] the other.

[00:28:26] There are starting to be collaboration and I will say within, you know, The last several years, there’s been that collaboration’s happening, where I live of cannabis brands, partnering with, you know, family, wineries that they know. And I think the real connection and the real education for people there is it’s about the tasting.

[00:28:50] It’s about the nose. It’s about the terpenes So teaching somebody who understands wine. The same way to assess cannabis. [00:29:00] So allowing them to discern what they’re smelling, what the flavor profile is on wine, and then set that down and then do the same thing with a paired cannabis flower that’s, you know, that’s something that I’ve seen done.

[00:29:14]A lot of it or at. Like what Kellan was talking about at the dinners, you know, these infused dinners, where they are pairing the wine with the food, with the specific cannabis, for that specific thing. And I think it has to happen in a really interesting collaborative way right now, because you know, of the legalities of things and not being able to mix the alcohol and the cannabis, but, you know, that’s one of the things that I am, you know, trying to.

[00:29:45] Find the nuance and you know, my friend who owns the, the farm stay w that I’m partnering with, you know They have grapes on their property. It’s a, an old wine family and she went to school and is a winemaker. And so, [00:30:00] you know, I’ve said, Hey, I may tap you to teach a terpene class every now and again.

[00:30:04] And, you know, be somebody who goes along on the ride with some more sophisticated wine drinkers, because I do want people to feel. Not only like they’re having a really unique experience, but they’re, they’re being a little bit challenged. They’re learning something, you know, I think that’s something that we should never stop doing.

[00:30:23] I am constantly curious and I want to infuse that in everything that I do so that when somebody leaves they’re like that, that was the most magical experience. I will never forget that. That’s what I’m looking

[00:30:39] Bryan Fields: [00:30:39] for. Yeah, I’m

[00:30:43] Kellan Finney: [00:30:43] gonna say that that is definitely the direction. I mean, especially with California passing the Appalachian kind of laws, you can see the early formations of them trying to treat cannabis in the same fashion that they’re that wine has been treated.

[00:30:56] And I think that that’s going to really help separate cannabis from the [00:31:00] quote unquote kind of commodity phrase that people have tried to classify cannabis as. Because I don’t know if it really is a commodity based on the unique aspects associated with every single different strain, just like with grapes.

[00:31:12] So I think we’re in the early stages of that right now, hopefully.

[00:31:15] Johanna Nuding: [00:31:15] Right. Well, and I agree, and I think that that is the fun part for consumers is to give them the story because when we do go on a trip and we buy wine and then we’re serving it to our friends at a dinner, You know, like, oh, this was, it was the most beautiful day we went and we sat out on this farm and we pet the goats and did the thing.

[00:31:40] And, you know, everybody has a story about this wine and now people can have a story about the cannabis. You know, there’s one of my friend’s farms. It’s huckleberry hill farms. It is the most beautifully manicured property you’ve ever seen. I mean, it [00:32:00] showcases. Cannabis. Like, I can’t even, it’s so beautiful.

[00:32:05] It brings tears to your eyes. I mean, all of the plants that are helping, like with pest control and the pest management, they just make sure they add pops of color and, you know, everything is just, it’s just serene. And that if someone thinks about a cannabis farm, They don’t think of that, but the first time they lay eyes on that property, it will forever change them.

[00:32:30] And, you know, being able to. Walk somebody through that experience and have a second generation farmer, teach them how to properly trim a bud and to grind and roll a farmer rolled, you know, joints, a big fatty, like, and then they get to take that home with them, you know, like, come on. It doesn’t get better than that.

[00:32:52] And so, yeah, I think storytelling is going to be another really big piece of it.

[00:32:57] Bryan Fields: [00:32:57] What is the most common question that [00:33:00] you field as a cannabis lifestyle guy?

[00:33:03] Johanna Nuding: [00:33:03] Have you ever heard of this CBD? Do you recommend this one?

[00:33:12] Oh, you know what? I finally broke down and did a little bit of homework and found an affiliate. Because I’m like, I jeez, like there’s a bazillion CBDs. And so now I just, I added a podcast affiliate page to my website. And if people ask for a CBD recommendation, I just send them there. You know, but it’s like, you can take whatever you want, just know where it was made.

[00:33:39] Make sure that it has a QR code that actually has the certificate of analysis attached to it. Make sure you can read it. You know, if you got it from a gas station, it’s already a little suspect to me, you know?

[00:33:53] Bryan Fields: [00:33:53] Yeah. It’s usually my response to it. It’s like, where did you buy it? And it’s like a gas station, so, well, we can start there and realize likely not a good [00:34:00] purchase or the other people.

[00:34:01] It’s like, I, I purchased a cream. My mom asked me, my friend purchased a cream and she didn’t feel anything. And I was like, well, I don’t know what she purchased. I don’t know what she was intending to feel. I don’t know anything about that. So if you’d like me just to make up a response, I’m happy to do that.

[00:34:14] Or I can get some more information and it’s, it’s a, it’s a challenge, right? Because you want to give people a positive experience and let them know that like, there’s, there’s something to be there, but at the same time, you don’t want to mislead them. And I, sometimes their expectations are just not real

[00:34:28] Johanna Nuding: [00:34:28] with.

[00:34:29] Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I created educational resources. That was the very first thing I did. And. It was me trying to make sense of it all myself. So, you know, going online, doing my homework and I started piecing everything together into what I call the cannabis class resource guide. And so that’s something that I sell on my website.

[00:34:54] It’s something that I give away to people, you know, in my life that have lots of questions. And I’m [00:35:00] just like, this is a short, quick, easy to read. Nice. Pretty graphics. And there’s a glossary in the back that way, if you don’t even understand what a word is, look it up and, you know, just otherwise I’m like, I, you can hire me to do a personalized class with you, but that otherwise listen to my podcasts.

[00:35:23] Bryan Fields: [00:35:23] Biggest misconception. Since you started working in the cannabis space.

[00:35:28] Johanna Nuding: [00:35:28] Hmm. Well, when I started, I guess it’s been almost six years ago, the first thing I noticed that education was the giant gaping hole in the market. And I think the majority of people fancy themselves educators now, and, and that piece is getting better.

