MJBizMagazine May-June 2022

INSIDE! MJBIZDAILY BUYERS GUIDE: INDOOR CULTIVATION MAY-JUNE 2022

MAGAZINE VOLUME 9 • ISSUE 5 $12.95

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How to Grow Marijuana With Zero Carbon Footprint Hiring Workers With Criminal Records For Stellar Packaging, Think Inside the Box

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Priorities

Cannabis companies renew emphasis on building diverse staff and ensuring pay equity

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May-June Table of Contents

MJBizMagazine May-June 2022 Volume 9 • Issue 5

FEATURES

From the Editor COVER STORY

FRESH PRIORITIES

Cannabis companies renew emphasis on building diverse staff and ensuring pay equity.

52

12

Five Questions With Robert Trotter

14

Hemp Notebook

16

Company News

MJBIZ FACTBOOK PREVIEW

Be prepared for legal and sales changes in the regulated cannabis market.

20

Industry Developments

60

54

Industry Players

DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH How to hire cannabis workers with criminal records.

64

Unboxed

65

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M AGA Z I N E VOLUME 9 • ISSUE 5 $12.95

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66

How to Grow Marijuana With Zero Carbon Footprint

Seed to CEO

Hiring Workers With Criminal Records For Stellar Packaging, Think Inside the Box

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

Fresh

Priorities

Cannabis companies renew emphasis on building diverse staff and ensuring pay equity

On Our Cover Christine De La Rosa, CEO of The People’s Ecosystem, works to lower barriers to entry for minorities in the cannabis industry.

Photo by Greg Doherty

The median base pay for trimmers in the cannabis industry is $16 per hour, according to compensation consulting firm FutureSense.

Courtesy Photo

4 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

DEPARTMENTS

34

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FROM THE EDITOR Kate Lavin

Staffing for Success Labor shortage drives home the importance of solid hiring and compensation practices

A

game of musical chairs caused by the Great Resignation—a term coined in late 2021, when the percentage of employees leaving their jobs reached a historic rate— make hiring and retention in the cannabis industry more important in 2022 than ever before.

According to a CEO survey released by Fortune and Deloitte early this year, labor shortage is the top concern for executives in 2022, with 71% saying they expect a scarcity of labor and skills to disrupt business strategy.

And with new markets such as New Jersey and New Mexico recently opening their doors to adult-use marijuana consumers, the demand for skilled workers in the cannabis industry will only continue to grow.

Emphasis on Diversity

Businesses inside and outside the cannabis sector are increasing efforts to diversify staff—both to create authentic connections with a wider variety of consumers and to make good on social equity promises stemming from the war on drugs.

To assist cannabis executives seeking to grow their own teams, MJBizMagazine dedicated this year’s compensation issue to increasing workplace diversity and achieving pay equity.

As a jumping-off point for companies looking to build diversity on staff, author and labor consultant Natasha Bowman

8 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

recommends that hiring managers analyze the applications for posted jobs to determine whether their company is attracting a diverse group of jobseekers. If not, the business needs to identify why diverse applicants might be turned off even before submitting a resume.

Potential reasons can include a website that shows there are no people of color on the team or executives who all attended the same type of school, fostering the appearance of an establishment where inclusivity is not valued.

Pay-Equity Promise

Before new staff members are hired, managers need to set the compensation range for incoming positions. In states that have adopted pay transparency laws, which require companies to include anticipated pay in their employment ads, jobseekers know before applying whether the salary is sufficient, which draws more resumes from qualified candidates.

“A company that believes in fairness and equity will attract people … because they stand for that purpose,” said Jim Finkelstein, CEO of California-based compensation advisory firm FutureSense. The company worked with Green Leaf Payroll & Business Solutions and Western Management Group to gather data points and create the median compensation figures seen in our cover package, starting on page 34.

Cannabis businesses looking for more detail on pay for specific positions can visit the 2022 Cannabis Compensation Survey Report at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs and register to participate next year.

Staffing Opportunities

Elsewhere in this issue, we look at how to hire staffers with prior criminal convictions. As Kika Keith, founder of California-based Gorilla Rx Wellness, said, veterans of the illicit market are a natural fit for success in the regulated marijuana industry.

“All we had to do was teach the compliance and the regulations, teach the policy side,” she told MJBizMagazine. “You’re talking about diamonds in the rough, folks who have relationships, have knowledge of the plant, knowledge of how buying works.”

Labor shortages don’t appear to be ending any time soon, but we hope the content in this issue provides a springboard to achieve your hiring and compensation goals, creating a more stable workforce and profitable business in 2022 and beyond.

Kate Lavin is the editor of MJBizMagazine. Reach her at kate.lavin@ mjbizdaily.com.

FIVE QUESTIONS with Robert Trotter

Afghanistan of the Rockies Hydroelectric turbine allows Colorado farmer to replicate famed growing region and cultivate marijuana with zero carbon footprint

By John Schroyer

L

ongtime Colorado farm owner Robert Trotter decided to try his hand at growing marijuana in 2015. After a few years of experimenting, he arrived at what he believes is a truly sustainable business model—in more ways than one.

Trotter bought his farm in 1992 and installed a hydroelectric turbine capable of producing all the electricity he needs to power the two homes on the property—and to harvest 10,000-plus sun-grown cannabis plants each fall.

The achievement drives Trotter’s claim that Gypsum, Coloradobased Pot Zero is the only cannabis farm in the state with a zerocarbon footprint.

The company has also begun winning local cannabis competitions with its flower. “I think that’s a sign that we’re doing something right,” the grower told MJBizMagazine.

We caught up with Trotter to pick his brain on sustainability in cannabis cultivation.

Was it always the goal to make your grow as sustainable as possible?

It absolutely was, because of the history that we have of being here for 30 years and the sustainable nature of our ranch. My mentality has been wrapped around that from the beginning. It’s almost an obsession.

We were forced to choose this (outdoor cultivation) model, but I

12 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

also wanted this model. This plant, throughout history, has been grown extremely well in unique locations across the planet.

And I thought that, at 8,100 feet elevation, with the prevailing environment that was up here, we were very much like Afghanistan.

And we have the same light attributes as Afghanistan.

The latitude matters a lot: The sun is working with the shortening of the days, encouraging the flowering; the intensity of the sun as you’re coming into the equinox … helps to produce resin content.

When the sun comes up and goes around during the day, it gives light to a lot of different parts of the plant, which is very tough to get from an indoor environment. So we thought, from the very beginning, that the sun was really the main driver.

What steps are you taking that other “sustainable” cultivation operations are not?

It’s the combination of a hydroelectric turbine producing green power 24 hours a day that drives all of the electrical needs of our operation, and then the sun does the rest. Those two components give us that superclean model.

No matter what you do inside, you still need all that electricity.

You cannot replace the sun. I don’t know how you do that. Could you imagine growing tobacco inside, under lights?

Robert Trotter

How do your setup cost compare to other cannabis cultivators’ operating costs?

It’s kind of a tricky question. Here’s why: We’ve owned the ranch since 1992. It’s a family-owned property.

We didn’t have to go out and buy.

The guys that went and bought, they got themselves a parcel that cost them money. And then they put a bunch of stuff on there, and it cost them money.

Ours is different. And that’s why I still think this thing (should be geared) toward the farming community. Because there are lots of smart farmers with lots of beautiful land that could dovetail these kinds of operations right into what they’re already doing.

And you don’t have to rebuild and reinvent the wheel.

And that’s kind of what we’ve done here: just dovetailed the marijuana operation into what was already … an award-winning agrarian model.

FIVE QUESTIONS

Pot Zero is located in Gypsum, Colorado.

Do your retail buyers have an interest in sustainably grown products?

The dispensaries are interested in sustainability. This is such a competitive industry right now that it does become a pricing issue. But if you don’t have electrical costs, you can price better.

So, the dispensaries that we sell to love our model, they love our quality, and they have local followings that come in specifically

asking for our product. And I’ll be honest, I don’t know whether the folks are asking for our product because it’s sustainable. I don’t think so. I think they’re asking for it because it’s really good and sustainable. It checks multiple boxes.

Is your flower sold on the wholesale market with Pot Zero on the label?

Our flower goes to the dispensaries, and we leave it up to them to decide if they want to push the Pot Zero brand or be more generic and it ends up in their own packaging.

We’re not that fussy about that right now because we think folks are going to find out where our weed is. We have a following.

We also (use social media to) say, “Hey, look, we just did X pounds at such and such dispensary,” and the

folks know it’s there. They know to go in and ask for that Black Eyed Katy that tested at 33%; they know that’s Pot Zero.

Would we love to just have branded Pot Zero going out like Coca-Cola? Of course, we would.

Isn’t that everybody’s dream in this business? But right now, the vertical model and the uniqueness of it, you’ve kind of got to go with the flow.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

John Schroyer is the chief correspondent of MJBizDaily. You can reach him at john.schroyer@ mjbizdaily.com.

HEMP NOTEBOOK Kristen Nichols

Rethinking Retention Hemp business owners aren’t immune from the Great Resignation, so identify ways to keep your best hires from leaving

C

BD and hemp can make a lot of conditions better. But job satisfaction isn’t one of them.

Americans quit their jobs in record numbers last year, launching an event now known as the Great Resignation. And even as the pandemic (hopefully) recedes, the pace doesn’t seem to be letting up.

Business owners are seeing intense competition to recruit and retain talent, especially in industries designated “essential” because of their importance to protecting public health and safety in a pandemic. Those essential workers experienced some of the most challenging conditions from the past two years.

So, it blows my mind how many hemp and CBD business owners seem to believe this industry is immune to staffing problems.

Cannabis jobs are cool, the thinking goes, and people love the plant so much that the Great Resignation is driving people to the hemp and CBD industries as they flee other lines of work.

There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking.

One, there is no evidence that any of it is true, making it odd that business owners with a huge thirst for data don’t seem interested in figuring out how the hemp workforce is changing.

And two, hemp and CBD owners who aren’t seeing retention problems might be tempted to skip the hard work of developing a talent pipeline that will keep their companies healthy long after the

14 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

“Expressions of support for diverse hiring practices from white-owned companies ring hollow when those expressions come from an overwhelmingly white and male management team.”

industry matures and working in cannabis is no longer an interesting topic at cocktail parties.

In short, hemp business owners who aren’t watching resignation trends are putting their very businesses at risk.

That’s because recruitment and salary, the focus of this double issue, are just the first steps to building a healthy talent pool.

Consider: Employees don’t care about pay and “life-work balance” nearly as much as employers think they do. According to a multiindustry survey published by McKinsey & Co. last year, employees are much more interested in feeling valued by their employers and seeing opportunities to advance their careers. Pay raises without career-development opportunities can seem overly transactional, the report concluded.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center of people who quit their jobs in 2021 found that 57% of

them felt “disrespected at work.”

Inclusionary language doesn’t cut it anymore. Expressions of support for diverse hiring practices from white-owned companies ring hollow when those expressions come from an overwhelmingly white and male management team.

A recent survey of 800 recruiters found that 44% had candidates turn down an interview or a job offer because of a lack of diversity in the company’s workforce.

I know the hemp and CBD industry has a deep pool of talent, and I’d love to hear about the strategies hiring managers are using to grow talent and avoid employee turnover. I’m guessing the paycheck is just the beginning.

Kristen Nichols covers hemp for MJBizMagazine. She can be reached at kristen. nichols@mjbizdaily.com.

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COMPANY NEWS U.S., Canada & International by MJBizDaily & Hemp Industry Daily Staff U.S. DEVELOPMENTS Cresco to Buy Columbia Care in $2 Billion Deal

Multistate marijuana operators Cresco Labs and Columbia Care demonstrated an urge to merge in a blockbuster deal worth roughly $2 billion, with Cresco set to acquire Columbia Care. The proposed allstock merger is one of the largest in the cannabis industry to date and would produce one of the biggest MSOs in the nation.

The combined footprint of Chicago-based Cresco and New Yorkheadquartered Columbia Care would include more than 130 cannabis retail locations across 17 states and the District of Columbia, reaching about 55% of the U.S. population, according to a news release.

The companies said the combined business would have pro-forma annual revenue “in excess of $100 million in eight different states by 2023” and total revenue of more than $1.4 billion before any divestitures, making Cresco the largest annual revenue generator in the cannabis industry.

The planned marriage will also involve some divestitures, with Cresco CEO Charlie Bachtell saying that it was likely some of the combined company’s New York assets would be sold. Analysts suggested asset sales might also be required in Illinois, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts and Ohio.

The combined company will continue to be called Cresco Labs.

Agrify Agrees to Raise $135 Million in Capital

Ancillary cannabis-cultivation company Agrify signed a definitive agreement to raise as much as $135 million in capital from a debt financing to strengthen its balance sheet and support continued growth.

16 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Under the senior secured debt facility, $65 million will be immediately available at closing, the Massachusetts-based developer of indoor agriculture technology said in a news release. The remaining $70 million can be drawn at $35 million increments, depending on certain conditions.

The note, which matures in March 2026, carries a favorable annual interest rate of 6.75% but includes stock warrants that will be issued to the lender.

CannaCraft to Merge with March and Ash

Northern California marijuana manufacturer and cultivator CannaCraft will merge with Southern California retail chain March and Ash in a deal that was “at least six months” in the making.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but company spokespeople confirmed to news outlets that financing was provided

by Altmore Capital.

No layoffs are planned, and the newly created entity—to be named Groundwork Holding—will be led by Bret Peace, the co-founder, partner and general counsel at March and Ash. The merger will give CannaCraft a dedicated retail outlet for its portfolio of branded products, which include Care by Design, Farmer and the Felon, AbsoluteXtracts and more.

RIV Capital Buys Etain for $247 Million

RIV Capital, a Toronto-based investment firm bankrolled by a unit of lawn-and-garden giant Scotts Miracle-Gro, agreed to purchase

New York-based marijuana company Etain Health for $247 million in cash and stock.

The transaction is believed to be the largest involving a femaleowned business in the cannabis industry and gives RIV Capital—and, indirectly, Scotts Miracle-Gro—the opportunity to capitalize on the upcoming launch of New York’s adult-use marijuana market.

RIV Capital is an investment and acquisition firm heavily funded

by The Hawthorne Collective, a Scotts subsidiary.

Under terms of the transaction, RIV Capital will pay $212 million in cash and $35 million in stock, based on a five-day average price before the announcement. RIV Capital said it will use $150 million in proceeds from The Hawthorne Collective to help finance the cash portion of the deal.

The Hawthorne Collective also intends to provide RIV Capital with an additional $40 million around the closing of the acquisition, according to a news release.

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Hemp Firm Sues Colorado Gov Over Lost Contract

A Colorado hemp company filed a corruption lawsuit against Gov. Jared Polis and several of his advisers, saying that a 2020 bidding process to oversee the state’s Hemp Advancement and Management Plan was rigged.

BoCo Farms alleges that Polis and others conspired to make sure a Denver consultancy, the Marijuana Policy Group, “would be awarded the most lucrative hemp-related contracts in (Colorado Department of Agriculture) history.” The company also claims that Polis has investments in hemp through holding companies and improperly pushed

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COMPANY NEWS U.S., Canada & International for the creation of a “hemp value retention program” to allow Colorado hemp farmers to sell hot hemp.

The plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial and unspecified damages.

MJ Research Company Seeks to List on Nasdaq A Florida company with “conditional approval” from the U.S. Drug

Enforcement Administration to cultivate marijuana for research purposes could become the first U.S.-based plant-touching business to trade on the Nasdaq market.

Bright Green Corp., headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, filed plans with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 29 to register its shares on the Nasdaq.

The company is building a $300 million manufacturing and

cultivation facility in Grants, New Mexico, about 80 miles west of Albuquerque.

Bright Green’s investment adviser, EF Hutton, will determine the initial public market price contingent upon regulatory approval of the registration filing.

Marijuana’s illegal status under federal law has prevented U.S.-based plant-touching companies from listing on major U.S. exchanges.

CANADIAN DEVELOPMENTS Aurora Acquires TerraFarma

Alberta, Canada-based Aurora Cannabis reached a deal to buy TerraFarma, the Simcoe, Ontariobased parent company of craft producer Thrive Cannabis, in a bid to reinforce its “premiumization” strategy and become profitable by spring 2023.

Aurora agreed to pay at least $30 million (CA$38 million) in cash and stock for all of TerraFarma’s issued and outstanding shares, according to a news release. The deal includes two potential earnouts of up to $7.9 million for near-term revenue targets and up to $15.8 million for longer-term targets.

Valens Raises $22.5 Million in Bought Deal Offering

British Columbia cannabis product manufacturer The Valens Co. announced a bought deal offering worth $22.5 million (CA$28.1 million) with an over-allotment option.

