Business
How cannabis retailers can avoid problems storing concentrates
Improper storage of cannabis concentrates can lead to major losses for store owners who are already competing in a cutthroat marijuana market with razor-thin margins.
Properly storing concentrates is especially important when retailers are often forced to sell merchandise at cost or cheaper to keep moving products moving out before they expire.
Cannabis concentrates are more sensitive to degradation than flower or edibles. If exposed to heat or light, they begin to degrade very quickly.
When concentrates degrade, they lose their taste, turn brown or black and lose potency.
“Once (cannabis products) hit that expiration date, or you see that you’re within a few weeks to a month of the expiration date, you’ve got to make a decision on what you’re going to do: Either contact the company to get a refund, or you try to sell it at cost,” said Duke Barclay, owner of The Fireplace marijuana store in Arcata, California.
Protecting revenue
Cannabis retailers and concentrate makers have reported losses from the improper storage of concentrates.
Barclay told MJBizDaily he keeps all his concentrates, regardless of type, in a freezer until they are moved to a smaller refrigerator on the sales floor.
“It would be best if you could keep all of your concentrate that you would consider any sort of high end in the freezer until you are going to sell it and/or smoke it,” Barclay said.
Retailers who neglect to splurge on cold storage might find themselves taking revenue losses down the line, according to Brennan Burke-Martin, sales manager for 710 Labs, a multistate cultivator and concentrate producer.
“We’ve definitely taken losses with retailers on storage stuff,” he added.
Burke-Martin added his company has been forced to heavily discount product – up to 40% – in the past after, for example, a freezer malfunction caused the consistency of rosin to change.
According to Barclay, as the owner of a lower volume store, he has often been forced to discount older product just to get it out before it expires.
Protecting product from any further degradation is crucial to his bottom line.
“Once it hits the front retail in any store is when the stopwatch starts,” Barclay said.
Cold storage
Simple steps can be taken to ensure concentrates retain maximum quality until the time of sale.
Concentrates should be stored according to type and can be broken down into the categories of solventless extraction and ethanol and butane-hash oil extraction.
Solventless concentrates largely start from water hash, also called bubble hash.
Water hash and flower can also be processed into rosin – or live rosin if the plants used were fresh-frozen at the time of harvest.
Most solventless products should be stored in a freezer, ideally at less than -10 degrees, Burke-Martin said.
He added that 710 Labs requires all retailers who carry the company’s products do so in a freezer.
“I tell people if you wouldn’t keep ice cream in it, don’t keep our stuff in it,” Burke-Martin said.
Here is a list of storage recommendations for solventless products provided to MJBizDaily by 710 Labs:
- Live rosin (first and second press): freezer, ideally less than -10 degrees.
- Persy rosin: freezer, ideally less than -10 degrees.
- Water hash: freezer, ideally less than -10 degrees.
- Persy rosin sauce: ideally a refrigerator or an air-conditioned room no more than 68 degrees.
Persy rosin is a shelf-stable rosin proprietary to 710 labs.
Another notable form of extraction is ethanol extraction, which is used to make Rick Simpson Oil (RSO), among other concentrates.
Ethanol extracts should also be stored in a refrigerator or air-conditioned room, according to Burke-Martin.
Butane hash oil extraction storage
Products made through butane extraction include shatter, crumble, live resin and badder, to name a few.
In general, Burke-Martin, said BHO products should be stored in an air-conditioned room no warmer than 68 degrees, though some choose to freeze them regardless.
“Anything that’s a living extract you want to keep it at cool temperatures so that it remains stable throughout its lifetime,” said Harry Ballance, an owner of Humboldt County, California-based Errl Hill Extracts.
According to Ballance, BHO products such as shatter or crumble that were not made from fresh-frozen “living” plants are more stable than living or solventless extracts, but they should still be kept in an air-conditioned room no warmer than 68 degrees.
Live resin should be frozen or refrigerated until sold, Ballance said.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/how-marijuana-retailers-can-avoid-problems-storing-concentrates/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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