[00:35:45] I think the biggest misconception for people that don’t work in the industry is that we’re all getting rich. Which isn’t true. The other thing that I think is that misconception is that cannabis is cannabis [00:36:00] and all cannabis is not treated or shouldn’t be treated equally. You know, there is a looking under the hood that needs to happen.

[00:36:09] You know, if you, if you believe that your indoor stuff is the best, like. Where, what are the sustainability practices of the people that are growing that, you know, what’s their footprint like? And, you know, we all vote with our dollars and, you know, I think being educated consumers and understanding where your product comes from, you know, I preach it’s so important to know your farmer.

[00:36:34] Now whether or not you have the privilege, like I do to know them personally, but at least having looked them up, gone to their website, see what their practices are explored. That certificate of analysis, because you know, cannabis is cannabis is cannabis is bullshit.

[00:36:53] Bryan Fields: [00:36:53] Well, we do print where we live predictions.

[00:36:56] We ask all of our guests two questions. If you could sum up your [00:37:00] experience into one lesson learned or main takeaway to pass on to the next generation, what would it be?

[00:37:07] Johanna Nuding: [00:37:07] Live a highly inspired life.

[00:37:11] Bryan Fields: [00:37:11] The last time you consumed any cannabinoids, like

[00:37:15] Johanna Nuding: [00:37:15] five seconds before I got on this call with you.

[00:37:22] Bryan Fields: [00:37:22] Regions across the United States, such as Sonoma, California had gained reputation for being known as the wine country. Where will cannabis country be? And let’s let’s, let’s, let’s spell that whole I’m before I do that, I don’t want to easy answers. That’s it. We can’t take humble. We got to take a little more of a challenge.

[00:37:39] Let’s let’s try to guess a little, he had this

[00:37:41] Kellan Finney: [00:37:41] conversation with me as well. He took that off the board. You said I wasn’t allowed to say Humboldt

[00:37:47] Johanna Nuding: [00:37:47] in the Emerald triangle.

[00:37:49] Bryan Fields: [00:37:49] I think we can all talk that up. We’ll agree. That’s that’s the top spot, but if we were going to find, let’s say an up and comer or one that you would say is not commonly associated with [00:38:00] cannabis country, where do you think that could be?

[00:38:03] Johanna Nuding: [00:38:03] Well right now, Oklahoma is the hot wild west. I think that there is a lot of exciting things that could happen in Texas and Oklahoma and, you know, going up the, the Bible belt. But you heard, you heard the trigger word there, so who knows what’s going to happen, but right now, as it stands, the Pacific Northwest is.

[00:38:32] Is the grandfathered cannabis country. Kelly’s shaking his head. He agrees with me.

[00:38:39] Kellan Finney: [00:38:39] I got a lot of time up in Arcata and Humboldt. That’s how I got my whole start in the industry. So I have just. Tremendous amount of respect for the individuals. And I mean, they carried the torch the last 30 years, you know what I mean?

[00:38:51] And some of the tricks of the trade and their knowledge in the space and doing it all, being bootstrapped with helicopters, flying above them is [00:39:00] something that you got to give your hats off. And they’re the reason the industry is where it’s at in my opinion. But as far as a second, a close second, and kind of flying under the radar, every traditional grower I’ve talked to or been around and.

[00:39:12]The biggest thing dealing with humidity is really challenging, right? And so dry arid climates really help from a pest mitigation standpoint in the cultivation process. Right. And so I’ve talked to a lot of people that say back in the day that New Mexico was a really big hotbed. Just because of the ease of growing, you didn’t have to use nearly as many tricks or tools to kind of mitigate any pasts and that dry arid climate made curing a much easier, faster process.

[00:39:41] So I would say that there is a lot of potential in like the New Mexico area. Even maybe Arizona, if you can find some. Some locate like an Oasis, right. With enough water to keep them fed. So I think that’s going to be the biggest challenge, but I know that a lot of the best growers I’ve ever talked to have mentioned that [00:40:00] dry arid places, the middle of the desert, if you have water, that would be a sweet, sweet place

[00:40:04] Johanna Nuding: [00:40:04] to grow some fire.

[00:40:06] Well, then my family’s ranch might be a hot bed, but I did talk to some growers who were in the desert and. They were using just drip irrigation and yes, I think also with the, the first nations, like if they can get some sort of laws in place, like when I was driving from Oakland back to Texas during the pandemic to hang out with my family for a month and I was driving, you know, I like taking the back roads and seeing things and I was so sad driving through New Mexico and seeing like, Where these tribal nations have been pushed to.

[00:40:49] And I’m like, there’s nobody driving through here to go to your little business or get gas at your gas station. Like there’s. It was just sad [00:41:00] and desolate. And I’m like, if they, if cannabis could turn those Berry micro populated places around, that would be such a beautiful thing.

[00:41:08] Bryan Fields: [00:41:08] Yeah. I think that’s really well said because like we’ve seen when new states come online, there’s such a rush for people to kind of dumped those dispensaries and if they can get a more personalized one-on-one experience.

[00:41:19] It would definitely drive traffic to some of these areas and definitely improved some of the way things are not well. And

[00:41:24] Johanna Nuding: [00:41:24] also there’s opportunities now for like drone delivery and, you know, and trying to create some sort of opportunities where, you know, if there was some distribution center that could be populated there.

[00:41:40] And I just, I don’t know. I just think we can get super creative. And support these communities that have been, you know, downtrodden from the things that our government has done to them. So it’s like, can we make up for that now?

[00:41:53] Bryan Fields: [00:41:53] So Joanna, before we wrap up, where can our listeners get in touch with you?

[00:41:57] Where can they connect? Where can they learn more about the [00:42:00] podcast and the

[00:42:00] Johanna Nuding: [00:42:00] lifestyle guide? I tried to make things super easy just for you. So casually baked.com. At casually baked on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And actually, if you love cannabis and you want to support the cannabis creator community.

[00:42:18] Go to weed tube folks go to weed tube.com. A lot of creators that got taken down from YouTube and were never able to get back on that platform. They crowd funded and put together this site. And so I recently have started my own page and I’m starting to upload some stuff there so that I can help support these other content creators that did get dumped off YouTube.