Net proceeds from the offering will be used “to continue to pursue strategic growth initiatives in North America, provide funding for working capital and for general corporate purposes,” Valens noted in a news release.

Under the bought deal offering, underwriters Stifel GMP and

18 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Alliance Global Partners will purchase 10,613,207 Valens units for $2.13 per unit.

Each unit includes one common share and half of a common share purchase warrant, which will be exercisable to buy another common share within 48 months of closing at $2.56.

An over-allotment option will allow the underwriters to purchase an additional 15% of the units sold for 30 days after closing.

CannTrust Emerges from Creditor Protection

Vaughn, Ontario-based CannTrust Holdings has exited courtsupervised proceedings under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act after a key subsidiary completed a financing worth $13.3 million.

The company said its subsidiary, CannTrust Equity, completed the financing via investors led by Marshall Fields International B.V. Marshall Fields is a subsidiary of Kenzoll B.V., a Netherlandsbased private equity investment company.

With the investment, Marshall Fields acquired a 90% equity interest in CannTrust Equity and provided the cannabis

producer with a $4.3 million secured credit facility.

The completion of the financing means CannTrust has emerged from the court-supervised proceedings under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act, effective immediately.

Eve & Co. Receives Creditor Protection

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted an order for creditor protection to Eve & Co., a cannabis producer based in Strathroy, Ontario.

The order allows the company to draw on a debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan from Deans Knight Capital Management for $960,000 (CA$1.2 million). The money will be used for working capital until the next hearing, set for April 1.

At that hearing, Eve Group will seek approval of a sale and investment solicitation process.

Have a company announcement you want us to consider? Send a news release or general information to omar.sacirbey@mjbizdaily.com.

(Note: We’re looking for news about expansions, financing, deals, partnerships and similar developments, not product-related announcements.)

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS National & International

U.S. News Feds Agree to Return $1.1M in Seized Marijuana Funds

Chuck Schumer

Sen. Schumer Delays Marijuana Reform Bill U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s long-awaited comprehensive marijuana reform bill is delayed again. Schumer now plans to introduce his Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act before the Senate recess in early August, according to media outlets.

Industry experts in April said Schumer was short of the support needed to get his reform package passed in the Senate. The latest delay comes as reform in the Senate has stalled.

That’s not been the case in the U.S. House of Representatives.

There, lawmakers recently passed for the second time in the chamber’s history the comprehensive marijuana reform measure known as the MORE Act. House Democrats also are trying to push through cannabis banking reform as part of an American competitiveness bill that will be hammered out by a congressional conference committee.

Additionally, three House lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to direct the federal government to develop a regulatory framework that would be enacted if the 85year federal prohibition on marijuana ends.

20 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to give back $1.1 million in marijuana proceeds to an armored car company after its vehicles were stopped by sheriff’s deputies in San Bernardino County, California, last year.

As a result of the settlement, Empyreal Logistics, which does business in 28 states and acts as a cash courier between state-legal marijuana businesses and their banks as well as for mainstream industries, will drop its federal lawsuit against the DOJ, the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Beyond the California issue, an Empyreal driver was stopped in October in Kansas while transporting cash from a Missouri medical marijuana dispensary to a financial institution in Colorado.

Ag Committee Chair Suggests Adding MJ to 2023 Farm Bill U.S. Rep. David Scott, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, suggested Congress could add highTHC cannabis to the next Farm Bill. The Georgia Democrat floated the idea after hearing powerful testimony from Amber Littlejohn, executive director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.

Littlejohn told lawmakers that small and minority-owned marijuana companies likely won’t survive without some help from Congress, adding that state-level social equity programs have not been able to keep many minorityowned businesses afloat.

In response, Scott said the Farm Bill coming up in 2023 should address the barriers that small businesses and Black

entrepreneurs face when trying to start legal marijuana companies under state law.

“Here we are, the fastest-growing agricultural product, between hemp and cannabis,” he said. “We’ve got to address this issue. We can no longer hide it.”

Some are scoffing at a marijuana industry regulated by farm officials with more expertise on broadacre commodities such as wheat.

David Scott

Skeptics also point out that if the GOP takes control of the U.S. House, as some expect, Republicans on the Agriculture Committee have expressed no interest in expanding marijuana legalization through the 2023 Farm Bill.

Even some prominent hemp advocates say that marijuana could distract from other changes they’d like to see in the 2023 Farm Bill, including a higher THC limit and clarity about intoxicating products made from converted hemp extracts, such as delta-8 THC. Longtime California cannabis consultant Oliver Summers said Scott’s proposal, while humorous, is important. “Even if the bill doesn’t have any chance in hell of passing … people are talking about it.”

PRECISION EXTRACTION

INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS State by State

WA MT

VT

ND

OR

NH

ME

MN ID

SD

MI

WY

UT

CA

IL

CO

AZ

MO

OK

NJ

CT

DE MD VA

KY

DC

NC

TN AR

SC MS

TX

OH

IN

WV

KS

NM

RI PA

IA

NE

NV

MA

NY

WI

AL

GA

LA FL

AK

■ Medical ■ Recreational HI

Note: This map does not include states that have legalized only CBD-based oils.

©2022 MJBizDaily, a division of Emerald X. All rights reserved.

Data is current as of April 10, 2022.

State News Alaska The office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the appointment of Joan Wilson as executive director of the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office (AMCO) effective May 8, marking the state cannabis regulator’s third leader since late 2019. Wilson was a senior assistant attorney general in the Alaska Department of Law, where she served as an adviser to AMCO. Wilson is taking over from Glen Klinkhart, who accepted a new role at the Alaska Department of Revenue. Separately, U.S. Rep. Don Young, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, died at age 88. The congressman from Alaska was a staunch supporter of the marijuana industry who partnered with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California and Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon to form the Congressional Cannabis Caucus in 2016.

22 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS Arizona The Department of Health Services awarded 26 long-awaited social equity cannabis business permits. At least 10 of the permits went to applicants who partnered with existing marijuana companies, according to local news outlets. The existing operators included The Mint, which partnered with the winners of two licenses; Copperstate Farms, which teamed with the winners of three permits; and Mohave Cannabis, which partnered with the winners of five licenses. Several lawsuits sought to delay social equity licensing in the state, arguing that the Arizona health department had not fully vetted the roughly 1,500 applicants to confirm their eligibility.

Arkansas A circuit court judge extended a temporary restraining order that prevents state regulators from issuing two remaining medical marijuana dispensary licenses. The judge in Pulaski County made the ruling after Absolute Essence, a Black-owned company in Arkansas, filed suit against state medical marijuana regulators and other officials in February, alleging the company was discriminated against during the licensing process because of its owner’s race. The suit called on regulators to halt the licensing process until flaws in the system were fixed. The suit also requested a court order to force the commission to rescore dispensary applications.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS State by State California Officials conducted a wide-ranging, multiweek crackdown in desert communities between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, resulting in 73 arrests and raids at 53 locations. Law enforcement netted more than 156,000 illegal marijuana plants, nearly 5,000 pounds of processed cannabis, 22 guns, more than 450 grams of MJ concentrates and $98,000-plus in cash during the raids. San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies said they discovered and eradicated 379 greenhouses, 30 indoor cultivation operations and two extraction labs.

Colorado Denver approved the city’s first social equity license for a marijuana consumption lounge, a move that could lead to a boost in sales. Tetra Lounge, located in the city’s downtown, was granted a “marijuana hospitality establishment” permit, allowing the business to open for patrons to legally consume marijuana in public. Under city regulations, only qualified social equity applicants are eligible to apply for hospitality establishment permits during the first six years of the program.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS Illinois Sangamon County Judge Gail Noll lifted a stay order put in place to prevent regulators from awarding 60 adult-use craft cannabis cultivation licenses.

The new order enables the state to announce the winners of the grow permits that have been in limbo since December. The move sets the stage for a major industry expansion in Illinois, which currently has only 21 licensed cultivation operations; 40 more craft cultivators also will eventually come online. An additional 185 retail licenses are also mired in litigation, and it’s uncertain when those permits will be awarded.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS State by State Massachusetts A marijuana social equity bill passed the state Senate. The legislation would create a fund to increase social equity in the state’s marijuana industry by helping applicants get access to capital via grants and loans. The bill now heads to the Massachusetts House. The state Senate also passed a package of cannabis reforms including one to reduce the exorbitant fees some municipalities are charging licensed marijuana businesses. The measure would give the state Cannabis Control Commission the authority to approve or reject host community agreements, which allowed municipalities to collect up to 3% of a company’s gross sales to offset negative impacts.

Michigan The state is backing off a plan to allow hemp-derived THC products to be sold alongside marijuana products after Michigan’s marijuana industry complained it could not compete with hemp-derived THC. Denise Policella, an attorney for the Cannabis Business Association of Michigan, argued that the state “can’t compete with Kentucky and North Carolina on hemp. They’ve got a year-round growing season that we don’t have.” Michigan passed a law in 2021 that banned delta-8 THC from unlicensed retail stores but left the door open for the isomer to be sold in adult-use marijuana dispensaries.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS Minnesota State regulators voted to allow small amounts of THC in over-the-counter hemp products. The vote by the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy follows a decision in late 2021 in which a state appeals court said that the distinction between marijuana and hemp stops at the plant. That ruling put in question the legality of products containing some THC—but not more than 0.3% THC, the federal limit for hemp. The clarification by pharmacy regulators was crucial, according to Minnesota Cannabis Association founder Steven Brown, who added: “The hemp industry is saved because of the ruling of the Board of Pharmacy.”

New Jersey The Garden State launched its projected $2 billion adult-use marijuana market on April 21. The initial seven adult-use companies are all multistate operators. Industry experts said they might get as much as an 18-month head start on some new cannabis businesses. New Jersey voters approved adult-use marijuana in November 2020. The operators have developed plans to prioritize MMJ patients should supplies run low, focusing in part on home delivery and curbside pickup. Industry experts say they expect some initial choppiness.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS State by State New Mexico Adult-use marijuana sales launched April 1 and totaled more than $3.52 million during the first three days, according to figures the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department (NMRLD) provided to MJBizDaily. The NMRLD reported 57,890 transactions for adult-use marijuana during the three-day period and 29,883 medical marijuana transactions over the same time. The 2022 MJBiz Factbook projects annual adult-use cannabis sales worth as much as $125 million for New Mexico this year.

New York State regulators approved the first round of recreational cannabis cultivation licenses, issuing 52 permits to local hemp farmers under a new law aimed at ensuring adequate marijuana supplies for the state’s impending adult-use market. The permits are intended to accelerate the cultivation and processing of recreational marijuana to avoid lengthy delays and shortages. The licenses also are aimed at boosting diversity within the industry, with hemp farmers getting an early opportunity to enter the adult-use market. Companies that received the permits may start growing marijuana outdoors or in a greenhouse with up to 20 supplemental lights. Conditional license winners are required to apply for full permits by June 1. The provisional licenses expire June 30, 2024.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS North Dakota Cannabis advocates in North Dakota are sprinting to the finish line to place a question about legalizing adult-use marijuana on the state’s November ballot. A 25-member sponsoring committee submitted a petition to the state secretary on April 11. If the petition is approved for circulation, the advocates would need 15,582 signatures from North Dakota residents by July 11 to make the November ballot. The petition directs state regulators to establish rules and create the legal marijuana program by October 2023. North Dakota’s state Senate overwhelmingly defeated a bill to legalize recreational marijuana in 2021 that was written with similar language.

Oklahoma The state’s highest court ruled that two ballot measures that would legalize adult-use marijuana and create a new regulatory body can proceed. State Question 819 would legalize, regulate and tax adult-use marijuana, while State Question 818 would create a new regulatory agency called the Oklahoma State Cannabis Commission and remove the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority from the state health department. Voters would decide on these two questions if the effort, spearheaded by Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action, gathers enough signatures. Both would need 178,000 signatures to make the ballot.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS State by State South Carolina The state Legislature is poised to legalize medical cannabis, but the bill that could make that happen might still fail. The measure in question passed the state Senate and was approved easily in early April by a House committee after a few amendments, setting the stage for a full House floor vote. Under the bill, marijuana flower would remain prohibited and the list of qualifying medical conditions for registered patients would be relatively thin. The only medical marijuana products allowed would be oils, salves, patches or vaporizers, and only a select few pharmacies would be permitted to sell them.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill into law outlawing smokable hemp and CBD in food. The law also makes it a crime to grow, process or possess smokable hemp and to add hemp to a conventional food or beverage. The law does not ban delta-8 THC. The new law also punts oversight of the plant’s production to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making Utah the sixth state to defer to federal authorities on regulating hemp cultivation. The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food will continue oversight of licensed hemp processors.

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INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS Vermont The state Cannabis Control Board (CCB) passed emergency rules dictating how medical cannabis businesses are licensed and spelling out how those companies are regulated. The emergency rules were necessary because MMJ statutes were repealed March 1, meaning there were no regulations to govern the program. It also adopted three emergency rules that deal with medical marijuana, compliance and enforcement of MMJ laws in the state as well as how dispensaries are regulated. Separately, Vermont regulators have begun taking prequalification applications from would-be cannabis cultivators, product manufacturers, retailers and others as the state readies for recreational marijuana sales to start in the fall.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved a bill to ban delta-8 THC products and limit the sale of smokable hemp. Youngkin made amendments to the bill, which redefines THC in Virginia statutes to eliminate any mention of “delta-9,” a change that means hemp operators will no longer be able to sell intoxicating THC isomers such as delta-8 THC outside regulated marijuana sales channels.

The delta-8 THC ban takes effect Oct. 1. Youngkin also signed a law to expand access for Virginia medical marijuana patients.

Note: Entries sourced from MJBizDaily, Hemp Industry Daily and other international, national and local news outlets.

These developments occurred before this magazine’s publication deadline, so some situations might have changed.

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#1. Massive Cannabis Retailer & Delivery Chain For Sale LA, OC & SD County

#2. Fully Vertically Integrated Cannabis Retail And Cultivation Empire (Perris & Adelanto, CA)

Asking Price: $80,000,000.00 Total projected revenues for 2021 YTD are $50M+ from the 4 Retail stores and the deliveries.

Asking Price: $29,900,000.00 2021 Gross Revenues YTD: On Pace for $29.4M 2021 Net Revenues YTD: $4.5M Building Space: 3,000 SqFt Rent: $15,000/Month

#4. HIGH Revenue Producing 15M Fully Operational Cannabis Dispensary & Delivery Business For Sale (Santa Ana, CA)

Asking Price: $17,900,000.00 $15M Annual Run Rate Total Space: 3,200 SqFt Rent: $2.75/sqft Lease Term: 5 YR w/ (2) 5 YR Option

#5. HIGH GROSSING 10M+ Annual Run Rate Operational Cannabis Dispensary & Delivery Business For Sale (Vista, CA)

Asking Price: $15,900,000.00 Space: 8,000 SqFt Rent: $17K/Month Lease: 3 YR w/ 5 YR Option 2021 YTD Gross Revenues: $6M+ Licenses: Retail & Delivery Annual Run Rate: $10,357,026

#7. Cannabis Retail, Cultivation 22k SqFt Canopy, Distribution & Manufacturing Business For Sale (Los Angeles, CA) Asking Price: $5,700,000.00 Retail Sales for 2021 $4,335,769 (NOT INCLUDING TAXES) Retail Space: 2,600 SqFt Rent: $43k/Month Lights: 98 Lights (8 Flower Rooms) Could be expanded to 150 lights Power: Upgrade Approved for 2,000 AMPs Seller Invested Over $1M in Upgrades

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#3. 14M Annual Run Rate TurnKey Cannabis Dispensary & Delivery Business For Sale (La Mesa, CA)

Asking Price: $17,900,000.00 Space: 5,200 SqFt (3,200 SqFT Retail & 2,000 SqFt Offices) Major SoCal Delivery Network in place 2021 YTD Gross Revenues: +$13M Long Term Lease In Place

#6. Fully Operational Pre-ICO Cannabis Dispensary & Delivery Business For Sale (Encino, CA)

Asking Price: $11,900,000.00 Space: 2,700 SqFt Rent: $8,000/month Long Term Lease In Place 2021 YTD Gross Revenues: +$5M

#8. Rare Opportunity! Retail Storefront And Delivery For Sale In Busy Shopping Center (Santa Rosa, CA) Asking Price: $1,490,000.00 CUP Obtained for Medical and Recreational delivery and storefront Lease: 10 YR (Options to extend for an additional 15 YRS) ~2,250 sq. ft. of approved dispensary space and an additional ~1100 sq. ft. of office space Rent: $5,750 + NNN (~$8k)

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#4. Turn Key Fully Operational Retail & Cultivation Business For Sale Includes Real Estate (Prudenville, MI) Asking Price: $5,000,000.00 Total Space: 8,000 sq. ft.

