One area that keeps the CBD industry on its toes is compliance. Ever changing regulations can affect any area of the CBD value chain. In his weekly chat with CBD industry leaders, Larry Lipman, CEO of eXPO, sat down with Hart McMillan and Nick Brewit from Seed & Smith in Denver, Colorado to provide some idea of what goes on behind the scenes to get cannabis on the shelves while maintaining compliance. McMillan is the Director of Cultivation and Brewit handles extraction.
Seed & Smith may not have the biggest CBD production facility in Denver, but they are aiming to have the best. Their tagline, Premium Crafted Cannabis, isn’t unlike what you’d expect to hear from wineries or even craft beer breweries. Their extensive use of automation coupled with Brewit’s background in chemistry enables them to compete with larger facilities and produce high-quality, cost-effective products. According to McMillan, one recent change in compliance that really hit Seed & Smith hard was the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s (CDA) sudden move to prohibit the use of systemic pesticides when growing cannabis. It meant learning new methods of growing and a change in the design of their facility to suit organic growing methods. Because it’s so difficult to grow in soil organically at the scale in which they operate, Seed & Smith use coco coir substrate, which is a balance between strictly hydroponics and soil. Coco coir substrate allows for the automation that is found with hydroponics, while still providing a broad terpene profile — the fragrant oils that cannabis secretes.
Seed & Smith also process outside grow for those facilities that don’t have the extraction technology or Marijuana Infused Product (MIP) license to process their own grow. In order to maintain compliance, they mitigate against possible contamination of their own product by having dedicated solvent tanks for their clients’ grows. These tanks undergo a rigorous cleaning procedure to make sure no residuals are left over from other material. Whether it’s their own grow or a client’s, every stage of the cannabis’ transformation is tagged with a radio frequency identification device, known as an RFID tag — the same technology used in the highway toll pass you might have stuck on your car’s windshield. The RFID tag tracks the cannabis from a “seed” (technically when the plant has reached eight inches) to its final product. The seeds move as batches throughout their development. New tags are created, under the MIP’s licence, in this case, Seed & Smith’s, for any product that is extracted from the plants. Still in batches, the bulk-tagged products are sent to the logistics team that then converts the products into weights that are then sent to various retailers. It’s out of the MIP’s hands at that point.
Seed & Smith currently uses BioTrackTHC software to track their processing. However, eXPO prides itself on being an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that many BioTrack users are switching to. Not only does it track the seed right through to IRS compliancy, it makes its business members more profitable by helping drive business. eXPO has acquired Weedstream.net, which will play music near its member’s businesses on weekends and “power” a mobile Financial Center that, among other things, will run ads that also promote the products of eXPO member businesses in and around different communities. eXPO will be offering this service in each state that it moves into, including: Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois and soon Nevada. According to McMillan, eXPO’s initiatives will help make cannabis more mainstream, transforming its image from a “wild industry” into one that’s integrated into communities.
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Seed & Smith is a local dispensary and grow in East Denver, Colorado. You can learn more about their company here. And if you are in town, take a tour of their facilities at 5070 Oakland St, Denver, CO 80239.