[00:42:41] I’m still on there, but I create highly responsible. Content that doesn’t ruffle a lot of feathers, but but I recognize that I’m lucky that I can still be there. So we tube.com support it, check it out.

[00:42:55] Bryan Fields: [00:42:55] We’ll link all that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:42:58] Johanna Nuding: [00:42:58] Yes. One thing. If [00:43:00] people are curious about the actual travel piece, there’s a hidden page on my website.

[00:43:05] If you go to casually baked.com backslash travel, you will get to a little form that. Asks you some questions asks what you’re interested in, what months you would want to travel and kind of gets the conversation. Started with me on the cannabis infused travel

[00:43:25] Bryan Fields: [00:43:25] exclusivity to make it fun.

[00:43:27] Johanna Nuding: [00:43:27] Well, yes, and I worked in real estate for a while, and I don’t want to be somebody that you can just find on Airbnb kind of a deal.

[00:43:34] It’s a pocket listing, if you will. So if you know, somebody’s got to know somebody or they’ve just got to heard me on the dime or, you know, whatever that is to find it.

[00:43:46] Bryan Fields: [00:43:46] Well, you just saved me, sending you an email, asking you where the form is because Ellen and I will definitely be taking you up on that trip as soon as we, we get back on the road.

[00:43:54] Thank you so much for

[00:43:54] Johanna Nuding: [00:43:54] your time. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, guys. This was fun. [00:44:00]

Thanks so much for listening to The Dime . Subscribe or follow us on Seeking Alpha, Libsyn, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher. And we’d really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others find our show.

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Cannabinoid Manufacturing Process Control in 21st Century

Spectroscopy Data
Posted on | by bfields

**Please note this article is part of a larger series that was first released in the January 2021 Monthly Playbook.

In the world of manufacturing, things move quickly. The manufacturer’s goal is to manufacture their product with the target quality in the proper quantity with as little waste possible. Many manufacturing outlets will do their quality control before a process starts and after the process ends, but what about while something is being created? 

Cannabis Manufacturing for the 21st Century

Part 2: Process Control in Cannabis Manufacturing

In the world of manufacturing, things move quickly. A manufacturer’s goal is to manufacture their product with the target quality in the proper quantity with as little waste possible. Process control is actively monitoring your processes so that you can react quickly to control your system if something goes wrong.

Many manufacturers have implemented or are looking to deploy analytical techniques to assess not only the incoming and outgoing goods, but also throughout the processes that transform the raw materials into those final goods. Many basic process tanks monitor simple things, such as temperatures and pressures of all the lines and tank, to help ensure safe working conditions. However, many industries, have moved to putting in more complex technologies so that they can monitor the actual chemical processes that are occurring in their tank.

A first step towards understanding a process is to “thief” samples during the process and measure various characteristics of interest (i.e. cannabinoid concentrations, solvent concentration, water content, etc.) in a lab. This helps to get an idea of the progress and performance of a process; however, there are numerous pitfalls associated with this method. The first pitfall is that someone has to physically retrieve a sample from the process.

Unknown Outliers [1]

This can be a simple and easy task, but it can also require major safety precautions and training for all personnel. On the way to the lab, there is ample opportunity for the sample to be contaminated or to morph as a result of the different environment of the carrying container. Finally, to turnaround test results from the lab may take hours to days to weeks, depending if the lab is on-site, local, or remote. What happens to the process if the tests take an hour, or twenty-four, to give the users a result they can act on? A second sample would have to go through the same process, doubling the time needed to make an effective decision of whether or not to stop the production (Figure 1).

Potentially, a manufacturing site could wait weeks to confirm that their products pass Quality Control and can be shipped to their customers. In a process that can have thousands of gallons of sample every second, it can become problematic if the manufacturing site needs to wait even a few hours to get the results from a thieved sample.

SCHEMATIC OF A PROCESS TANK [1]

Older industries are slow to move to some of the newer technologies for numerous reasons. In the pharmaceutical industry, a change in the process of the manufacturing of drugs requires months, perhaps years, of investigating and validating the change. Even for a large pharmaceutical company, this can be a serious strain on resources. Thus, most pharmaceutical companies will not accept any changes unless they absolutely are
forced into the change. Other reasons are that certain technologies have only caught up to the monitoring speeds that are necessary. In a standard process tank there could be numerous inlets and outlets (see Figure 2). Each of these inlets and outlets can have several points where monitors and controls can be added to the process.

Properly specified sample interfaces allow a spectroscopic sensor to be installed directly into the manufacturing stream to collect data as the process flows past the sensor. These
sensors give a user real-time information on the conditions within their process. 

Spectroscopy allows monitoring of the chemical species within the process, and it can be apparent very quickly if an unwanted side-reaction is occurring thereby allowing the user to react and adjust the process. Beyond the value of instant insight, advanced process sensors also give the benefit of big data aggregation, where additional efficiencies and optimization can be gained over time as well. The ultimate goal is to create a control solution that is constantly monitoring the entire system, so that it can proactively, and automatically, change a parameter if something starts to go wrong. This automated
learning would allow for a fully autonomous system that is efficient and safe.

In the next installment of this series, we will begin exploring the benefits of spectroscopy for the inline monitoring of the various stages of manufacturing in the cannabis industry.

References:

  1. S. L. Carrier, Impact of Emerging Tools for Process Control, Bethesda: IFPAC 2018 Conference, 2018.

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Green Rush: Avoiding Land mines in the Cannabis Extraction industry

6 Pitfalls
Posted on | by bfields

The one thing that experience in the extraction world has taught us is that short-term mistakes can lead to a very costly future of corrections. To help you navigate around some potential pitfalls, we’ve made a list of six major mistakes cannabinoid processors make. 

Part 1: Getting Started

Four more states have officially become recreational, and the advancement of adult-use markets only confirms the inevitable; federal legalization is coming. As the industry continues to explode, there’s no denying that massive growth is coming, and it’s heralded by the recent surge of new players. This competition will continue to flood in as the number of adult-use states keeps growing, so it’s important to start positioning your business to be in front of this wave of change and secure your spot in the ever-evolving playing field.

So you think you can be a cannabis processor?