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#8. Cannabis Manufacturing & Distribution Business For Sale (SW, Colorado) Asking Price: $599,000.00 Space: 3,000 SqFt (1500 SqFt is Office, Conference, Break Room & Shipping Space) Rent: $4,200/Month Lease: 3 YR w/ (3) 1YR Options Ceiling Height: 1500 SqFt Jan 2022 sales up from 2021 Parking Spots: 7 (Inside Property)

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Christine De La Rosa, CEO of The People's Ecosystem, is dedicated to opening doors for people of color seeking to enter the cannabis industry.

Photo by Greg Doherty

34 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Fresh

Priorities Companies renew emphasis on building a diverse staff and ensuring pay equity

The strength and quality of a business’ workforce is the biggest factor in its success. Yet many companies don’t achieve their maximum potential because the staff—especially management teams—lack the diversity to help them connect with more customers.

Bias during the hiring process is the biggest obstacle to hiring a diverse staff. Here are actions that executives can take: • The first step toward eliminating bias in your company is conducting an assessment. This might require hiring a consultant specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to explore bias in your business.

• Post-assessment recommendations could include measures such as adding blind resumes, eliminating university degrees from job requirements and having multiple and diverse interviewers.

• It is important to your company’s bottom line that women and people of color are hired for “pursestring” executive positions and not just DEI, human resources and marketing roles.

• Pay equity is critical to retaining talent and achieving fairness in your company. Have your HR department or an outside firm conduct a pay-equity audit to identify problems.

• Include salary ranges when posting job openings, as is required in many states, including some of the country’s top cannabis markets.

mjbizdaily.com | May-June 2022 35

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

Eliminating Bias

By Omar Sacirbey

Experts share ways to add workplace diversity through job descriptions, interviews and hiring practices

W

hen they were young entrepreneurs still struggling to get their first businesses off the ground, Christine De La Rosa and Charleen Caabay, co-founders of The People’s Ecosystem, an Oakland, California-based cannabis company, vowed that when they could hire help, they’d recruit from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) communities.

Since then, the legacy-market veterans have opened restaurants, a gallery, a retail store and, most recently, The People’s Ecosystem (TPE).

The company buys wholesale cannabis from female and BIPOC cultivators, manufactures pre-rolls, edibles and other products under its own brands and creates white-label products for other companies. In every case, the Latina and Filipina co-founders made good on their early promise. In fact, eight of TPE’s nine executives are people of color.

‘Having Different Experience’ How did they do it?

“By not doing anything that most of the hiring companies would tell you to do. Because those are not built to look at the promise, the expectation and the beauty of women or people of color,” De La Rosa said. “We measure different things. I’m not going to measure, ‘Did you get an MBA here?’ I’m going to measure something else, so I can have a diverse team. Because it’s not just about having experience, it’s about having different experience.”

This insight is important for an industry born out of a legalization move-

36 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

“This is such a nonconventional business, there’s a tendency to want to go super-conventional with our hires.

But it’s not a good thing.”

Adding Awareness

Natasha Bowman

ment that promised to right the wrongs of the war on drugs by creating work and business ownership opportunities for Black and brown people.

But given that white males still hold disproportionate numbers of C-suite positions in the cannabis industry, it’s clear that the promise of hiring more BIPOC candidates is far from being fulfilled.

Part of the problem is that, while more companies are waking up to the social and business benefits of hiring a diverse staff, few have changed their hiring approaches or the strategies they use to find diverse candidates, cannabis industry observers said.

“We keep ending up with the same person because we are using the same metrics that you would use in another type of industry to determine that ideal candidate. So we’re ending up with people that check boxes but aren’t necessarily … adaptable and flexible and creative in the way that is often needed to thrive in this industry,” said Amber Littlejohn, an attorney and executive director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.

“Eliminating bias begins with being conscious of your own unconscious biases: having training around them and understanding the perspectives of other people. It’s about being aware,” said Natasha Bowman, president of Performance ReNEW, a New York-based consulting firm focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Lanett Austin, senior director of talent development at Massachusettsbased multistate operator Curaleaf Holdings, agrees that change begins with acknowledging one’s own biases.

“Before even the resume comes in, you need to make sure you are in check as an individual to say, ‘I’m aware of my biases.’ … So, I now can look at this (candidate) unbiased and to the best of my ability as a professional—both as an executive and as a hiring manager,” Austin said. Curaleaf hired BiasSync, a Los Angeles-based company that develops DEI and bias-eliminating training software and programs, to aid this effort.

De La Rosa agrees that companies aiming to increase the diversity of their staff should start with engaging a DEI advisory firm that can help determine where the company and its executives score on diversity hiring.

She recommends Cannabis Doing Good, a Denver-based DEI consulting firm whose training begins with a selfguided self-assessment.

Get the full Cannabis Compensation Survey at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

Comparing Compensation in Cannabis and All Industries Cannabis Industry Median

All-Industry Median

Cannabis to Mainstream Ratio

Chief executive officer

$254,010

$373,000

68%

Chief operating officer

$230,000

$271,000

85%

Director of cultivation

$135,100

$143,000

94%

Cultivation technician

$33,280

$ 41,000

81%

Top manufacturing/ production executive

$134,992

$135,000

100%

$34,112

$44,000

78%

Director of retail

$147,992

$187,000

79%

Budtender/ customer retail associate

$33,800

$30,000

113%

Job Title

Manufacturing/production associate/technician

These are preliminary numbers. Visit content.futuresense.com/2022ccs for the full report.

Source: 2022 Cannabis Compensation Survey Report by FutureSense

“You can’t just be like, ‘I want to hire people of color,’ and then put out a job description. You have to understand the culture of your own company,” De La Rosa said. “It’s not just hiring somebody who’s (a person) of color or a woman, it’s about understanding how they’re going to be part of your team and what you can do to make sure that they have the best experience.”

Diversify Your Applicant Pool In cannabis and in other industries, the dearth of people of color and women in managerial and executive positions is often attributed to a lack of applications from people of color and women.

But that is a bogus excuse, Littlejohn said. The problem is that companies use evaluation criteria that, at best, fail to recognize the accomplishments and skills of people of color and women and, at worst, eliminate women and candidates of color from consideration.

“What we see are job descriptions that are being churned out in a

boilerplate way without reflecting on the unique nature of this industry,” Littlejohn said. “The problem is that these diverse candidates don’t meet the criteria that hirers are looking for.

But the problem isn’t the candidate, it’s that the conventional criteria don’t take into account the skills that diverse candidates do have and candidates that meet conventional criteria don’t have.”

Conventional criteria that are poor predictors of cannabis industry success but are nonetheless frequently used in evaluating candidates can include college attendance, university degrees, years of experience and job title, previous industries, size of companies worked in and political connections, Littlejohn said.

Unconventional criteria that are often good predictors of cannabis industry success but that are often eschewed include experience in the legacy market, startups, participation in community and social justice organizations and being a single parent.

“If you look at what women and people of color are doing on their own, with very few resources, that would indicate that folks need to figure out a way to align their hiring criteria and the criteria for different positions to encourage that,” Littlejohn said.

De La Rosa from The People’s Ecosystem said she built a diverse staff by valuing experience that other companies might not.

“We always look to people from the legacy market,” she said, adding that industry observers shouldn’t be surprised when illicit markets dominate legal ones. “The entire market of cannabis comes from the legacy market.

There was already an entire culture, an entire customer base.”

Consider Melanie Davis, chief operating officer at The People’s Ecosystem, who previously was a legacy-market grower in New Mexico and Oregon.

“These are folks that in traditional companies … wouldn’t be seen as

mjbizdaily.com | May-June 2022 37

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

making a successful transition into a C-suite or director position. But we did, because ... they knew how to work with legacy markets and help them move forward into legal ones. They understood the barriers for entry, so they could help us figure out how not to have those barriers,” De La Rosa said.

“A regular hiring company would ask, ‘Where did you go to school? What’s your degree in, etc.’ Those are great, but many qualified women and people of color don’t have those things.”

Be Intriguing and Proactive If data shows that a company is not getting diverse applicants, then the leadership needs to figure out why, Bowman of Performance ReNEW said. Is the company not reaching out to diverse organizations? Is there something about the company’s reputation or its website that is repelling candidates of color?

“You’ve got to do some digging. Once you get those numbers to see what your applicant demographics look like, then determine from there, ‘Well, what’s our issue?’ If you increase the number of diverse people who are applying, that (hiring) number will get higher,” Bowman said.

Things that could turn off candidates of color and dissuade them from applying for jobs at your company include a website that doesn’t have people of color in the photos, leaders who all went to the same school or type of school and a failure to speak out on important issues.

Companies can also bolster their credibility by donating to philanthropic causes related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

While these measures can boost the diversity of an applicant pool, companies can’t just expect that a certain portion of resumes will be from candidates of color. Rather, it’s incumbent on companies to go out into the community—particularly communities of color—and to entities

38 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Get the full Cannabis Compensation Survey at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

that could be sources to other’s biases, Bowman recruit qualified BIPOC said. candidates. These entities For example, the phrase, can include professional “I don’t think this person groups such as the Minority is a good culture fit,” is Cannabis Business often code for, “Something Association, local chambers about this person makes me of commerce as well as uncomfortable.”

Historically Black Colleges “That’s really your bias and Universities (HBCUs). checking in. So, it’s good to Lanett Austin “Those career offices (at have other people who can HBCUs) know what their alumni are be alert to that and check that bias, to doing, who’s looking for work, what kind really dig deeper in determining, ‘Is it of work, who can move, etc. They have a your bias, or is this person really not a lot of information,” Bowman said. value-add?’” Bowman explained.

For example, Curaleaf has partIt’s also important to keep quesnerships with Alcorn State in Mistions job-related. This is not just to sissippi—an HBCU and Austin’s alma eliminate inappropriate questions mater—as well as Southern University but also queries that could reveal in Louisiana, both of which facilitate something that the interviewer and internships with the cannabis multiinterviewee have in common—they state operator. went to the same school or pursue the same leisure activities—and skew an Interviews and Accountability interviewer’s judgment in favor of a In addition to being intentional candidate who might not be as qualiabout where and how you seek talent, fied as others. there are tools and strategies that can “Let’s say we went to the same reduce bias in the resume review and college, so we start talking about our interview process. experiences at that college. And you One such tool is a “blind resume,” or (the interviewer) walk out with that a resume without any information that good feeling like, ‘I’ve made this good could give away an applicant’s gender, connection,’ but you really haven’t race or ethnicity. So there are no names, asked questions that are job-related,” addresses or professional associations, Bowman explained. “Ensuring that for example, Bowman said. there are standard job questions that Currently, the most common way to everyone is asking is important.” achieve a “blind resume” is manually, After the interview, it’s wise to Bowman said, adding that recruiters have a second group of people look can remove the identifying information at the feedback from interviewers to from resumes or job applications before ensure there is no bias—whether it’s passing them on to the hiring manager. unfavorable or favorable—toward the It’s also possible to find reasonably candidate. priced software plug-ins that remove “It may take a while at first. … But identifying information and are once you start to build that diversity compatible with most applicant within the organization, it will start to tracking systems (the software on happen organically,” Bowman said. websites or job boards that receive resumes), Bowman said.

It’s also critical to eliminate bias Omar Sacirbey is a reporter for MJBizMagazine. You during the interview stage. One can reach him at omar. way to do that is to have diverse sacirbey@mjbizdaily.com. interviewers who can check each

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SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

Achieving Equity

By Omar Sacirbey

Compensation transparency and pay audits can help companies strike balance on their payroll

T

he battle for social equity in cannabis, as in every other industry, includes achieving pay equity. Generally speaking, pay equity means employees get paid the same amount for substantially similar work.

When considering pay equity—or, perhaps more appropriately, pay disparities when comparing white males to women and minorities—many labor market and compensation analysts also factor in differences in positions and job titles since white males are hired for better-paying executive and managerial positions more often than women and minorities.

No Pay, No Stay Resolving unfair pay disparities is good business policy any time, but it’s especially timely now, during the “Great Resignation,” when companies

40 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Jim Finkelstein

are having a harder time retaining employees and replacing those that leave.

“A company that believes in fairness and equity will attract people … because they stand for that purpose,” said Jim Finkelstein, CEO of California-based compensation advisory firm FutureSense, which

provided the salary data for this report. “Equal opportunity and rewards support employee performance.”

At the same time, at least 14 states—and the number is growing—have pay-transparency laws that require employers to list salary ranges for posted job vacancies. These laws exist in some of the nation’s biggest marijuana markets, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon.

Sorry Statistics Despite the legal and ethical reasons to do away with pay inequity, it persists.

“In our experience, it’s quite common, however not many are willing to admit it. … The glass ceiling still exists, and there are still significant pay gaps when it comes to race and ethnicity. For example, women are still

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

only making 80% to 84% of what men make for the same job,” Finkelstein said, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pew Research and the QWI (Quality Work Index) Explorer of the Census Bureau.

Even one or two cents on the dollar in missed wages is not as minute a difference as it might seem. In a year, it can amount to thousands of dollars, and compounded over careers of 30 and 40 years, add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, exacerbating the wealth gap.

Audits and Transparency Perhaps the most important first step a company can take to achieve pay equity is to conduct what human resource professionals call a pay-equity audit (PEA). A PEA requires numerous steps, but there are many free guides available that describe the process (see “Resources to Combat Bias and Pay Inequity”).

A successful PEA requires that auditors work with an accurate set of employee data, including each employee’s length of service, job classification and demographic information including age, gender and race, according to the Harvard Business Review. The better the HR recordkeeping systems, the better the data will be, and less work will be required to clean it up for auditors.

“Some organizations now are starting to publish their salaries, and that’s a proof of pay equity.”

– Natasha Bowman, Performance ReNEW

42 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Resources to Combat Bias and Pay Inequity Achieving a diverse workforce and pay equity takes work and intention, but taking that first step can seem overwhelming when you’re not sure where to begin.

Luckily for cannabis executives aiming to meet goals of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), rich literature already exists on the subject, along with several advisory firms to help you get started.

Visit the digital edition of MJBizMagazine at mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-business-magazine for links.

“Bias-Free Hiring Quick Reference Guide” This guide identifies the stages of bias literacy so you can identify where you and your company rate in becoming bias literate.

It identifies 13 types of biases in hiring and offers tips on how to structure the hiring process to minimize the impact of bias.

(Turner Consulting Group, nine pages.)

“Conducting a Pay Equity Audit” This guide provides practical guidance for employers considering a pay equity audit to assess pay disparities among employees performing equal or substantially similar work. It addresses the purpose and parameters of the audit, practical guidance for conducting the audit and post-audit considerations and remediation strategies.

(Karen L. Corman. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, 15 pages.)

“2022 State of the Gender Pay Gap Report” This annual report reveals how much women are paid compared to men with analyses by age, education, industry, job level, occupation and race. Employers can help close the gender pay gap with pay equity analysis and continuous monitoring within their organizations using compensation-management software.

(Payscale, 11 sections.)

“How Fair Pay Perception and Pay Transparency Combat Turnover” This report looks at the impact of fair pay perception and pay transparency on job-seeking behavior as well as turnover rates and strategies organizations use to retain employees.

(Payscale, 15 pages.)

Get the full Cannabis Compensation Survey at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

2022 Cannabis Salary Survey Results Median Total Cash

Job Title

(50th percentile)

Median Total Cash

Job Title

(50th percentile)

EXECUTIVES

OPERATIONS

Chief executive officer

$254,010

Operations manager

$94,994

President (not CEO)

$300,000

$36,400

Chief financial officer

$211,885

Operations coordinator/ specialist

Chief operating officer

$230,000

ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE Accounting/finance manager

$108,006

Accounting clerk/ bookkeeper

$48,443

CULTIVATION Cultivation director

$135,100

Cultivation manager

$73,008

Cultivation technician

$33,280

INVENTORY Inventory manager

$62,400

Inventory specialist/clerk/ associate

$37,440

LEGAL Top legal executive corporate/general counsel

$199,992

Compliance manager

$94,994

Compliance specialist/ associate/coordinator

$51,002

MANUFACTURING AND PRODUCTION Top manufacturing/ production executive

$134,992

Lab manager

$80,555

Manufacturing/production associate/technician

$34,112

MARKETING Vice president of marketing

$225,000

Marketing manager

$90,002

Marketing coordinator/ specialist

$58,229

PACKAGING Packaging manager

$65,000

Packaging clerk/ technician/specialist

$33,280

POST-HARVEST Post-harvest/ trim manager

$62,005

Trimmer/trim technician

$33,280

QUALITY CONTROL Quality-control manager

$90,002

Quality-control technician/ associate/specialist

$41,600

RETAIL Director of retail

$147,992

Store manager

$59,500

Budtender/customer retail associate

$33,800

SALES Vice president of sales

$216,642

Brand manager

$100,006

Sales representative/ associate

$54,995

SUPPLY CHAIN Top supply chain/ distribution executive

$130,000

Delivery/distribution manager

$74,939

Shipping/receiving clerk/ associate

$39,520

These are preliminary numbers.

Visit content.futuresense.com/2022ccs for the full report.

Source: 2022 Cannabis Compensation Survey Report by FutureSense

mjbizdaily.com | May-June 2022 43

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

Next, auditors analyze salaries and pay differentials, accounting for factors such as experience and training. This allows auditors to spot “outliers” based on age, gender and race, Harvard Business Review said.

Human resources departments at smaller organizations typically conduct their own audits, while employers with more than 500 employees often hire consulting firms that specialize in audits, the publication said.

Massachusetts-based multistate operator Curaleaf Holdings is examining its own pay-equity record, said Lanett Austin, the company’s senior director of talent management and diversity. Curaleaf looks at pay bands, title consistency and other factors where disparities might signal inequity.

Companies striving for pay equity must be transparent with what employees make. That means putting salary ranges in the job description.

“Put that salary range in your job description. That can be an attractor,” said Natasha Bowman, president of Performance ReNEW, a corporate coaching and advisory firm specializing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

“Some organizations now are starting to publish their salaries, and that’s a proof of pay equity. It shows we’ve looked at it based on objective factors. And diverse candidates really appreciate that transparency.”

Once audits have been completed and pay disparities identified, companies must bring pay for belowaverage earners to the same level as their peers, compensation experts said.

“Rectifying inequitable pay might require homogenizing base pay despite the inherent spread of competitive market ranges (i.e., start by paying everyone in the same job the same amount),” Finkelstein said. “Companies can then differentiate bonuses or other incentive compensation based on performance—but only if that

44 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Cannabis Industry Pay by Gender Average pay for women per $1 paid to men Executive level

82.5 cents

Manager level

96.2 cents

All jobs

90.1 cents

Source: These are preliminary numbers from the 2022 Cannabis Compensation Survey Report by FutureSense.

Amber Littlejohn

performance is based on an equal playing field where employees in a given role have an equal chance for accomplishing the same objectives.”

A 2019 Korn Ferry study cited by the Harvard Business Review found that at most companies, up to 5% of employees are eligible for pay increases and the average salary adjustment typically ranges from 4% to 6%. These efforts usually cost companies less than 0.3% of their total salary budget, the publication said.

Purse String Posts Many marijuana executives say pay-equity problems boil down to the positions for which people of color are hired or not hired.

“If you are unwilling to hire people of color and women in high-paying positions, then there is always going to be pay disparity,” said Amber Littlejohn, executive director of

the Minority Cannabis Business Association. “There is a consistent devaluing if you look at these hires as, ‘We have to do this,’ as opposed to truly valuing the skills that people are coming with. Then, there’s always going to be a tendency to devalue when it comes to determining pay.”

Christine De La Rosa, CEO of The People’s Ecosystem, a cannabis company in California, said there is a dearth of people of color in director and C-suite positions. It’s important to have people of color who manage the money, she said.

According to the report “Women and Minorities in the Cannabis Industry,” published by MJBiz in 2021, only 13.1% of marijuana executives identify as minorities—only 0.1% more than the national average. “(Many companies) say ‘we’re diverse,’ but their BIPOC executives are in an HR position, a marketing position, a DEI position, which have no connection to how money is spent in the company. It doesn’t make their positions any less (valuable),” De La Rosa said. “But there’s nobody in the C-suite to say, ‘The way you’re about to position this product in your market for Latinos is not going to work.’

Because there are no Latinos in that C-suite … to make sure that you don’t make a mistake.”

To download the 2022 Cannabis Compensation Survey Report, visit content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

Get the full Cannabis Compensation Survey at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

A student at Lake Superior State University participates in a lab as part of the schoolʼs cannabis chemistry program.

Courtesy Photo

Degree Debate

By Kristen Nichols

Cannabis industry wrestles with academic requirements just as programs tailored to the industry flourish

O

ne of the hottest trends in hiring right now—removing college-degree requirements to make applicant pools more diverse—is putting the cannabis industry in an unusual position.

That’s because the effort counters another powerful trend: the emergence of cannabis higher education.

For years, federal marijuana prohibition kept educational institutions from studying the plant as anything but an illicit drug. But marijuana’s fast-changing legal status has changed all that.

Every semester seems to bring a wave of new, cannabis-specific courses and degree programs.

A Double-edged Diploma The proliferation of cannabis education comes as many industries are reexamining college-degree requirements.

46 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Prominent labor economists point to sify their teams are scrubbing degree degree requirements as one factor in a requirements in job postings and system that perpetuates inequality. Less interviews. than half the U.S. population has a fouryear college degree, and the statistic is No College, No Problem even lower among people who identify The move away from college-degree as Black, Hispanic and Latinx. requirements seems overdue for Massachusetts Institute of marijuana veterans such as Oliver Technology economist David Summers, a cannabis consultant Autor argues that over the past and former dispensary owner in four decades, labor markets have Los Angeles. gotten worse for Americans without Summers knows that the cannabis college degrees, largely because of industry was built by risk-takers withautomation. The number of U.S. out college degrees. manufacturing jobs have fallen He jokes that his own college degree, steadily since 1979, even as a bachelor’s in film studies the population has grown from Emerson College, was by 46%. Most Americans so irrelevant to his future without college degrees, he career in cannabis that he notes, now work in service owes his parents a refund. industries.

Summers said cannabis That’s why prominent employers should remove Oliver Summers employers looking to diverany mention of college

Get the full Cannabis Compensation Survey at content.futuresense.com/2022ccs

SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

requirements, except where required by law.

“Obviously, if you’re looking for a specific trade, like a lawyer or an accountant, then of course you want a college graduate. But when it comes down to anything else in the cannabis game, quite frankly, I don’t see the value of a college degree,” Summers told MJBizMagazine.

He isn’t alone.

At Würk, a Denver company specializing in cannabis payroll and human resources services for more than 200 plant-touching companies in 45 states, CEO Scott Kenyon said many cannabis companies didn’t require college degrees in the first place.

“When we started this industry, there wasn’t anything out there—whether it’s bachelor’s degrees or associate degrees,” he said.

“A college degree, let’s say in cultivation or in manufacturing, even while there’s more and more of those degrees happening, it’s not commonplace to state requirements in the cannabis industry.”

The Case for College Others argue that the cannabis industry won’t achieve its diversity and inclusion goals if it hangs on to skepticism about cannabis education.

That’s because ignoring cannabis degrees can lead to an unintended game of who-knows-whom, with cannabis companies staffed by extended networks of friends and family.

Scott Kenyon

Esai Miera

It’s a recipe for a homogenous industry, said Esai Miera, who has managed dispensaries in California and Colorado.

Earlier this year, Miera founded Colorado Cannabis Education, which offers certificates in marijuana retail operations, cultivation, extraction and testing.

The goal, he said, is to give people the skills and experience to get cannabis jobs without needing to know anyone who already works in the industry.

“Over the years, I have noticed that there is a lack of good curriculum and education in the cannabis space,” Miera said. “I wanted to change that and help people get in.”

At Excelsior College, a private online university in Albany, New York, college officials see education as one of the best ways to make the cannabis industry more equitable.

“I think it’s a little bit more complicated than one or the other, degree or no degree,” said Gretchen Schmidt, faculty program director for Excelsior’s cannabis control and criminal justice programs.

“Removing college-degree requirements will go a long way to making the cannabis industry more equitable. That being said, skill-based training is still going to help people get great jobs.”

Blending a Business Cannabis business owners said it makes sense to blend a workforce,

48 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Angela Welsh

with some staffers boasting formal cannabis education and others having pertinent experience.

At Your CBD Store, a Floridabased franchise with more than 500 locations selling its house SunMed CBD line, the company recently searched for a senior vice president with franchise experience, not a degree.

“Ten years ago, I would have said a college degree with a master’s is what you’d want” for an executive role, said Angela Welsh, the company’s vice president of human resources.

“But through my development and growth in the HR field—and then my exposure to the cannabis industry—I think that experience is just as valuable as a college degree.

The experience you’ve gained while working is invaluable.”

Removing degree language in job postings has had an immediate impact, she said, adding, “There’s definitely a larger pool to choose from.”

Summers, the California consultant, said that cannabis managers looking to build staffs that are both diverse and knowledgeable must put in the hard work of interviewing candidates to identify who truly has the skills needed.

“I’ve met people who have master’s degrees in horticulture who have grown mediocre weed,” he said. “And I’ve met people who don’t even have a GED, and they grow the greatest weed you’ve ever seen in your life.”

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SALARY AND HIRING ISSUE

What Not to Ask

Five questions to avoid when interviewing potential hires

By Kate Lavin

R

ecruiters and executives who do a lot of hiring can spend hours crafting the perfect interview questions. But some questions are better left unasked, especially those that are overly personal or put your company at risk of an employment discrimination suit.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), workplace discrimination applies to job applicants and former employees, not just current staff members. Applicants are protected from discrimination based on disability, genetic information (including family medical history), national origin, race, religion and sex (including gender identity, pregnancy and sexual orientation).

The best way to avoid a potentially disastrous and costly interview is to stick to questions that directly reflect the candidate’s ability to do specific tasks required for the job.

Additionally, familiarize yourself with the following questions to learn why the EEOC considers these and similar queries off-limits.

1. Do you have a disability?

This question falls squarely under the EEOC’s “can’t ask” category—even if the disability is obvious, such as the use of a wheelchair.

While it is acceptable to ask if an applicant would require reasonable accommodations to complete tasks outlined in the job description, asking questions that coerce an applicant to discuss a disability violates federal employment law.

50 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Contacting an individual’s doctor or previous employer to learn their disability status is similarly illegal—and downright creepy.

Other off-limits questions include: Do you take any medications?

Have you ever filed a workers’ compensation claim? Do you have a family history of illness?

2. Are you married?

Asking about a job applicant’s marital status during an interview is fraught with potential problems. Applicants that are not hired could claim they were not given full consideration because of disclosing their marital status.

Similarly, if an applicant joins the company and later feels they are treated differently than their colleagues, they could make a legal claim that they were hired because of their marital status and it was later used against them.

3. Do you have children?

Inquiring about an applicant’s children and child-care plans is illegal.

Asking a job applicant whether they are pregnant or have plans to grow their family is an equally bad idea, regardless of the individual’s sex or gender. A good rule of thumb: If a question doesn’t directly involve the

applicant’s ability to perform essential job functions, don’t ask it.

4. Is English your first language?

If proficiency in a second language is necessary for the job, questions and even tests to gauge language skills make sense. However, questions meant to learn an applicant’s race or immigration status have no place in an interview.

Also don’t ask: Where are your parents from? Were you born in this country?

Most job applications contain the question: Are you eligible to work in the United States? If an applicant answers yes, that is all you need to know.

5. How old are you?

Each regulated cannabis market has its own rules governing the minimum age of employment for plant-touching companies. For example, one county in Montana is currently being sued to change the minimum age to work at a dispensary from 21 to 18.

That said, employees 40 and older are protected from discrimination based on age. While it is not technically illegal to ask a job applicant their age, a better question is whether they are legally able to work at your facility.

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Factbook E

$6.4B

E CA

$6.4B

T

he cannabis sector is unique among U.S. industries in that each state creates its own rules and regulations, contributing to fragmentation in the marijuana space. Annual sales also vary widely, depending on population, access to retail outlets and overall competitive pressures.

The new wave of adult-use marijuana markets poised to launch in Northeastern states in the next few years highlights how those factors contribute to annual sales trends.

New York, with its massive population, likely will achieve first-year adultuse sales that exceed current annual sales for Nevada, which is in its fifth year of recreational sales.

Connecticut, on the other hand, has a dense population, but its overall sales potential is limited by its small geographic size.

The charts on this page represent the diversity of individual state markets.

– Jenel Stelton-Holtmeier

California continues to dominate domestic markets with sales for 2022 projected to be double that of the nearest competitor, Illinois.

CA

California continues to dominate domestic markets with sales for 2022 projected to be double that of the nearest competitor, Illinois.

h G NY

N IL

N

$2.3B $2.7B

t VT

$1.2B $800M

$625M

$250M

1st year 5th year

1st year 5th year

2022

2026

$3M

$120M

2022

2026

Several markets have opened or will launch soon in the Northeastern United States.

Sales in this densely populated part of the country will soon catch up to the West.

MI AZ

PA

$2.0B $2.3B

$2.0B

$1.5B

MA MI AZ

WA PA

FL

WA

$1.5B

$1.3B

$1.3B $1.0B $1.0B

$0.7B $0.7B

OR FL

NV

OR

Adult use and medical Medical only

NJ OK

NV NJ OK

MD

MD OH

$0.4B

$0.4B

$0.1B

$0.1B

e NJ

$1.9B

Washington state, despite opening up recreational MA sales in 2019.

CO

CT

$2.9B

Illinois has already overtaken mature markets such as Colorado and Washington state, despite opening up recreational Illinois has already sales inmature 2019. overtaken

IL markets such as CO Colorado and

$2.7B

insights.mjbizdaily.com/ factbook-2022/

0

0

MO MT

h NY

MO MT

Expect New York to move

Expect New York NY to move up the chart quickly once up the chart quickly once recreational sales begin. recreational sales begin.

OH

AR NM AK

h

Adult use and medical Medical only

MEAR CT

NM AK

Note: Projections are high end of scale.

UT LA RI MN ME CTNH DC VA GA HI DE ND VT IA WV SD UT

Note: Projections are high end of scale.

LA RI MN HI DE NH DC VA GA ND VT IA WV SD

© 2022 MJBiz, a division of Emerald X, LLC. Used with permission. This image may not be copied or duplicated by others without express written permission.

© 2022 MJBiz, a division of Emerald X, LLC. Used with permission. This image may not be copied or duplicated by others without express written permission.

52 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

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54 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

‘Diamonds

in the Rough’ How to hire cannabis workers with criminal records

By Solomon Israel

“S

ocial equity” is the legal cannabis industry’s biggest buzz phrase these days, with governments and companies of all sizes paying homage to the idea that those most harmed by the war on drugs—particularly people of color—should be first in line to reap the economic benefits of marijuana legalization.

One straightforward way to work toward that goal is to hire employees who have past criminal records for marijuana-related crimes.

Cannabis companies that go the extra mile to hire such workers recommend: • Spreading the word about job openings through relevant community organizations.

• Carefully crafting job postings to welcome applicants with criminal records.

• Tailoring job fairs and workshops to help those applicants succeed.

Working to hire and train employees with convictions can pay dividends in terms of experienced and motivated workers, according to executives who have hired staff members with previous legal troubles.

Kika Keith, founder and CEO of South Central Los Angeles marijuana retailer Gorilla Rx Wellness and a Minority Cannabis Business Association board member, said about 10% of her employees were previously incarcerated, and they bring valuable experience to their roles.

“I think it’s a ripe market waiting to be tapped into,” Keith said. “All we had to do was teach the compliance and the regulations, teach the policy side.”

“You’re talking about diamonds in the rough, folks who have relationships, have knowledge of the plant, knowledge of how buying works.”

mjbizdaily.com | May-June 2022 55

‘Diamonds in the Rough’ BENEFITS OF GIVING SECOND CHANCES Boston cannabis retailer Pure Oasis also employs workers with criminal records, said co-owner Kobie Evans, explaining that the company “(believes) in giving people second chances.”

“People with (criminal records) are definitely very valuable in this industry—especially with cannabis—because you really want subject-matter experts, people who can speak intelligently about the product,” he said.

One Pure Oasis employee had an open criminal case related to graffiti, Evans said.

“Those skills also transferred into our business, because he did some artwork for different installations, and that was valuable.”

Recruitment expert Kara Bradford said cannabis companies have become more open to employing those with criminal records as they recognize the potential benefits.

Bradford, the co-founder and CEO of Seattle-based cannabis humanresources agency Viridian Staffing, said that because so many other industries still won’t hire workers with a criminal history, “as cannabis companies, by providing these opportunities and treating these employees well, you also will likely have an employee who is loyal and who you are able to retain.”

Employee retention matters in a tight labor market, she added.