So you’re like many of the green-inspired individuals out there – you have a love for cannabis and are intrigued by the endless possibilities of moving into the extraction space. While lucrative in theory, it’s important to remember that this industry, still in its infancy stages, is as temperamental and as volatile as a two-year-old child. But like all children, the space has the potential to grow into something great, especially if those involved are well-prepared and work to think ahead. As Chess Grandmaster Sevielly Tartkaower once said, “Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.” 

We at Eighth Revolution provide services from capital raising to cannabinoid extraction guidance and all the areas in between. We pride ourselves on our qualitative, analytics-driven approach, one that blends both the science and business perspectives to maximize potential outcomes. Ultimately, as problem solvers, we’re often approached by those seeking guidance at various starting points, wherever they may be, and that’s why we’ve compiled this list. We know how hard it is to start from the bottom and trust us, we’ve dealt with the pitfalls along the way. Whether it’s not validating incoming raw materials or completely ignoring the tiny nuances of temperature and pressure adjustment and their effects on derivative products, we’ve made and seen our share of mistakes. It’s a long journey that’s not for everyone, but for the few that are intrigued, we bring you this offering. 

To help you decide whether or not to take the plunge, we’ve outlined eleven key considerations that you need to mull over before you jump into processing and extraction with both feet. Good luck, godspeed, and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email or a DM. 

Now let’s get to it.

So you think you can be a cannabis processor?​

So you’re like many of the green-inspired individuals out there – you have a love for cannabis and are intrigued by the endless possibilities of moving into the extraction space. While lucrative in theory, it’s important to remember that this industry, still in its infancy stages, is as temperamental and as volatile as a two-year-old child. But like all children, the space has the potential to grow into something great, especially if those involved are well-prepared and work to think ahead. As Chess Grandmaster Sevielly Tartkaower once said, “Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do.” 

We at Eighth Revolution provide services from capital raising to cannabinoid extraction guidance and all the areas in between. We pride ourselves on our qualitative, analytics-driven approach, one that blends both the science and business perspectives to maximize potential outcomes. Ultimately, as problem solvers, we’re often approached by those seeking guidance at various starting points, wherever they may be, and that’s why we’ve compiled this list. We know how hard it is to start from the bottom and trust us, we’ve dealt with the pitfalls along the way. Whether it’s not validating incoming raw materials or completely ignoring the tiny nuances of temperature and pressure adjustment and their effects on derivative products, we’ve made and seen our share of mistakes. It’s a long journey that’s not for everyone, but for the few that are intrigued, we bring you this offering. 

To help you decide whether or not to take the plunge, we’ve outlined eleven key considerations that you need to mull over before you jump into processing and extraction with both feet. Good luck, godspeed, and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email or a DM. 

Now let’s get to it.

Start with WHY and HOW, then walk backwards.

When entering into an industry, especially the cannabis space, it’s critical to understand your WHY, which will lead you to your HOW. Once you know your HOW you can easily work backward. Understanding where you want to end up helps dictate the necessary steps to build an environment to get to you where you want to go. 

A common conversation we have with newer clients in the space typically starts with the goal of having a specific customized product. Straight out of the gate, they seem to know what they want to produce, but rarely can answer the most important question of all: why? Why do you think bringing this new product or service into the market will be a lucrative venture? Why do you want to make or provide it? Why did you choose to set your sights on this particular endeavor? 

In our experience, it’s more important to start with the WHY and the HOW and then work backward from there. The WHY helps build the framework of the company, prompting eager companies to formulate a concrete mission statement, which in turn will motivate employees and consumers to follow them through the good and bad. The HOW helps focus the client’s attention on the type of product, extraction, scale, and brand they want to develop so that there are clear, actionable steps outlined to move forward. Together, the answers to these two questions will allow you to organically pave your company’s way to success and bypass any friction along the way. 

For instance, picture that someone who wanted to enter the industry had their blinders on and fixated only the goal of creating a tincture. Initially, this doesn’t seem like a problem, right? He knows what he wants and he’ll find a way to get there.

Ah, ah, ah…not so fast. The problem is that because he barely considered the HOW, he ended up three months into the facility buildout process only to realize that part of his WHY (and part of his theorized branding) involves helping the environment but his HOW relies on using fossil fuels like hydrocarbon to fuel his processing. Now you see the issue!

At first, it can seem daunting to break down your vision into such black and white responses. It’s often seemingly impossible to take what you have in your mind and whittle it all down into a few lines on a sheet of paper, so here are some of the questions we use to kickstart the journey: Do you want to produce bulk distillate for the coming commodity market? Is your passion tailored toward the cannabis connoisseur in which supporting local farmers who cultivate high quality material representing a farm to table boutique brand? On what scale do you foresee your manufacturing moving into? Have you considered cGMP in your cost allocation? 

If you can answer these without breaking a sweat, you’re in pretty good shape.

It’s not Texas Holdem, but you better be all in.

The most common obstacle we see with our client base is the expectation of a quick profit. We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here it goes: don’t expect to make any money at all for at least 18 months. Climbing a mountain takes time, and whether you’re starting this journey for the first time or looking to expand into another state, it’s vital to make sure that your business plan is rock solid and your team is experienced before you finally set out. 

As with any company, unforeseen obstacles are expected, but this is particularly true for an industry that, as of this moment, still hasn’t had Congress pass a Safe Banking Act. To combat this shaky financial ground, resilient companies have developed creative solutions. Sale-leaseback deals are a great example, cleverly allowing processors and extractors to quickly receive millions through the facility’s sale while operations remain largely unchanged. 

Even in the most solid of industries, raising capital is its own, unique challenge, and there’s unfortunately no step-by-step guide that we can give you to walk you through it. The only thing that we can definitively say is that networking is your best friend and that many of our clients have found success by nurturing strong connections with other players in the space. This is especially true if you’re planning on attending any capital-raising events. It’s always much easier to make a lasting impression with your capital-raising presentation if you have a few supporters in the crowd willing to vouch for your idea and your business plan. 

If you’re in the process of raising capital, make sure you have a long enough runaway to account for massive obstacles as well minimal to no sales for at least 18 months. It may seem like a big ask, but in our experience, investors appreciate the transparency and radical candor. This conserative timeline should ideally provide you with enough operating capital to start developing your business as you weather whatever setbacks the cannabinoid industry throws your way. 