“In any labor market—but especially in this labor market—the ability to retain workers can mean the difference between you keeping your doors open versus reducing store hours due to not having enough workers.”

Potential business benefits aside, there is also a strong moral argument for employing those with criminal convictions related to cannabis.

“When you throw people away and don’t give them a way to earn a living, then that just creates a cycle where they can’t provide for their family, and the whole cycle repeats,” said Nichole

56 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Kika Keith

Upshaw, executive vice president of human resources for Florida-based multistate marijuana company Jushi Holdings.

RECRUITMENT TIPS Gorilla Rx’s Keith said her success in hiring formerly incarcerated cannabis workers grew out of a proactive, intentional hiring process.

“People aren’t just going to walk through your door, right?” she said.

“You have to have a commitment to make that social impact.”

For Keith, that commitment involved visiting neighborhood councils and workforce-development centers to spread the word that she wanted to hire disadvantaged applicants.

Pure Oasis’ Evans found hiring success with job fairs designed to be friendly to applicants with a criminal history, as well as job postings spelling out that those with criminal records were welcome to apply.

He also suggested reaching out to local nonprofits, public defenders and social workers who work with the recently incarcerated.

“I think it’s about being creative and, really, somewhat aggressive about trying to achieve this goal,” he said.

Jushi’s Upshaw said the company held an all-day career event for communities of color in Pennsylvania last year, featuring talks on resume writing and mock job interviews.

Hiring and training individuals with prior criminal convictions—especially for marijuana-related offenses—can pay dividends for growing cannabis companies. Staff members who have experience growing and selling marijuana need only learn the regulatory and policy side of the business before jumping in with both feet. To recruit and retain workers with prior convictions, business owners should consider: • States and municipalities might have differing laws on whether cannabis companies can employ those convicted of drug-related offenses.

Familiarize yourself with regulations in your area before recruiting.

• When writing and publishing job advertisements, highlight your company’s willingness to hire those with criminal convictions.

• Reach out to public defenders, social workers and nonprofits that work with previously incarcerated individuals to communicate your plans.

• Consider holding a career workshop to help job seekers improve their applications and chances for employment.

They plan a similar event this year.

“If I was a single operator, or just had a couple of stores, (I would) get connected in the industry and don’t do it alone,” Upshaw advised.

Privately held MSO Terrapin has also had success with job fairs, said Peter Marcus, the company’s vice president of communications.

Before holding a job fair in Michigan, the Colorado-based company offered a special social equity workshop in partnership with marijuana industry social equity advocacy group The Color of Cannabis.

The event included a career counselor who offered guidance on interviews and resume-building.

“The whole goal of that was to provide a leg up, the right background, the right resume skills, the right interview skills, to eventually—a week later—take

‘Diamonds in the Rough’ (to) the job fair. … And we ended up hiring seven of the 12 people that went through the workshop,” he explained.

Marcus also advised companies to think carefully about how they craft and advertise their job descriptions.

“How are you writing your job descriptions? Where are you posting those job descriptions?” he asked. “Are you advertising in community newspapers that appeal to Black and brown audiences?”

Marcus, who had a criminal conviction for attempted purchase of marijuana before joining Terrapin, stressed the importance of making second chances available to everyone.

“I had a successful journalism career before this, so I’ve been very lucky, but I’m also white,” he said.

“There’s more privilege and more opportunity that comes my way, just by default. … It’s become very important to me to expand that equity to others who have experienced that.”

Kevin Hart, left, and Kobie Evans employ previously incarcerated workers at Pure Oasis, their marijuana store in Boston. Courtesy Photo

Nicole Upshaw

Peter Marcus

LOCAL LAWS COMPLICATE EQUITY HIRING Viridian Staffing’s Bradford warned that state and municipal laws might limit a company’s ability to hire employees with criminal records, or at least specific types of convictions.

“In certain states, they may have a badging process in place that blocks many individuals that have those criminal convictions from working in cannabis,” she said.

Other jurisdictions might allow cannabis workers with criminal records, she said, but with an extra layer of bureaucracy.

“In Michigan, if there’s a pending charge or conviction within the past 10 years for a controlled substancerelated felony, the licensee has to get permission from Michigan’s Marijuana Regulatory Agency, and their process is very subjective,” Bradford noted.

On the other hand, employing workers with cannabis convictions could actually ease the licensing process in some places.

58 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

For example, Los Angeles social equity applicants are supposed to employ a certain proportion of “transitional workers,” which includes those with criminal records.

Similarly, Pure Oasis’ Evans cited Massachusetts requirements that cannabis license applicants submit their plans to help those harmed by cannabis prohibition, including people with drug convictions.

Gorilla Rx’s Keith said such equity requirements can align well with employment practices.

“If, in fact, you’re saying, ‘Listen, I’m actually going to recruit and train people from these disproportionately

impacted areas,’ all of a sudden, that’s your community-benefits plan,” she said.

However, Keith said Los Angeles has not enforced its social equity hiring mandate, adding that it’s important for state and city governments to ensure such decrees are fulfilled.

“That’s creating equity in the industry, and diversity, and that’s crucial.”

Solomon Israel is a Canada-based reporter for MJBizMagazine. Reach him at solomon.israel@ mjbizdaily.com.

300,000+ SF OF EXPO FLOOR

NOVEMBER 15-18, 2022 • LAS VEGAS

100+ SPEAKERS

MJBizCon brings together more than 35,000 cannabis industry executives, entrepreneurs and major investors.

WHY YOU SHOULD EXHIBIT Your customers and prospects attend MJBizCon ready to do business.

35,000+ CANNABIS

MJBizCon is where Exhibitors & Sponsors: - Meet critical business contacts - Launch their product or service - Gain momentum with their business - Maintain their place in the market

INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES

MJBIZCON AUDIENCE SPENDING $6.8 Billion Avg $426K

$2.7 Billion Avg $172K

Spend on Cannabis Operation Annually

Plan to Spend on Exhibitors Sourced at MJBizCon

: 24 1

ATTENDEES

EXHIBITORS

Contact your sales representative for exhibit and sponsorship packages or visit mjbizcon.com

70+ HOURS OF CONTENT

INDUSTRY PLAYERS New Hires & Promotions by Omar Sacirbey

Bank Pioneer Hires Chief Investment Officer Safe Harbor Financial, a leading financial services provider to the cannabis industry, hired Paul Penney as chief investment officer.

Before joining Colorado-based Safe Harbor, Penney spent three years as chief investment officer at KreditForce, a merchant bank focused on emerging growth industries including cannabis, where he managed investment portfolios. Before KreditForce, Penney was a senior research analyst and managing director with Northland Capital Markets, where he provided research coverage on the cannabis sector and was an adviser and underwriter for several marijuana companies when they went public.

Penney’s finance career started in 1994 with a three-year stint as senior auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He then jumped to wealthmanagement firm Robertson Stephens, where he was a senior equity analyst for four years. He spent the next seven years as a senior vice president on the institutional equity desks of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, where he participated in more than 250 IPOs and follow-on equity offerings.

Penney went on to serve as managing director and portfolio manager at Cypress Funds and was the managing and founding partner at Compass North Capital, a long-short equity fund focused on the retail, financial technology and media industries.

Penney also served as a strategic adviser and board member to several cannabis companies, including Humboldt Farms, Kikoko, Kush Co., Stiiizy, Sunday Goods and TapRoot.

At Safe Harbor, Penney will lead lending strategy, investor relations and investment opportunities as well as assist with M&A strategy, according to a statement by Safe Harbor founder and CEO Sundie Seefried.

Sandy Li

Wana Snags CFO from Parallel Multistate infused edibles company Wana Brands appointed Sandy Li as its chief financial officer.

Before Wana, Li served as vice president of finance, head of financial planning and analysis and treasury at Parallel, a privately held multistate cannabis operator with headquarters in Atlanta.

Before breaking into cannabis at Parallel, Li was head of investment bank activities-Asia markets for Loop Capital Markets, which she joined after a stint as interim CFO at Weir Minerals.

60 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Li also spent 10 years with USG, a manufacturer and distributor of building systems, where she held senior accounting and business-development roles. In 1995, Li co-founded a company in China, Chengdu Pecan Information Technology, which she led as president for five years.

Li will be based in Boulder, Colorado, and report to Wana CEO Nancy Whiteman.

Canopy C-Suite Growth Ontario, Canada-based Canopy Growth Corp. has a new chief financial officer, Judy Hong, and a new chief operating officer, Jonathan Di Tosto. The Canadian cannabis giant also created four new senior leadership roles.

Hong served as Canopy’s interim CFO after holding senior investor relations posts since 2019, when she joined the company. Before Canopy,

Hong spent nearly 22 years at Goldman Sachs, including six years as a managing director.

Di Tosto assumed the COO role from Andrew MacCorquodale, who is moving into a strategic advisory role with Canopy. Di Tosto joined Canopy in May 2021 as vice president-supply chain, focusing on optimizing Canopy’s global supplychain organization.

Before Canopy, Di Tosto spent 16 years with food-processing and distribution company George Weston, most recently as vice president of planning and logistics, where he was accountable for end-to-end supply-chain strategy, process and execution throughout Canada and the U.S. Canopy also announced that, in a move to advance its U.S. strategy, the company created four new senior leadership roles. These roles will be filled by executives who

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INDUSTRY PLAYERS previously held leadership roles at alcohol titan Constellation Brands and will focus on four areas of the U.S. cannabis market: commercial sales, marketing, operations and strategic alliances.

Lynn Ricci

Arizona MSO Hires IR and Communications Vet Lynn Ricci, an investor relations and corporate communications veteran, joined Phoenix-based multistate operator Tilt Holdings as vice president of investor relations and corporate communications. Before Tilt, Ricci was head of investor relations and communications at Trulieve Cannabis Corp., where she led environmental and diversity initiatives.

Before breaking into cannabis with Trulieve in 2019, Ricci managed investor relations and communications at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, SoundBite Communications and Authorize.net.

WeWork CEO Joins LeafLink LeafLink, an online wholesale cannabis platform, announced Artie Minson is joining the company as president and chief operating officer. Minson also will join LeafLink’s board of directors.

Before joining New York-based LeafLink, Minson founded 715 Capital Partners, which provides early stage capital and advice on strategy and

62 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

operations to technology-enabled subscription businesses. Minson also spent five years at WeWork, where he was president and chief operating officer before spending eight months as CEO. Before WeWork, he spent two years as chief financial officer at Time Warner Cable and nearly four years at AOL, where his titles included vice chair, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

In this new role, Minson will be responsible for managing operations, sales, marketing, customer service and corporate functions to support the company’s scaling technology services.

Coda Signature Gets New CFO Denver-based Coda Signature, a producer of cannabis-infused edibles and topicals, appointed Jessica Urbaniak as its new chief financial officer. Before joining Coda, Urbaniak was a senior finance partner at Twilio, a communications software company in San Francisco.

Urbaniak also spent nearly eight years at General Electric as a member of the corporate audit staff and ultimately as senior operations finance manager. At GE, Urbaniak oversaw the financial management of product supply chains exceeding $100 million annually.

New CEO for Cannabis Capital Firm RIV Capital announced that its board of directors chose Mark Sims as president and CEO of the Torontobased company. Sims will lead the company’s entry into the U.S. market and expansion into licensed adultuse operations in New York state.

Sims is a current director of RIV Capital, a role he will retain, and most recently was senior vice president of strategy and M&A for The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., where he previously served as

chief information officer and head of business transformation. He replaces Narbé Alexandrian, who departs RIV Capital to pursue other opportunities.

RIV Capital has a strategic relationship with The Hawthorne Collective, a wholly owned subsidiary of Scotts, pursuant to which RIV Capital is Hawthorne’s preferred vehicle for investments not under the purview of other Scotts subsidiaries.

Compliance Software Firm Woos Exec Out of Retirement Fyllo, a compliance software company for highly regulated industries including cannabis, announced that Steve Katelman is coming out of retirement to join the company as its chief partnership officer. Katelman spent nearly three decades at Omnicom Group, including 14 years at Omnicom Media Group, where he retired as executive vice president of global digital strategic partnerships.

Michigan MSO Hires Grow Exec C3 Industries, a multistate, vertically integrated cannabis company with headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, appointed Parks McMillan as vice president of cultivation. Before joining C3, McMillan was the director of cultivation at Denver-based Seed & Smith, where he spent six years.

Other past roles include general manager of cultivation at The Green Solution, where he worked with C3’s current chief horticulture officer, Joel Ruggiero.

Hired or promoted someone for a senior-level position? Send a news release or general information to Omar Sacirbey at omar.sacirbey@ mjbizdaily.com.

UNBOXED Cannabis Packaging and Design Insights

Outside In Packaging for Noble Nectar concentrates offers unboxing surprises plus product credibility

By Kate Bertrand Connolly

N

oble Nectar’s packaging design is a multitasker: It pops on the shelf, is inviting to open and leverages tech to deliver in-depth product information.

The Noble, Oklahoma-based company, a single-source cannabis operation that sells concentrates and other medical marijuana (MMJ) products, sets itself apart with graphics printed inside its cartons.

“Unboxing … is such a joyful part of the process,” said Miranda Cummings, Noble Nectar’s marketing director. “Why would you leave the part right before (patients) get to the product blank?”

The company includes a note to patients on the carton’s inside top panel, congratulating them for choosing one of its products.

Arvada, Colorado-based Full Scale, which prints Noble Nectar’s packaging, does not charge extra for interior printing, Cummings added.

In addition to printing services, Full Scale supplies Noble Nectar with jars and cartons, and Allston, Massachusetts-based Calyx Containers supplies the company with dram containers.

Noble Nectar uses its cartons to feature decorative touches partly because they offer a larger canvas than the concentrates’ primary packaging. “A concentrate dram only gives you so much room for design,” Cummings noted.

Path of Inclusivity Adult-use cannabis is not permitted in Oklahoma, but MMJ products

64 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

Photo Courtesy of Art of Cannabis Co.

are proliferating in the state’s dispensaries. In this crowded retail environment, patients can quickly identify Noble Nectar’s packaging on-shelf thanks to its consistent hexagonal/honeycomb graphics and bright yellow-and-black palette.

The gender-neutral color choice underscores how the company views its target consumer. The aim was “to make sure that all consumers, no matter how they identify, felt attracted to our products through our design,” Cummings said.

“Historically, cannabis has been a male-dominated interest and industry, and that has certainly changed now. We want to be on that path of inclusivity and catering to as many demographics as we can,” she added.

Just the Facts As a call to action, the cartons display the company’s Instagram handle, and links in its Instagram bio direct patients to cannabiseducation resources. Additionally, the package’s back label provides a QR code that delivers detailed

SUPPLIERS Jars, cartons and printing: Full Scale, fullscaleco.com Dram containers: Calyx Containers, calyxcontainers.com Cartridges: 3Win (CCell distributor), 3wincorp.com results of lab tests, including each product’s cannabinoid composition.

“Providing the test results through a QR code on your labels is a no-brainer that provides education and authenticity of the products to our patients, especially ones that are interested in specific terpene profiles,” Cummings said.

As for the brand’s retail customers, she added, “most retailers in this industry want to look as clean, professional and established as possible, and … we check those boxes for our dispensary partners.”

To suggest a product, email magazine@mjbizdaily.com.

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mjbizdaily.com | May-June 2022 65

SEED TO CEO Sound Bites from the MJBiz Podcast

E

veryone wants to get in on the cannabis market. The podcast “Seed to CEO” gives marijuana entrepreneurs an edge.

Each week, MJBiz interviews a cannabis executive to learn the stories behind their successes and failures.

To hear from those who have been there and done that, visit mjbizdaily.com/podcast or listen to “Seed to CEO” wherever you get your podcasts.

SEED TO CEO

Tune In Today!

These “Seed to CEO” podcast guests answered:

How have you changed personally or professionally since your first day in the cannabis industry?

RAJ GROVER

TRIPP KEBER

MEG SANDERS

CEO, High Tide Calgary, Alberta

Managing director, Right Side Advisory Services; former CEO, Dixie Brands Denver

CEO & co-founder, Canna Provisions Lee, Massachusetts

I’ve become more agile, more nimble, because all of the challenges that have been thrown at us since legalization—and they’re ever-continuing challenges—have taught us one thing: Never take anything for granted. Never get too comfortable in the cannabis industry.

Know your competitive landscape and be ready for any challenge that comes your way.

I’ve always lived that strategy.

But today, it’s at the forefront of everything I do. I’m always ready to be receptive to what the market conditions are and make a move accordingly, even if that means getting out of our comfort zone in the short term.

When I got into the business, I had not even confessed to my parents that I was in the industry.

I was still, as Steve DeAngelo says, “lurking in the shadows.”

And that is no más (no more).

I mean, I’m clearly comfortable being out there. And that is something that is a badge of honor.

The other thing is, this industry is at a point where it’s probably too big to fail. It would be very, very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. So, embrace your opportunities.

When you’re at the next MJBizCon, introduce yourself and figure out a way to collaborate.

Because that has been the biggest ingredient in my success: finding ways to do business with others.

Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

66 May-June 2022 | MJBizMagazine

I’ve worked really hard on my leadership skills. And just like anything, it’s a learned skill.

Some of us have natural leadership abilities and are charismatic, but leadership is a true skill.

And the investment that I’ve made: to think outside the box, and to listen to that podcast, or read that book, and then ask my team to read the book and actually have a conversation with my team about it. That is probably one of the biggest shifts I’ve seen.

When you look at me as a leader in 2012 and a leader today in 2022, I think I’m so far away from what I was to where I am now. and I’m really proud of that.

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IN CANNABIS

MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

Photo courtesy of Prospiant

MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

mjbizdaily.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: How to Design and Build an Indoor Cultivation Facility................................... 5 Choosing an Indoor Cultivation Structure, Location and Team................................................ 8 Checklist for Launching Indoor Cultivation................................................................................... 11 Design With Workflow and Expansion in Mind.............................................................................12 Applying Automation to Indoor Cultivation.................................................................................. 18 Invest in the Right Operational Components............................................................................... 20 The ABC’s of HVAC................................................................................................................................. 26 Planning For Energy Efficiency & Sustainability...........................................................................31 We hope you find this content helpful and we welcome your feedback at editorial@mjbiz.com.

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For more copies or editorial permissions, contact CustomerService@MJBizDaily.com or call 720.213.5992 ext. 1.

MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

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From greenhouses to warehouses, regional climate plays a role in indoor cultivation types.

HOW TO DESIGN AND BUILD AN INDOOR CULTIVATION FACILITY

The cultivation sector of the cannabis industry is ripe with potential for aspiring growers and entrepreneurs.

The number of indoor cultivation operations in the United States is expected to grow considerably over the next few years, as more states launch regulated marijuana markets. This will prove especially true in the Midwest and Northeast states, where unpredictable seasonal climates and extreme weather patterns make indoor growing necessary.

As the first stage of the cannabis industry supply chain—and arguably the most important—cultivators must know the fundamentals and best practices when starting an indoor cultivation business.

“A lot of people get into the business for the right reasons. They love cannabis, they see and want to promote it as a medical benefit or as a substance for adults to use responsibly,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify, a Massachusetts-based provider of indoor cultivation solutions. “There are also a lot of people chasing the dollar—and if you approach it that way, your ability to succeed in the market really is going to be somewhat limited.”

The fundamental insights and tips shared by Kessler and other leading industry experts in the pages ahead will help aspiring growers and veteran business owners alike avoid common missteps and establish a foundation for long-term success.

4 Copyright 2022, MJBizDaily, a division of Emerald X, LLC. You may NOT copy this report, or make public the data and facts contained herein, in part or in whole.

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Growers Are At The Center Of Everything We Do

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CHOOSING A STRUCTURE, LOCATION AND TEAM FOR INDOOR CULTIVATION Choosing the right building structure for an indoor grow will depend on the cannabis company’s long-term goals. Ultimately, the end product should be the leading factor when selecting a facility.

“If your goal is medicinal flower with impeccable consistency grow after grow, you are looking for an indoor warehouse facility with the ability to provide a uniform environment all year round,” says Av Singh, a cultivation consultant at indoor growing consultancy Flemming & Singh Cannabis and the chief science officer at vertically integrated hemp and CBD manufacturer Green Gorilla. “For folks looking to produce quality flower at a lower cost, a hybrid greenhouse is a suitable approach.”

CHOOSING A LOCATION

Local laws and access to utilities should be considered when scouting a location. All indoor grow operations—regardless of the structure design or size—will require reliable access to electricity, water, gas and sewage. Cultivators should be cognizant of any potential barriers to equipping their building with the proper utility infrastructure, especially if they plan to build from the ground up. “(Growers) will ask us to do a light map or an HVAC buildout, only to discover that the location they chose does not have enough electrical power to service the grow,” said Mike Anderson, director of technical services at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “Most people think they can simply build and then go to the local utility if they need more power. No big deal. But this is a big deal, especially in the Northeast, with an aging electrical grid.”

Anderson advises business owners to build their cultivation facility within an industrial park, where operators will have almost guaranteed access to electricity.

Regional ordinances such as zoning laws and tax rates for cannabis companies are other factors to consider when selecting a location. With cannabis cultivation being so strictly regulated, compliance with local laws will be crucial for gaining community support.

“Understanding what is required in the area where you’re going to build—how supportive they are, what the tax rates are—is really fundamental to designing a good facility,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify, a Massachusetts-based provider of indoor cultivation solutions. “If you start a design in the wrong place, you’re either going to operate a poor facility, or you’re going to move that facility to another location.”

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For more copies or editorial permissions, contact CustomerService@MJBizDaily.com or call 720.213.5992 ext. 1.

A FRONT RUNNER IN HPS, NOW AN INNOVATOR IN LED Zoë Therapeutics: “It was plug-and-play” — Chris Shirley, Owner, Zoë Therapeutics* *

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BEYOND LIGHT

MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

mjbizdaily.com

NEW OR LIGHTLY USED?

Designing and building a new facility from the ground up will require more start-up capital when you factor in hiring an architect and construction teams and buying the raw building materials—not to mention the time required for construction and permitting.

Renovating and retrofitting a pre-existing structure is a good alternative for those with smaller budgets and shorter timelines.

“It’s usually quicker and less expensive to retrofit an existing structure for indoor cultivation than build a new one from scratch,” noted Ryan Douglas, a cannabis growth consultant at Ryan Douglas Cultivation. “Even if it’s a dilapidated building that needs to be knocked down, the site will already have existing power and water service, which isn’t always the case with new construction projects.”

Before becoming operational, a renovated structure must meet all the necessary technical specifications for growing cannabis indoors—or risk setbacks down the line. Potential buyers should inquire about a property condition report for an older building to confirm the systems and structure have been professionally inspected.

“There may be existing conditions to be wary of, such as asbestos, lead paint and tainted earth on the property,” notes John Burgoon, a solutions architect at Prospiant, an Ohio-based company specializing in cultivation and extraction.

“Remember, an existing facility was never designed to be an indoor growing operation, which has unique design and operating needs,” Anderson said. “Retrofitting, which can make sense in some situations, is not always the solution to getting into operation at a faster and cost-effective pace.”

ASSEMBLING THE TEAM

It is okay to start small when putting together the team of personnel who will be handling the dayto-day cultivation work. The wholesale cultivation sector of the cannabis industry is dominated by small businesses, and most cultivators employ fewer than 11 total workers, according to the 2022 MJBiz Factbook.

However, a smaller team means more shared responsibilities—especially for those in leadership roles.

“Initially, a head grower may wear many hats, from plucking fan leaves to washing pots to recording temperatures and humidity,” Singh said. “Keeping a lean staff reduces the ‘burn’ rate, as money is only going in one direction.”

According to Singh, hiring workers who understand each stage of the cultivation process can positively impact day-to-day efficiency. At the same time, it is important for each employee to contribute at least one or more specific areas of expertise to the operation.

He also notes that a successful grow operation can include 10 to 30 workers.

“In creating a team at a cannabis facility, there is benefit in having a general understanding of all aspects of the operation,” Singh said. “But it’s important to know what you do best and stay in your lane and keep getting better at what you do.”

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Checklist for Launching Indoor Cultivation When planning to start an indoor cultivation business, carefully consider the unique aspects of the operation before investing any money in expensive real estate and equipment.

Answer the following questions before meeting with an architect or contractor.

What to ask design, construction and component manufacturers:

What to know before starting construction: F

What are the goals of my cannabis cultivation business? Is quality or quantity more important?

F

Have you worked with indoor cannabis growers before?

F

How long is the design/build process?

F

What kind of information and support do you provide?

F

What can be done in advance to avoid delays during the design and build process?

F

How much crop volume will be needed to meet my business goals?

F

How many plants do I plan to grow in my indoor facility?

F

What are my long-term plans to scale or expand the growing operation?

F

What will the company ultimately need for infrastructure?

F

What information will you need about my operation upfront?

F

How will my facility get access to electricity, water, gas and waste management?

F

Can equipment be integrated with other systems in the facility?

F

F

What state and local zoning and permitting regulations will affect the proposed operation location?

Can you help us obtain any rebates for buying energy-efficient equipment or incorporating sustainable building/ operating practices?

F

What are the chances the construction site will not be approved and what is our contingency plan?

Don’t be afraid to: F

Will my cannabis production license include deadlines to get the build completed?

Get multiple quotes from facility designers and builders.

F

Talk to fellow growers, especially in your chosen location.

F

What is the water quality at the site?

F

F

How can labor costs be reduced through facility design, workflow and choice of components?

Attend cannabis conferences or tradeshows that focus on cultivation.

F

Visit manufacturers and operating indoor cultivation facilities.

F

F

Do the design and building teams specialize in facilities for cannabis growers, along with a proven track record?

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DESIGN WITH WORKFLOW AND EXPANSION IN MIND Experienced cultivators need to have done their homework before planning a building’s design and operational layout. Failure to conduct due diligence could lead to lost time and earnings, in addition possible regulatory consequences.

“Successful cultivators have done the rounds,” said Av Singh, a cultivation consultant at indoor growing consultancy Flemming & Singh Cannabis and the chief science officer at vertically integrated hemp and CBD manufacturer Green Gorilla. “They’ve approached several vendors offering similar products. They’ve visited some existing facilities.”

Singh also points out that operation strategy should influence facility design. For example, choosing to cultivate organically in living soil versus hydroponically will determine how operators set up their irrigation and fertigation systems, the layout and the number of personnel who join the team.

The engineers or architects in charge of designing the facility should have proven experience working on cannabis cultivation projects. Facilities designed by someone not familiar with the unique aspects of growing cannabis indoors could face major consequences.

“Oversights made during the engineering phase can prove costly to remedy once the facility is built,” said Ryan Douglas, a cannabis growth consultant at Ryan Douglas Cultivation. “It’s also good to involve your head grower or a cultivation expert early on, to ensure that decisions made in the drafting room will accommodate the company’s cultivation strategy and production plan.”

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DESIGN WITH PRACTICALITY AND POLICY IN MIND

Cultivators should always be cognizant of practicality and policy when designing the layout of a growing facility. More specifically, plan to establish a work environment that puts an emphasis on personnel workflow, regulations and plant safety.

“I see more and more attention being paid to process and workflow and biosecurity,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify, a Massachusetts-based provider of indoor cultivation solutions. “What facilities really need is safe, quality, consistent product. To do that, you need to design the facility with process and consistency in mind.”

For example, workers taking part in trimming or extraction in the same facility should not be walking through a growing room.

“You don’t want harvested product walking backwards through the facility,” Kessler added.

Minimizing unnecessary foot traffic through the grow room is an effective way of preventing unwanted bacteria from entering the environment. Cultivators should incorporate designated spaces for employees to change out of their street clothes or even sanitize themselves before encountering the plants and potentially exposing them to harmful pathogens.

“Humans are the biggest risk vector for transmission of pests and diseases,” Kessler noted. “If we can minimize that, then we can help design a more productive and safer facility.”

Experienced cultivators are also seeing new entrants put too much focus on yield parameters rather than workflow efficiency.

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“Flower rooms and propagation areas are maximized with little or no thought of the labor working in those rooms or the equipment needed to make tasks more efficient,” Singh said of some poorly designed cultivation facilities he has seen. “Facilities are designed without adequate room for storage; corridors are too narrow; areas for sanitation are too few or are overlooked.”

Incorporating workplace sanitation into the layout is another key consideration when planning any cultivation operation. This will not only increase consistency but keep the operation in line with regulators.

Building an indoor grow vertically helps make use of tall ceilings for greater yield per square foot.

“Good cleaning, sanitization and policy adherence are three best practices that lead most growers to success,” said John Burgoon, a solutions architect at Prospiant, an Ohio-based company specializing in cultivation and extraction. “Building space and specifying equipment in the building’s process and design will not only keep you in compliance but also protect the crop.”

PLAN FOR SCALABILITY AND FUTURE EXPANSION

Experienced growers agree that it is imperative to design a facility with scalability and expansion in mind. After all, you want your cultivation operation to succeed and, ultimately, grow.

“The most common mistake indoor growers make is a lack of integration and planning for scalability,” Burgoon noted. “Another common mistake is not to plan for expansion when designing the infrastructure for the facility—electric, gas, water, sewer—and end up with costly utility work after the first phase is completed. The lead times for these utilities can take months or even years if not designed properly.”

Facility expansion is more difficult if the location makes additional construction difficult.

“If your facility is landlocked, it can limit your expansion later on,” said Mike Anderson, director of technical services at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “This is where the (electric) power question also comes into play. Maybe there is enough power to service the grow today, but what are the capabilities in the future if the size of the grow expands?”

“You need to know if the facility can accommodate future growth before you actually have a need or desire to expand,” he added.

If architects and engineers prepare designs for the initial buildout and future expansion up front, it can save cultivators costly headaches down the road.

“Even though phase two is contingent on phase one being successful, the additional cost is minimal,” Douglas added. “This is particularly vital when planning for power upgrades.”

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APPLYING AUTOMATION TO INDOOR CULTIVATION Technical innovations made automation possible in nearly every area of indoor cultivation.

Since indoor cultivation facilities are often smaller than outdoor operations, automated systems can be more easily implemented to accomplish tasks many businesses now do by hand, such as feeding and watering plants.

“A piece of equipment that could give you 10 times more output could pay for itself in six to nine months,” Todd West, executive vice president of operations at vertically integrated multistate operator Cresco Labs, told MJBizDaily.

Deciding whether to introduce automation to a specific stage in the cultivation process can depend on the site’s location and work force.

“The choice of location and the ability to find staff may impact your decisions around increased automation or mechanization,” noted Av Singh, a cultivation consultant at indoor growing consultancy Flemming & Singh Cannabis and the chief science officer at vertically integrated hemp and CBD manufacturer Green Gorilla.

According to some experts, emerging innovations in smart technology will soon allow growers to collect and analyze data in real-time, adjusting their cultivation practices accordingly. Cultivators already are seeing these advancements in lighting automation, for example.

“Technology is available now to help manage lighting schedules for each stage of growth,” said Lance Melnichenko, director of lighting at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “This is accomplished through smart devices. Being able to gather data and adjust accordingly is in the very near future.”

While some cultivation jobs must be done by hand, others can be accomplished through automation.

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INVEST IN THE RIGHT OPERATIONAL COMPONENTS Equipping an indoor cultivation facility with the right lighting, benches, HVAC and irrigation components will take up a considerable amount of the start-up budget.

Consulting with experts who are well versed in the complexity and capabilities of these components— in addition to taking advantage of any rebates or discounts to save money—is crucial.

“Everything can look really great on an Excel spreadsheet, but reality tends to throw curveballs that not everyone contemplates in their modeling,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Massachusetts-based Agrify, which supplies indoor grows. “If you’re starting up on a razor-thin budget, there’s always going to be overruns, there’s always going to be added expenses.”

Kessler stresses the importance of properly studying the market and budgeting for these components—or risk having to invest in secondrate equipment.

Deals and Discounts Common ways to save when launching an indoor grow include purchasing inventory in bulk, investing in energy-efficient components and capitalizing on rebate programs offered by municipalities or private businesses.

“Many of the newer states coming online have limited the amount of electricity (cannabis companies can use),” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify, adding that rebate programs exist for high-efficiency LED lights. “I won’t say that every program is the same, but you can actually document your electrical savings, and there will be monetary rebates and incentives to switch.”

Those rebates can equal up to $25 per square foot of grow space, allowing growers to offset upfront costs, Kessler said.

“You’re then going to have to make really tough choices about maybe going with some substandard componentry or not building out the facility properly in order to meet those financial constraints,” he said.

The time of day (or night) when the grow lights are being used can also impact your monthly utility bill, according to Lance Melnichenko, director of lighting at Hawthorne Gardening Co.

The initial upfront cost isn’t the only factor to consider when shopping for equipment. Operators should also inquire about customer support and maintenance services when ordering from manufacturers, as hardware inevitably undergoes wear and tear.

“Understanding optimal operating times in your energy grid and adjusting to match the grid’s lower consumption periods can bring savings,” he said.