You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.

Alright, now you understand your WHY and HOW and you have an idea of how to raise capital, so let’s avoid the next set of pitfalls: scaling and hiring. By far the two most repeated mistakes we see in the industry are rushing to scale big and hiring the right people for the wrong position. While it’s incredibly exciting to begin stacking the building blocks of your new business, it’s a process that has to be done bit by bit, not all at once.​

Scaling is more than changing a number in your P&L! ​

The dollar signs in our clients eyes are often blinding, and we can recognize them with this statement: “If we run an A,B, and C shift from Day 1 / begin production by Day X with Y units / insert your best case scenario here, then we can be profitable by Month Z!” 

We wish this was true, but alas, it is not.​

Someone has to be the bearer of bad news, and we hate to say it, but bigger scaling doesn’t automatically equate to quicker or more sizable profits. While true in a straight-forward, idyllic world, we find that the success of this type of plan is incredibly rare and near impossible for any client to obtain. Remember that old saying, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”? Unfortunately, that applies here, too. ​

Manufacturing a clean consistent product is a massive challenge, and finding a buyer for your product is an even larger obstacle. In order to generate realistic projections of when you can expect profit based on the scale of your operation, you need to analyze the historic prices of the crop and its derivatives. It’s also vital to understand the financial burden and output that an operation of your desired scale will produce. At Eighth, we use the commodity market as a basis of understanding for present and future market conditions. In other words, we analyze the past and current price ranges to create data-based projections of market sales. These figures are then adjusted to reflect other factors such as target geographic region, pending legislation changes, and current and potential market demand so that we can use the most accurate calculations to tailor a processing facility that fits the needs of the processor. 

We call this process the Eighth Genie because, quite frankly, it’s magical. Being able to take all of these factors and tie them together to give you a comprehensive plan for scaling your facility is a combination of thorough analysis and a thorough understanding of the industry. The result is an outline for a processing facility that will allow you to output your desired amount of product but leaves plenty of room for you to scale within a comfortable time frame. 

Right people, wrong place. 

The next common mistake we see newer companies make involves the misalignment of candidates and roles. There’s an old Dr. Seuss quote that talks about how you can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, and that’s exactly what happens when people are put in roles that simply don’t make sense for them. 

Most of the entrepreneurs our firm encounters are people that have backgrounds in business that want to enter into the processing and extraction space. Because these people typically don’t have formal chemistry or scientific training, they’re often looking for science-savvy individuals that can help them fill this knowledge gap. Sound like you? We thought so!

In any organization, it’s crucial to have individuals with the correct skill set to excel in the role, and in the cannabinoid space, this is doubly true. The intricacies of processing and extraction are so involved that if the scientific background of the candidate you’re interviewing doesn’t seamlessly align with your intended goal, it could mean lost profits and massive staff changes in the future. We’ve seen it happen time and time again. Here’s how the saga usually goes:

Part 1. A scientist was hired but isn’t quite sure what he’s doing.

Part 2. The scientist hires a team that doesn’t meet the right qualifications because he’s not fully aware of them and still isn’t quite sure what he’s doing.

Part 3. The scientist begins to process and extract with his team, but something goes wrong. The business partner and investors investigate, realize that the mistake is big and that profit has been lost, and fires the scientist and his team. 

This whole scenario may sound dramatic, but we’re sad to say that we’ve been called in to help with situations exactly like this. It’s important to hire people that have proof that they know what they’re doing, especially when it comes to the science side of the coin. Just as trying to use an intellectual property attorney to defend you in a criminal trial is wildly foolish, so is using a botanist to set up your processing facility. 

Because a processing facility is a chemical refinery, we believe it’s best to appoint chemists as your lead scientists. Even with this parameter, it can be difficult to pinpoint a great candidate because within the discipline of chemistry there are multiple different specialties, but the ones we highly recommend for facilities are analytical chemists, process chemists, and chemical engineers. Hiring people that have expertise in these fields will create a true science-driven culture in your chemical refinery rather than one based on guesses and assumptions. 

Avoid expensive paperweights, invest for the future.​

Equipment selection is always a tricky step, but don’t worry, we’re here to walk you through it. ​

Remember when we told you about asking WHY and HOW before you started making any big decisions? This is where those answers become crucial. By flushing out those concepts, you can now filter out all the equipment manufacturers that don’t fit your why, leaving you with a handful of vendors that do. An overwhelming explosion of options suddenly becomes a manageable list that can be whittled down through some additional research.

Another critical component that we’ll continue to shout from the rooftops is understanding the direction of regulatory perspectives. cGMP compliance in the states is not an if but when, and our Canadian brothers are hemorrhaging money as they rush to meet the newly enforced natural product health guidelines that other industries have already become accustomed to operating by. 

We won’t lie to you, this is an expensive process that’s currently optional. If you truly have no room in the budget, it’s entirely legal to operate without being cGMP compliant. In the spirit of sharing truths, though, here’s another one: budgeting for this now will save you a massive amount of time, money, and headaches in the future. If you build with this future mandatory compliance in mind, you’ll be setting yourself up for accelerated growth. This will provide you with a competitive edge against other processors and extractors that will have to disturb their operations to allocate internal resources when the regulations inevitably change. The initial upfront investment in compliant processing equipment, while sizable, will be substantially less expensive than installing non-compliant machinery that needs to be switched out down the road.

If you’re truly unsure of what to do at this juncture, ask yourself this question: are you making a long-term investment in the cannabinoid space or are you simply trying to catch a small part of a burgeoning market? If you’re thinking like an investor, your company should be poised for positioning as a household name. If you’re only thinking about scooping up a few small fish in a massive pond, then you may soon be the main character in one of the many cannabis business horror stories. Build your foundation so that you can be a mainstay in the industry and make your life simpler by tackling these future issues in the here and now.​

Stepping over dollars, picking up dimes. ​

Inefficiencies are perhaps the deadliest sin in the cannabis and hemp world, and cutting corners to save the capital will usually cost you ten-fold down the line.  

Although most don’t plan to skimp when they initially set out, sometimes it becomes difficult to stick to your very time consuming, incredibly costly plans. When the bills start to pile up and the profits are nonexistent, it becomes increasingly harder to ignore that little voice that asks “Well, why not just do it that way? Just this once?”