“When purchasing big-ticket items like lights and fertigation systems, look beyond price to important factors such as product quality and customer support,” points out Ryan Douglas, a cannabis growth consultant at Ryan Douglas Cultivation. “Make sure to ask about warranties and failure rates when purchasing LEDs. If your fertigation system is supplied by a company with a global footprint, how likely are they to prioritize your call when something goes wrong?”

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SHOPPING FOR LIGHTING

When growing cannabis indoors—especially in a warehouse-style facility with no exposure to natural sunlight—supplemental lights will be the only energy source fueling plants’ photosynthesis.

“A lot of emphasis is placed on lighting—perhaps too much, considering there are so many reliable lighting companies with phenomenal customer service,” said Av Singh, a cultivation consultant at Flemming & Singh Cannabis in Nova Scotia. “A good cultivation team can produce fire with most lights on the market. Where lighting choice can play a more significant role is how it fits in your facility design, your cultivation strategy, your end product and perhaps your state’s energyefficiency rebates.”

As noted in the MJBizDaily Lighting Buyers Guide, innovative LED (light-emitting diode) technology that has emerged in recent years is notably more energy-efficient and longer-lived than the traditional metal halide and HPS (high-pressure sodium) systems familiar to most legacy cannabis growers.

“LEDs can provide energy savings of 20% or more over traditional HPS lights,” said Lance Melnichenko, who serves as the director of lighting at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “This can be an important consideration when you know that energy prices … are only going to rise.”

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Growers should source lighting from reputable brands with proven history in cannabis cultivation.

Manufacturers should be able to prove their products can maintain quality output for five years without significant degradation, Melnichenko said. Testing lights before buying to make sure they perform as promised is also a good strategy.

Regional weather patterns can also impact light selection.

“If your grow is located in northern parts of the U.S. or Canada, you might want additional heat load in the facility,” said Mike Anderson, director of technical services at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “You might want to consider HPS (high-pressure sodium) lighting because it can generate more heat.”

Facilities in hotter climates, however, might opt for LED lighting, which emits less heat.

GOING VERTICAL

Vertical farming has become more common in recent years, improving the yield-to-square-foot ratio of indoor grows.

Indoor facilities are limited to a finite area between walls, so vertical grows using multi-tiered racks can be a great way to double or triple your yield in a set space.

“When we talk about vertical farming, it’s a pretty popular idea right now,” said Kessler of Agrify, who suggests designers look at cultivation space in 3D and take advantage of tall ceilings.

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TA 1. N T S & T E C H N I C I A N S

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Automating cultivation features such as lighting and irrigation can help create a more uniform product.

However, when using a vertical bench layout, cultivators will have to account for temperature stratification. Since heat rises, the temperature of higher tiers can sometimes reach five to 10 degrees higher than on the lower tiers.

To compensate for this, Kessler recommends vertical growers invest in racks that offer closed environments and provide uniform temperature control.

AUTOMATION AND SUSTAINABILITY IN IRRIGATION

Irrigation and fertigation systems control the water and fertilizer needed for plants grown indoors to prosper.

“Your ecosystem design will be the foundation to a highly effective and efficient water plan,” said Aaron Hook, director of growing environment and hardware at Hawthorne Gardening Co. Recent innovations in irrigation hardware and software components allow growers to manage their daily responsibilities through automation—or the “heavy lifting,” as Hook calls it—rather than doing all the watering and fertigation by hand. In addition to using less water, automation mitigates the potential for human error.

Growers should also consider investing in irrigation systems that conserve water, a hot topic in commercial agriculture and with consumers.

“With the majority of legal states reporting large increases in consumption of water to cultivate cannabis, the need for reclamation is not too far away,” Hook said.

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THE ABC’S OF HVAC Outfitting an indoor grow with the right environmental controls is essential for creating the climate required for optimal plant growth. Because cultivators have more control over indoor grow sites or even greenhouse operations, they are more likely to produce consistent yields that can be sold at a higher price.

“Choosing the right climate-control system is one of the most critical choices a cultivator will make in building out the cultivation site,” said Aaron Hook, director of growing environment and hardware at Hawthorne Gardening Co. “While many other pieces of equipment within the facility can perform at subpar levels, not having tight control of your temperature, humidity and airflow can lead to devastating issues that some cultivators cannot come back from.”

Components in the HVACD system (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and dehumidification) should work in unison to cool or heat air inside the facility while also keeping humidity at an optimal level for cannabis growth.

“Good environmental control is the first defense against plant health issues like powdery mildew,” added Josh Spalding, sales application engineer at dehumidifier manufacturer Quest Climate.

“When facilities cut corners with their climate control, they often spend enormous amounts of time chasing down and addressing plant-health issues.”

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When purchasing cultivation equipment form multiple suppliers, make sure the pieces can communicate through a single interface.

Climate-control experts say common missteps in indoor cannabis cultivation include: • Bad equipment design, layout and/or installation.

• Buying improperly sized cooling and dehumidification equipment with poor controls.

• Poor airflow design.

• Falling behind on equipment maintenance.

• Rooms so packed with plants that they can’t breathe.

BUYING WITH AN EMPHASIS ON INTEGRATED SYSTEM CONTROL

Growers will want to invest in HVACD components capable of being integrated and controlled in unison, regardless of the brand or manufacturer. It’s also important to invest in a system with reliable sensors capable of reading and detecting subtle changes in the air levels and sending climate data to other components or human operators, who may wish to make real-time adjustments.

“An integrated approach is very important,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify, a provider of indoor grow systems. “We have a lot of people who try and buy the best lights, the best air conditioner, the best dehumidifier, the best building, and then you have to tell all these pieces of equipment that were made by different manufacturers to work together.”

Coleman Retzlaff, director of sales in the agricultural division at Quest Climate, said control room equipment should be able to make some decisions without user input.

“Ideally, we look for a control system sophisticated enough to control all of these devices through a single interface, provide some data logging and communication,” he said.

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Some control capabilities growers should look for when shopping for components include: • Data logging.

• Remote access.

• Staging or zone control.

• Calendar setpoints.

• Alarms.

“HVAC equipment should also include a filter or sterilization mechanism for trapping or killing airborne spores to prevent their reintroduction to the grow room,” said Ryan Douglas, a cannabis growth consultant at Ryan Douglas Cultivation. “Concentrating only on cooling or dehumidification may compromise the grower’s ability to provide the perfect environment.”

DON’T FORGET AIRFLOW AND OUTSIDE CLIMATE

Facility design and regional climate also are important are important when investing in an HVACD system. Dimensions and layout of a grow room will impact overall airflow and influence how heating, cooling and dehumidification components are installed.

“Airflow is often an overlooked,” added Spalding of Quest Climate. “It is a critical component in your climate control. Even the best HVAC and dehumidification system cannot overcome poor airflow. …

Growers should budget for above-canopy air movement, below-canopy air movement, and an inrack ventilation system if going multi-tier.”

Sales of LED lights have been outpacing HPS lights in recent years due to their longevity.

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Indoor cultivation facilities also are subject to outside temperatures and fluctuating weather patterns. Properly insulated buildings will prevent extreme temperature and humidity levels outside from impacting the climate levels inside. Alternatively, proper construction and building insulation will prevent the inside airflow from leaking out, resulting in increased energy use.

Growers in the Northern Midwest, for example, where there are seasonal climates with intense winters, will need to plan their HVACD systems quite differently than their peers in the Southeast U.S., where higher heat and humidity levels are common.

“In very cold places, opportunities for free, indirect cooling to the building are more available— however upfront capital is increased,” said Av Singh, a cultivation consultant at Flemming & Singh Cannabis. “In warmer climates, less expensive HVAC can be used, however the energy savings are not as great.”

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EXPERT ADVICE AND MAINTENANCE SERVICES

Cultivators should look to buy their HVACD components from manufacturers that offer quality sales support and expertise in indoor cannabis grows.

“We are interested in making sure (our customer’s) project is done correctly because it reflects upon our equipment,” Retzlaff said. “There’s a lot to be said about the resources that are available, quite frankly, for free.”

Maintenance is another factor to consider when shopping for HVACD components, considering hardware begins aging the first time you use it.

“From the moment moving parts are installed and commissioned, they begin to degrade from their original quality,” noted John Burgoon, a solutions architect at agriculture supplier Prospiant.

“It’s important to demand specification sheets on all your equipment, know the service programs available from the suppliers and realize your own capabilities when it comes to performing routine maintenance.”

When it comes to equipment maintenance, Spalding advises following the recommended upkeep schedule for each component, as suggested by the manufacturer. Staying on top of hardware maintenance can prevent potential breakdowns and ensure the longevity of expensive equipment.

“That service contract the installing contractor offers you is worth it,” Retzlaff added. “Not only does that take the labor, ordering and scheduling off your hands when you pay for that service, it will be done on time and won’t be compromised by the other 100 important things on your plate.”

Retzlaff added that cultivation teams should stay proactive with replacing filters every time they turn a grow room, keeping drain lines clean and turning off the equipment when doing foliar feedings to prevent airborne particulates from being sucked into the equipment.

PLANNING FOR FAILURE

Growers should also have systems in place to continue operations in the event of sudden mechanical failures. This is where an N+1 strategy comes in handy.

“Essentially, (N+1) means having one extra unit so you’re insulated from an equipment failure,” Spalding said. “For example, if you size up your facility and need four dehumidifiers, consider putting five dehumidifiers in the room.”

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“If the air conditioner goes down, do you have enough redundancy or enough capacity in the room that you can get by while you wait for service for repair?” Retzlaff said. “Do you put $1 million worth of product at a potential loss because of that one failure point? N+1 is saying, ‘What is the minimum that you need?’ And then plus one.”

Spalding recommends growers keep spare HCAVD parts on hand as well as instructions for how to install them in case of mechanical failure.

Having thoughtful standard operating procedures is also essential for overcoming mechanical failures, as most growers cannot halt their operations while waiting for a replacement part or a technician.

“You’d better know what you’re going to do when something fails,” Retzlaff said. “Who are you going to call? What is the warranty? Who am I going to have to service my equipment? Knowing those things, having them written down so you have a playbook for you and for the guy who comes in after you, that’s super, super important.”

Anticipated growing medium should be considered when making choices about lighting and HVAC purchases.

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PLANNING FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY & SUSTAINABILITY Temperature control accounts for 10% to 20% of the energy bill at major cannabis grows. For largescale cultivation operations, this could translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense.

“When it comes to utilities costs, we see averages of $15,500 per month for a 25,000-square-foot facility,” said John Burgoon, a solutions architect at agriculture supplier Prospiant.

When designing the climate-control system and shopping the market for parts, growers should consider prioritizing energy-efficient components that save money long-term—even if they cost more upfront.

“The goal with HVAC technology (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) should not only be its ability to maintain ideal set points but to do so in an energy-efficient manner,” said Ryan Douglas, a cannabis growth consultant at Ryan Douglas Cultivation. “Some HVAC systems send air through multiple cooling and heating cycles to remove moisture and bring the air back to ambient temperatures, but this isn’t very energy efficient.”

In addition to energy-saving HVAC components, cultivators should research HVAC operating techniques that can create savings as well.

“Step one in saving power in a facility is to operate during off-peak hours. That’s a low-hanging fruit,” said Coleman Retzlaff, director of sales in the agricultural division at Quest Climate. “If I know between noon and 5 p.m., I’m going to pay more per kilowatt hour than any other time, I’m certainly not going to have my lights on. … I choose to have my lights on when we’re off the peak rates.”

ENERGY-REBATE PROGRAMS

Some states, municipalities and private companies have started to offer incentives to cultivators who take steps to conserve energy.

“You can get energy rebates for efficient air conditioning, for more efficient HVAC, in some municipalities,” said David Kessler, executive vice president and chief science officer at Agrify. “That is a little bit more of an ongoing process because it requires some engineering mathematics.”

While rebate programs exist, information isn’t always easy to find. It’s up to the grower to check with its HVAC manufacturers on what programs they might be eligible for.

“When you’re doing your due diligence and you’re looking up which equipment to use, reach out to those manufacturers and ask them if they know of rebates available in your area for energyefficient equipment,” said Keith Reagan, director of commercial operations at Quest Climate. “There are some significant savings out there for energy-efficient equipment.”

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

3C Consulting LLC

www.3ccannabis.com

AB Lighting

ablighting.com

ABM Equipment

abmequipment.com/hempprocessing/

Accelerant Manufacturing

www.accelerantmanufacturing.com/

Accelerated Growth Solutions LLC

ag-solutions.net

Accudyne Systems Inc

www.accudyne.com/

ACE LED Light CO.,LTD

acehorti.com

ACME Engineering

www.acmefan.com

Acoustic Ceiling Products (ACP)

acpideas.com/

Adapt8 - Solexx

www.adapt8.us

Advanced Energy

www.artesyn.com

Advanced Extraction Labs

www.advancedextractionlabs.com

Advanced Nutrients

www.advancednutrients.com/

Advanced Treatment Technologies

advancedtreatmenttechnologies.com/

Advantech Aqua

www.advantechaqua.com

AEssenseGrows

www.aessensegrows.com

Agdia, Inc

www.agdia.com/customer-support/ cannabis-and-hemp-test-kits

Aglaia Lighting Inc

aglaiagled.com

Agrarian Supply

www.agrariansupply.com

Agricova

www.agricova.com

Agrify

www.agrify.com/

Agri-Products Inc.

www.agriproductsinc.com

Agro Lighting

www.agrolighting.com

AgroRefiner LLC

agroref.com/

Agrowtek Inc

agrowtek.com/

AIKOGROW

aikogrow.com

Air & Water Systems

www.airandwatersystems.com/

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

AIR Sniper

www.airsniper.ca

Airganics Filtration

www.airganicsusa.com

AiroClean420

www.airoclean420.com

AirROS by SAGE Industrial

www.airrosshield.com

AirTube Fans

airtubefans.com/

Alconox, Inc.

alconox.com/

Allcryo

allcryo.com

Allied Scientific

www.alliedscientificpro.com/

Aloe420

www.aloe420.com

American Grow Products

americangrowproducts.com/

American Horticultural Supply, Inc.

americanhort.com/

Amerigas Propane

www.amerigas.com

Ameriwater

www.ameriwater.com/

Ampak Chemicals / Breen Laboratories

ampakchem.com/

Andely LLC

andely.us

Anden

www.anden.com

Anderson Injectors

www.heanderson.com

Apogee Instruments, Inc.

www.apogeeinstruments.com

Aptia Engineering

www.aptiaengineering.com

Arbico Organics

www.arbico-organics.com/

ArchSolar

archsolar.net

ARCO/Murray

www.arcomurray.com/

Argelith Ceramic Tiles

www.argelithusa.com

Argus Controls & Conviron

www.convironcannabis.com

AROYA by METER Group, Inc. USA

aroya.io

Arqlite

www.arqlite.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Astrica Scientific

www.astricascientific.com

Atlas Greenhouse

atlasgreenhouse.com/

Australis Capital

www.ausa-corp.com/

Auto Cure, Inc.

autocure.us

AUVL

auvl.de/en

Baker Co Inc

bakerco.com/

Baylabs Inc

www.bay-labs.com

Bellpark Horticulture

www.bellparkhorticulture.com

Bepex International

www.bepex.com

BFG Supply Co

www.bfgsupply.com

BHOgart

www.Bhogart.com

Big Cannabis Co

www.bigtripmfg.com/

Big Island Grown Dispensaries

www.bigislandgrown.com

Bingman Construction Company

bingmancc.com/about/

bio365

bio365.com

BioAg

bioag.com/

Biobest USA

www.biobestgroup.com/

Biomist, Inc.

www.biomistinc.com

BIOS Lighting

www.bioslighting.com

Biosafe Systems

biosafesystems.com/

BioTherm

www.biothermsolutions.com/

Black Dog LED

www.blackdogled.com/

Black Mamba

www.BlackMambaGloves.com

Blackmore

www.blackmoreco.com/

Blade Filters

www.bladefilters.com

Bluelab

www.bluelab.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Bodega Boyz

thebodegaboyz.com

Boon Industries

boonindustries.com/

Boom Grow, LLC

www.boomboxgrow.com

Boulderlamp, Inc

www.boulderlamp.com

Bouldin & Lawson

www.bouldinlawson.com

Boveda

www.bovedainc.com

Boxvana

www.boxvana.com/

Brightside Scientific Inc.

www.brightsidesci.com

Britten Woodworks

brittenwoodworks.com/

Brother Mobile Solutions

www.brothermobilesolutions.com

Brytemap

www.brytemap.com

Bud Construction

www.buildwithbud.com

Buddies Brand

buddiesbrand.com/

Buddy Boy Farms

buddyboyfarm.com/

Busch Vacuum Solutions

www.buschusa.com

Byers Scientific

www.byers-scientific.com

CACBG INC.