We’re here to shut that voice up and tell you why not. ​

As you’re creating a business that can go the distance and help you reach long-term success, it’s important that you make choices that support this vision. Making concessions in the quality of your equipment, process, or materials will only do more harm than good, and this is especially true if you’re telling yourself that you’ll fix them later. “We just need the pilot plant to run for a year, and then we’ll go back and address those other factors,” has been thought so often that it should be engraved on the tombstones of all the long-dead processing facilities that have inevitably succumbed to this logic. ​

While QA/QC is currently not mandatory for internal testing, it’s one hundred percent necessary, and the best way to get a comprehensive look at the functionality of your facility is by using real-time sensors. Understanding your manufacturing process and the various factors that influence the efficiency and optimization of your facility will help you pinpoint any issues in your process and allow for immediate, actionable troubleshooting. 

To make sure that you’re keeping up with such a competitive market, you need to know how potent your crop is. Potency analysis should be performed multiple times everyday regardless of scale, but this process can add up. At the date this article is written, it costs roughly $100 to purchase a potency test and $1,500 for a full panel. If we were to apply this scenario to an extraction facility operating at 100 lbs/day that has an extraction efficiency of around 50%, one day of multiple tests would cost the facility $10,000. Five more days like that and you’ve already exceeded the cost of inhouse QA/QC equipment. Unless you’re operating for one week per year, that’s a pretty steep cost. 

Already convinced you need Q/A? Too bad. We’ve already written the rest of this.

It takes seven days for the results of these tests to come back, and by then, your facility has already processed a week’s worth of crop. Even if you ground your operations to a screeching halt as soon as you sent out that first test, the time you spent processing that first yield still amounts to thousands of dollars of wasted days, money, and manpower.

This is especially vital for those in states that haven’t legalized adult-use where the legalities surrounding cannabis are still highly irregular and often unkind to hemp growers and processors. Those investing in the cutthroat CBD game don’t have the time or capital to waste if their product exceeds the legal THC limit, and adding real-time sensors will instantly give you the green light to go ahead or the red light to stop processing. 

In short, by taking a forward-thinking approach and using real-time sensors to monitor your extraction downstream refinery procedures and final product formulation, you can set a consistent quality standard that will make a large difference in your bottom line. 

Part 2: Marketing Your Product

​You’ve talked the talk, but can you walk the walk?​

Congratulations on making it this far! We know that the process of inception to fruition is a long and arduous one, but now that you have an unshakeable base, your business ventures will be all the more successful. Now it’s time to dive into the challenges and complexities of product marketing and find out what it takes to differentiate yourself from your peers. Without a conglomerate like McDonald’s or Coca-Cola to provide a baseline for points of parity and points of difference, how can you separate your product from the thousands of others on the market?

That’s where marketing comes in. Marketing, the beautiful combination of tried and true principles and innovative philosophies that have changed the trajectory of all industries. When crafting your organization’s marketing philosophy, remember that there are no clear cut rights or wrongs. Our experience has shown us that there’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy guide to approach the market space, especially one as complex and limitless as this one. 

Sit down and study up. 

Before setting out to develop the product you’ve worked so hard to create, market research needs to be conducted. This is an essential step, but one of the most missed. Researching the market allows you to understand the critical components behind your future branding process so that you can create a targeted product roadmap. Ask yourself some of these fundamental questions before you get started with your branding process: Do you plan on expanding into different product portfolios? Where will your products fit into the market in regard to their positioning? In other words, what does their pricing and messaging look like and how does it make them different from other brands? Why will a consumer select your product over the hundreds that are looking back at them from the shelves? Which companies are your closest competition, and what are they doing that makes them stand out? 

If you had trouble answering any of these questions, it’s completely understandable. This is a complex process made to look simple by polished organizations like Red Bull and Geico and Ford. The goal is to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of both your brand and the brands of your main competitors so that you can find your niche as simply and quickly as possible. To help, we’ve broken down some main considerations that you should consider before going to market. 

Why reinvent the wheel?

When breaking into a new space in the industry, it’s not always necessary to be completely unlike others. We know this sounds counterintuitive, but stay with us. While it’s always a good idea to make yourself stand out by utilizing key differentiators, small companies need to be strategic with their resources.  By leaning on large, successful brands that have already used their reach and capital to suss out target markets and establish brand loyalty, small companies can capitalize on their trusted presence and position themselves one step ahead of the competition. How do you do this, you ask? You do this by relying upon time-worn aesthetics. ​

Here’s an example. Think of your standard tin of Altoids. Picture the shape, the colors, the material of the container. Chances are you’ve just visualized a rectangular tin with vivid red and white coloring and a distinctive font. Now, go check out popular CBD mint brand, Mr. Moxey’s. 

See any similarities? 

From the tried-and-true durability and feel of tins to the unfussy, pragmatic straight lines, Mr. Moxey’s marketing draws upon feelings of comfort borrowed from pre-existing brands. These familiar visual cues visually link them to a well-established, risk-free company that’s been a household name for decades. The result is an automatic sense of trust that prompts consumers to bypass the initial consideration phase because it feels like they already have familiarity with the brand. Minty and clever.

Life’s a peach.

We’re sure you know this, but colors are pretty important. The colors you decide to use play a crucial role in the buying process by attracting the attention of the eyes and the subconscious, eliciting feelings based on the hues that have been selected. Think about all of your favorite fast food joints. McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Sonic, KFC, Chick-fil-A… Is it really a coincidence that they all use red in their logos? 

When you’re designing your branding, think about the answers to the questions that we’ve been asking you all along, particularly about your target market. Light colors and elements of white almost always help catch the eye on the shelf because they absorb light, but are these shades right for your audience? Say you’re selling a 7:1 THC to CBD pen that’s meant to help a user fall and stay asleep. While many companies often shy away from dark colors on their packaging and website, most of them aren’t aiming a product at people craving the peaceful blue-black of a good night’s sleep. To consumers frustrated at being awake who yearn to shut their eyes and embrace the dark, bright colors reminiscent of sunshine and light might seem outright garish. 

When creating a color scheme for your own brand, think about who’s buying it and why. Are they mostly men or women? Will they be using your products primarily for energy or for rest? What are three adjectives you’d use to describe a potential user? All of these questions that will help you determine an appropriate color scheme for your brand, whether it be bright or dark, muted or vivid, warm or cool, or a unique combination of all six.

By understanding exactly who’s buying their product, brands are able to create an entire visual narrative that entices those that are seeking specific results. 

Note: It’s important to note that, while many are currently marketing products that will help a user achieve specific results like better sleep or lessened anxiety, there have been very few scientific studies that back up these assertions. While we’re confident that this will change, we still encourage our partners to shy away from any bold claims until there’s verified, science-based evidence to empirically support them. 

A rose by any other name…

We’ve talked about what your brand should look like, but what about how it should be structured? When you create your brand, it’s important that you’re not boxing yourself in by pigeonholing yourself into just CBD or just gummies or just whatever else you plan to start out with. In short, don’t name yourself ‘Jimmy’s CBD Tinctures’! 

Oftentimes brands will initially start in one, extremely focused direction and then quickly decide to branch out, but at that point, they’ve already secured a very product-specific brand name, URL, and imagery. At this point, instead of redoing all of the work that they’ve spent their time and hard-earned money creating, they often decide to develop a new line that offshoots from their central brand. While flexibility and the ability to pivot are excellent ways to make sure your company remains dynamic, splitting up your company’s market presence by creating new names, new logos, and new color palettes can be confusing. 

We believe when creating a brand, it’s important to make sure that it acts as an umbrella for all of your different offshoots. Take Wise, the famous snack company, for instance; rather than split up their offerings by distinguishing each and every snack product (which would involve creating an entirely new brand for potato chips, cheese doodles, and popcorn, respectively) they instead decided to lean on their existing brand equity and market them all under the same moniker.  By making sure that your branding and product lines are clear, there’s no reason for the consumer to feel skeptical about your legitimacy.

​

Main Takeaways

Wow, that was a lot. Let’s recap.

1. Start the process by figuring out your WHY and your HOW, then work backwards.

2. Understand that profit won’t come right away and that you need to scale your facility with your growth, not grow to fulfill your facility’s scale.

3. Hire the right people for the positions you’re looking to fill.

4. Try and set your facility up so that right from the get go, it’s cGMP compliant. 

5. Invest in QA/QC equipment like real-time sensors. 

6. Make sure you clearly differentiate your brand by doing your market research.

7. Lean on tried and true concepts like color theory and incorporate successful strategies from large companies to help legitimize your brand.

8. Make sure you position your brand for growth. 

That’s about it! We hope that this gave you a better idea of what you need to consider when you’re thinking about entering into the cannabinoid space. Though this is only a fraction of the considerations that go into setting up a processing and extraction facility with the end goal of selling product, we think it’s a pretty good start.

If you’re interested in learning more about the industry before taking the plunge, we recommend taking a look at our monthly Intelligence Report that we release for free every month. Packed with information, we spend hundreds of hours (literally, it’s kind of a labor of love) aggregating various data, conversations, and published reports so that we can chew it up and spit it out in a more comprehensive, compact way. If you want to take a peek at our latest issue before committing to an email sign up, click here. 

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What Is The CESC? Why We Created It by Dr. Jon Abrams

Posted on | by bfields

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Each month we spend hours analyzing market research, data trends and private conservations to will keep you in front of the ever-evolving cannabinoid industry. Read the entire Report here

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The article below is an excerpt from the Monthly Playbook.

Almost a century of cannabis prohibition has dramatically hindered scientific discovery and contributions to original knowledge about the effects and utilities of its botanical products. Academic science, which traditionally would have been expected to play an active role in this endeavor, has instead been limited by funding constraints and the study of NIDA-provided cannabis that does not represent what is available in the market. Currently, it is unreasonable to assume that such entities can pivot quickly and effectively.

There is a lack of any institutional knowledge base or understanding of the parallel, real-world advances now emerging from alternative community-based efforts as the tide turns towards widespread normalization and legalization of cannabis. Our non-profit (501c3) organization provides a compelling and complimentary alternative. We represent the ability to harness a more virtual and flexible collaborative approach to scientific advancement predicated on our team’s successful track record, as our members have been operating in the cannabis and cannabinoid science space for almost a decade and in the biotechnology industry and clinical arena across multiple decades. We have embraced an “act first, talk later” operating principle that has now led to a successful series of disruptive innovations in the cannabis science space.

How We Break Down The Cannabis Industry ’s Product Taxonomy

CANNABIS INDUSTRY SEGMENT Lifestyle MEDICINAL: HEALTH &   DISEASE
Dietary
     Supp- lement		 Drug
MODE / ROUTE OF ADMINISTRATION Inhaled Ingested Applied Ingested Inhaled Ingested Applied
CLASS OF   STARTING MATERIAL Hemp
Cannabis
PRODUCTION   SCALE Boutique / Artisinal /   Craƒ
Commercial
Agricultural   Commodity
PRODUCT GOAL RBS      
(Processed) Botanical   Substance
Botanical Product
   NDI API

How we operate

As part of our intent to remain “meta”, the CESC is gaining acceptance and credibility as a neutral organization that performs product validations. Our position provides us with the foundation to accept grants and donations to carry out our initiatives and objectives. This, in turn, brings benefit to supply chain participants and to the greater community. We envision a validated product “formulary” that other industry participants and consumers can access. Our objective creates a reliable corpus of products to access for study or dependable use. Furthermore, we propose to identify products in this formulary by providing a certification mark that also communicates complex product content information in an easily understood format (the ChemoMark™).

Why we remain “meta”

As a nonprofit organization, the CESC positions itself as impartial and neutral to vested interests in the cannabinoid botanical industry. This permits our organization to develop best practices and guidance without being directed by special interests or stakeholders with private agendas. Our founders value their ability to contribute to original knowledge and anchor this with a long track record in bioscience and medicine. The CESC considers its non-profit status to be a general benefit to the cannabis industry as it establishes collaborations with private, for-profit industry participants and sponsors. We understand cannabis industry product taxonomy.

How we study the overlapping parameters, influencing effects & adverse events

How We Break Down The Cannabis Industry ’s Product Taxonomy

Our Initiative

The CESC has established primary clinical programs that investigate the efficacy of cannabinoid botanical products. These clinical correlates initiatives center on The Dosing Project™, a Phase IV approach to clinical study. To complement a classical medicinal phased development program, we deploy a paradigm-shifting clinical study approach. The Dosing Project™ initiates our investigations by defining product dose-effect relationships for general neurophysiological indications, such as mood, sleep, pain, and appetite. Further clinical studies delve into evaluations of mood, concentration, and cognitive functioning using EEG and other biomarkers in a more traditional, phased-trial approach. We have also initiated clinical programs on the neuro-inflammatory processes affected by cannabinoid botanical products and their clinical effects on Alzheimer’s, autism, traumatic brain injuries, and nociceptive and neuropathic pain.

Our Focus

Our view is that the current regulatory climate surrounding the evolving acceptance and legalization of cannabinoid botanical products focuses primarily on aspects of product safety. Testing of such products involves determination of adulterants, including pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, and microbial bioburden. The CESC considers an investigation of adverse events (AE) to be an unmet product safety need for cannabinoid botanical products. This still leaves a big gap in the industry as far as determining product quality attributes. Such characteristics include chemotype, stability, and anticipated effects. From a producer perspective, understanding and appropriately exploiting such parameters helps with development decisions and offers opportunities for market segmentation and increases in market share. We therefore have positioned our investigations in this arena.

Our Study

Medicine development has long been the purview of white men. Historically, they provided the predominant manpower to advance these efforts. Additionally, white men provided the predominant group of subjects for clinical studies. We now understand the importance of stratifying such investigations to include women, different ethnic groups, and different age groups in order to better understand and fine tune the administration of medicines to individuals. This appreciation of study stratification has been in the DNA of the CESC since its founding. Incorporating gender, ethnicity, and age group into our ongoing studies of cannabinoid botanical products is integral and essential in our programs.

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LETTER FROM THE TEAM – July 2021 Monthly Playbook

Posted on | by bfields | Leave a Comment on LETTER FROM THE TEAM – July 2021 Monthly Playbook

Each month we spend hours analyzing market research, data trends and private conservations to will keep you in front of the ever-evolving cannabinoid industry. Read the entire July Report here

One Report, Once a Month, Everything you need to know

Progress doesn’t always show up as major milestones, and nowhere is this more evident than in the cannabis industry. As we continue our journey to end Prohibition 2.0, we must consistently remind ourselves thatthe small wins, when combined, equate to massive progress. As author and poet Richelle Goodrich wrote, “Small steps may appear unimpressive, but don’t be deceived. They are the means by which perspectives are subtly altered, mountains are gradually scaled, and lives are drastically changed.”2

In the cannabis space, the changing of perspectives is akin to a seismic shift, and every legal victory is a small chip away at the crumbling, anti-cannabis infrastructure.

“Alabama legalized medical cannabis, Texas has expanded their medical cannabis program, Louisiana ruled in favor of decriminalization, Connecticut has just become the19th adult-use state.”

Over the past few months, we’ve all anxiously awaited information regarding the bill to end cannabis prohibition, a piece of legislation aggressively championed by Senator Schumer.3 While many would argue that his repeated yet empty assurance that the bill will come “soon” is a sign of stagnation, it’s important to look at his statements in conjunction with the changes the industry is experiencing.

Within the past dozen weeks, Alabama legalized medical cannabis, Texas has expanded their medical cannabis program, Louisiana ruled in favor of decriminalization, and Connecticut has just become the 18th adult-use state. If all of these events happened in a year’s time within another industry, it would be chalked up as an automatic success. In the cannabis space, however, frustration with the system has somehow minimized the impact of such regulatory accomplishments.

“Large, outside industry players have officially announced their intention to enter the cannabis world.”

This progress isn’t confined to the world of legislation; it extends throughout the entire market. Large, outside industry players have officially announced their intention to enter the cannabis world, and as Uber continues to share their thoughts on cannabis delivery, Amazon is pushing for federal legalization.4,5 (Does this sound familiar? If it does, it’s because we predicted it back in January!) Even the NFL has decided to offer its support after years of suspending players for failed drug tests, with its pain management committee announcing that it “will provide $1 million in funding for research into pain management and cannabinoids.”5

These are the small steps that may appear unimpressive individually, but together indicate that cannabis is an industry that’s here to stay and ready to change lives for the better. The Prohibition 2.0 walls are coming down, and these events generate the necessary momentum to make the bigger dominos fall.

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The Housing Boom Sparks Industrial Hemp & Building Options

Posted on | by bfields

Join the 1,512 others who are receiving high-signal, data-driven analysis to be in front of their peers in the cannabinoid space! If you have found value in our insights, please share this with another canna-curious individual to grow the revolution!

Each month we spend hours analyzing market research, data trends and private conservations to will keep you in front of the ever-evolving cannabinoid industry. Read the entire Report here

One Report, Once a Month, Everything you need to know

The article below is an excerpt from the Monthly Playbook.

How does Lumber future influence the industrial hemp market?

Lumber futures prices rose the maximum amount allowed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) for 42% of the trading days in April. The boom in the housing market has caused lumber prices to soar, increasing the average lumber price for building a new house by $36,000 from last year.

FUTURE TIMBER PRICES

The increased price is forcing consumers to take a closer look at alternative building materials. We believe that hempcrete is poised to emerge as the best alternative to the traditional wood-framed house. There are several companies in the United States and Canada that have been developing unique ways of using hemp hurd, water, and lime to generate hempcrete.

Hemp hurd is the wood part of industrial hemp’s stalk that’s revealed after the fiber has been removed via decortication, and decortation is the process of separating the outside bast fibers from the hurd, of the plant. The remaining hurd is the main ingredient in most hempcretes.

There has been a 2.5% increase in industrial seed pricing this year, which could signal more farmers to turn to industrial hemp crops, supporting the rise of hemprete as a viable building material. As we see it, there are several companies in the United States and Canada poised to take advantage of this historical opportunity as we see it. These are our favorites:

The voyage had begun, and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea.

Just Biofiber
Hempblock USA
Hempcrete Homes
Hempetecture

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