CACBG.com

Calcanna CC

calcannaca.com/

California LightWorks

californialightworks.com/

CALIVE LLC

www.calivellc.com

CanBreed

www.canbreedseeds.com

CandyWorx

www.candy-worx.com

Cann Systems LLC

www.cannsystems.com

Cannabis Facility Solutions

www.cannabisfacilitysolutions.com

Cannabis Irrigation Supply

cannabisirrigationsupply.com

Cannabis10x

cannabis10x.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Cannabiz Venture Partners

www.cannabizventure.com/

Cannabusters, Inc

thecannabusters.com

CannaOne

CannaOne.com

CannaTrue by CBG Biotech

www.cbgbiotech.com

Canndescent

canndescent.com/

Capstone Green Energy

www.capstonegreenenergy.com

CarbonGro

carbongro.com/

Careismatic Brands, Inc

www.careismatic.com

Central Coast Garden Products

www.centralcoastgarden.com/

CenturionPro Solutions Inc.

cprosolutions.com

Ceres Greenhouse Solutions

www.cerescann.com

CGEE Solutions

www.CGEEsystems.com

Chart Inc.

www.chartindustries.com

Chemtainer Industries

www.chemtainer.com

Cirona Labs

www.cironalabs.com/

Clean Start LLC

N/A

CleanLeaf Air Filtration Systems

cleanleaf.com/

Cloudastructure

cloudastructure.com/

CO2Meter, Inc.

www.co2meter.com

COCOGROWN LLC

cocogrown.com

Coirgro

www.coirgro.com

Coldcore Inc.

www.coldcoreinc.com

Colorado Chromatography

coloradochromatography.com/

Conception Nurseries

conceptionnurseries.com/

Conley's Greenhouse Manufacturing

www.conleys.com

Constellation Cannabis

constellationcannabis.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Country Cannabis

www.countrycannabis.com

Crane Composites

cranecomposites.com/cultivation

Cravo Equipment Ltd.

www.cravo.com/en

Critical Climate

www.criticalclimates.com/

CropBoss LLC

www.cropbossled.com

Cropsalt

www.cropsalt.com

Cultured Biologix

www.culturedbiologix.com

Curetube

www.thecuretube.com

Current Culture H2O

cch2o.com/

Curtis Wagner Plastics Corp.

cwplastics.com

Custom Cones USA

www.CustomConesUSA.com

Cutting Edge Solutions

www.cuttingedgesolutions.com

Cvault/FreshStor

freshstor.com

Cyco Platinum Series Nutrients

Cycoflower.com

Dablicator™

ammoniteinc.com/

DAG (DominionAG)

www.dagfacilities.com

Dakine 420

www.dakine420.com

Damatex Control Systems

www.damatex.ca

Dandy Light Traps

www.dandylighttraps.com/greenhouse

DASERCO CANN

daserco.com

Delta 9 Grow Pods

www.delta9.ca

Desert Aire LLC

www.desert-aire.com/

DeVault Enterprises

devaultenterprises.com

Dilution Solutions/Dosatron

www.dilutionsolutions.com

DimLux Lighting

www.globalgarden.co

DisplayDispensary.com

DisplayDispensary.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

DizzyDutchman Hydro

dizzydutchmanhydro.com

DL Wholesale Inc.

www.dlwholesale.com

DMG Corporation

dmghvac.com

Dramm Corporation

www.dramm.com

DryGair

www.drygair.com

DSM&T Company Inc.

sunpackproducts.com

Duraline

www.Jbn-duraline.com

Dutch Direct

www.dutchdirect.us/

Dutch Lighting Innovations

dutchlightinginnovations.com/

Dutchpro by Horticultural Rep Group

www.dutchprousa.com

DVO

www.dvoeng.com

Dynamic Air Quality Solutions

www.DynamicAQS.com

EarthScout by Fohse

www.earthscout.com

EASYROOTS

easyroots.com/

Echelon Constructors

echelon810.com/

Ecosorb by OMI Industries

www.EcosorbIndustrial.com

Ecowater Servisoft

ecowaterservisoft.com/

Eden Water Technologies

edenwatertech.com

Efinity USA

www.efinityusa.com

El Dorado Group

www.coastaldistro.com

Elder-Jones, Inc

www.elderjones.com

Elevated Signals

elevatedsignals.com

Emerald Construction Management

www.emeraldcminc.com

Emerald Scientific

www.emeraldscientific.com

ENCON Evaporators

www.evaporator.com/

Enrichment Systems Nanobubble Technology

www.enrichmentsystems.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

EnviroKure

www.envirokure.com/

Environmental Plant Management

epm.earth

Envirotech Cultivation Solutions

www.envirotechcultivation.com

Enwave Corporation

www.enwave.net

EPSTEIN

epsteinglobal.com

Estes Construction

estesconstruction.com/

EstTech Inc

esttech.com

eVolve Machines Inc.

evolvemachines.com

Extreme Microbial Technologies

extrememicrobial.com/

Extrutech Plastics, Inc.

www.epiplastics.com

EYE HORTILUX®

www.eyehortilux.com

EZ Grow Systems

www.ezgrowsystems.com

EZ Trim Harvesting and Consulting

www.eztrim.com

EZ-CLONE

www.ezclone.com/

FabricAir, Inc.

www.fabricair.com

Far & Dotter

fardotter.com/

Farmers Defense

farmersdefense.com

Fibredust LLC

fiberdust.com

Fluence by OSRAM

fluence.science/

Fogco Systems

www.fogco.com

Fohse, Inc.

fohse.com

FolioGrow

www.foliogrow.com

Foshan Hortilite Optoelectronics Co., Ltd

www.hortilite.com/grow

FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Co

foxfarm.com

Franklin Miller

www.franklinmiller.com

Fresh-Aire UV

www.freshaireuv.com/

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Fuss & O'Neill, Inc.

www.fando.com

Futurola USA LLC

www.futurolausa.com

GE Current, a Daintree company

www.gecurrent.com/

Gemini Extraction

www.GeminiExtraction.com

Genius Pipe

geniuspipe.com/

GentleDry Technologies

www.gentledrytech.com

GeoShepard, Inc.

geoshepard.com/

GF Piping Systems

www.gfps.com/us

GGS Structures Inc.

ggs-greenhouse.com/marijuana

GH Trading INC.

ghlalighter.com

Global Garden

www.globalgardenco.com/

Green Fertigation

www.biggreengrow.com

Green Life Productions

www.glpnv.com

Green Vault Systems

www.greenvaultsystems.com

Greenbox Architecture

www.greenboxpro.com

Greenbox Builders, Inc

greenbox.build

GreenBroz, Inc.

www.greenbroz.com/

Greenest Grow

www.greenest-grow.com

Greenzilla

www.greenzilla.tech

Griffin Greenhouse Supplies

www.griffins.com/

GroAdvisor

groadvisorworldwide.com/

Grodan

www.grodan101.com

Groplanner

www.hi-groplanner.com

Grotek/Gaia Green

linktr.ee/Grotek_GaiaGreen

Grow Controlled, LLC

www.growcontrolled.com/

Grow Glide

growglide.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Grow Pros Solutions

wegrowpros.com

Grow Rebates by Lightning Grown

growrebates.com

Grow Space New England

www.growspacene.com

Grower's Ally

www.sarasotagg.com

Grower's Choice

www.growersc.com

GrowFlux LLC

www.growflux.com

GrowGeneration Corp.

www.GrowGeneration.com

Growgenics LLC

www.growgenics.com/

GrowLight Heaven

www.growlightheaven.com

Growlink

www.growlink.com

Growlite by Barron Lighting Group

growlite.com

GrowRay Technologies

growray.com

GrowSpan Greenhouse Structures

www.growspan.com

Growspec USA, Inc

www.growspec-inc.com

H2O Engineering

www.h2oengineering.com

HAL Extraction

www.halextraction.com

Hanna Instruments

www.hannainst.com/

Hansen-Rice

Hansen-Rice.com

Harvest Supply Canada Inc.

www.harvestsci.ca

Hashatron

hashatron-usa.com/

Hato Vape Electronic CO., LTD

WWW.HATOVAPE.COM

Hawthorne Gardening Company

www.hawthorne-gardening.com/

Haygrove

Haygrove.com

Hefestus USA Inc.

www.hefestus-cannabis.com/

Heilux-GrowFilm

www.heiluxllc.com

Heliospectra AB

www.heliospectra.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Hemper

www.harasupply.com

HempNova Lifetech Corp.

www.hempnova.com

Herring Bank

herringbank.com

High Yield Solution Corp.

highyieldsolutionscorp.com

HIGHTEN SIFTER

hightensifter.com/

Highvac Corp.

www.shophighvac.com

Hobbs & Associates

hobbsassociates.com/

Hoosier Custom Plastics, LLC

www.hcplastic.com

Horizon Lift

www.horizonlift.com/

HortGrow Solutions LLC

www.hortgrow.com

Hortibest LED Grow Light

www.hortibest.com/

Horticultural Rep Group

hortrepgroup.com/

Horticulture Lighting Group

HLG.com

Hourglass International, Inc.

hourglass-intl.com

HPNow

www.hpnow.eu/

Humboldt Seed Company

humboldtseedcompany.com/

Hydra Unlimited

www.hydraunlimited.com

Hydrofarm

Hydrofarm.com

HydroLogic Purification Systems

hyper-logic.com

Hydroponic Research

vegbloom.com

HYGROZYME

www.hylineproducts.com

iBEX Nutrition

ibexnutrition.com

ICP Building Solutions Group

www.icpgroup.com/

IDC

idcsupply.com/

IHort LLC.

www.ihort.com/

ILUMINAR LIGHTING

links.iluminarlighting.com/mjbizcon

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Image X Innovation

www.imagexinnovation.com/

IMPAK CORPORATION

www.sorbentsystems.com/ scentshield.html

Inca Trail Terpenes

incatrailterpenes.com

InCon Process Systems LLC.

www.ips-gigk.com

Industrial Netting

www.industrialnetting.com/cannabishemp-processing-net.html

Innovative Growers Equipment, Inc.

www.innovativegrowersequipment. com/

Innovative Solutions

innovative-solutions.org/

Innovative Tool and Design, Inc

www.innovativetoolanddesign.com/

Integra By Desiccare

www.integra-products.com/

Interface Security Systems LLC

interfacesystems.com

Intermetro Industries

www.metro.com

ItemGrabber Green

www.itemgrabbergreen.com

J&D Manufacturing

www.jdmfg.com/

JPT Architects

www.jptarchs.com/

JRM Chemical, Inc.

www.soilmoist.com

JWC Environmental

www.jwce.com

Kalix Commercial Plant Nutrition

www.kalixcpn.com/

KannaMill

www.kannamill.com

KECO PUMP

www.pumpahead.com/

Key Grow Solutions

www.keygrowsolutions.com

Kiinja Corporation

www.kiinja.com

Kind Spectrum

kindspectrumlabs.com/

KoKo Gro

www.kokogro.com

Koolfog

www.koolfog.com

Koppert Biological Systems

www.koppertus.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

L.B. White Company, LLC

www.lbwhite.com

Latini-Hohberger Dhimantec Inc.

www.LatiniUsa.com

Lead Funding LLC

leadfunding.com/cannabis

Leaf Lightec Inc

www.leaflightec.com

Ledestar Optoelectronic technology Co.ltd

www.ledestar.com

LeDinPro Lighting Co., Ltd.

www.ledinpro.com

Left Coast Extracts LLC

leftcoastextracts.info/

Leybold USA Inc.

www.leybold.com/us/en

Lifetime Coatings LLC

lifetimegreencoatings.com/

Light On Technology Co., Ltd

www.lightontechnology.com

Limbach Company LLC

www.limbachinc.com/

Linde

www.praxair.com

Link4 Corporation

www.link4controls.com

Linnaeus Lighting

linnaeuslighting.com

Load Max Equipment

www.loadmaxequip.com/

Losco Instruments Inc.

www.x-trimmer.com

Loxley Systems

www.goloxley.com/

Ludvig Svensson

www.ludvigsvensson.com/ climatescreens

M.A.N.S. Distributors, Inc.

www.mans.us/

Mach Technologies

machtechnologies.com

Mammoth

www.mammothmicrobes.com

MarkVision Biotech

www.markvisionbiotech.com

Marrone Bio Innovations

marronebio.com/

Master Plant-Prod Inc.

www.plantprod.com

Max Yield Bins

maxyieldbins.com/

MaxMicrobe

www.maxmicrobe.com/

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

MBA Energy &Industrial

www.mba-nrg.com/

meCANNical Services

rollingingreen.ca/

Medgro

www.medgro.com

Medicoir

www.medicoir.com

MedSol

www.medsolonline.com

Mee Industries Inc.

meefog.com

Mellow Vibes

mellowvibes.com/

Merchney Greenhouses

www.merchneygreenhouses.com

MFG Tray Company

www.mfgtray.com

Mi Farm Pod

www.mifarmpod.com

Micro Grow Greenhouse Systems

www.microgrow.com

MicroCool

www.microcool.com/industrialhumidification/cannabishumidification-cooling/

MIICROBIAL MASS

miimhort.com

Milestone Group

wonder-uv-grow-light.myshopify.com

Milford Enterprises

www.milfordei.com

Millipore Sigma

SigmaAldrich.com/Cannabis

MJ12 Design Studio, Inc.

www.mj12designstudio.com

MMI Agriculture

mmiagriculture.com

Mobius Trimmer

www.mobiustrimmer.com/

Montel Inc. | Grow More With Less Space®

www.montelgrowmore.com

MoreBeer! by MoreFlavor

morebeerpro.com/

Mosca Seeds

www.MoscaSeeds.com

MTA-USA, LLC.

mta-usa.com

Multifan

www.vostermansusa.com

MUNCH Machine

www.munchmachine.com

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Nanolux Technology Inc.

www.nanoluxtech.com

Native Gro

www.nativegro.com

NCM Environmental Solutions

www.ncmenvironmentalsolutions.com

Netafim USA

www.netafimusa.com

NeutraFog

www.neutrafog.com/

New Millenium

www.newmilleniumnutrients.com

New Pig Corporation

www.newpig.com

NEWTS

newts.co

Next G3N Greenhouse

www.nextg3ngreenhouse.com/

NextLight

www.nextlight.com

Novasep Process SAS

www.novasep.com

Nspire by KC Store Fixtures

www.nspire.com

Nudo Products, Inc

www.nudo.com/

Nuform Building Technologies Inc.

www.nuformdirect.com

NUG

nug.com/

Nuravine

nuravine.com

Omega

www.omegastore.com

OmniHW

OmniHW.com

On Target Spray Systems

ontargetspray.com

Onset - HOBO Data Loggers

www.onsetcomp.com/

Oregon's Only

www.oregonsonly.com

Organic Distributors

dynamicplants.com

Outlier Biopharma Inc.

www.outlierbiopharma.com/

Owens Corning

www.vidawool.com

Pacific Coast Agro System Inc.

www.pcahydro.com

Paragon Separation System

paragonseparationsystem.com/index_ en.html

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

PARRY AMERICA INC.

www.parryamerica.com/

PathogenDx, Inc.

www.pathogendx.com

Patterson Fan Co.

www.pattersonfan.com

Paxxo

www.paxxo.com

PermaTherm

permatherm.net

Phormium

www.phormium.com

PhytoTech Labs, Inc

phytotechlab.com/

Pinnacle Climate Technologies

www.pinnacleclimate.com

Pipp Horticulture

www.pipphorticulture.com/

Plagron

www.plagron.com/

Plant Growth Technologies

www.p-g-t.com

PodTronix

podtronix.com/

Polar King International

polarking.com

Pontic Technology

pontictech.com/

PortaFab Corporation

www.portafab.com/

Porta-King Building Systems

www.portaking.com

Powerland Technology, Inc.

powerlandtech.com

Precision Extraction Solutions

www.precisionextraction.com

Priva

www.priva.com

Pro 360 Products

pro360products.com

Pro Grow Builders

www.Progrowinc.com

Production Automation : Cantel Life Sciences

www.gotopac.com

ProKure

www.prokuresolutions.com/

PRO-MIX®

www.pthorticulture.com

Prospiant

www.prospiant.com

Prudential Overall Supply

www.prudentialuniforms.com

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MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Puradigm LLC

puradigm.com

PurCann Pharma

purcannpharma.com

Puren Solutions

purensolutions.com

PuroGen Laboratories, LLC

www.purogen.com/

Pyrite Trading Company LLC

www.sambocreeck.com

QTS, Inc.

www.qtsinc.com

Quantum Leaf Solutions

www.Quantumleafsolutions.com

Quest

www.questclimate.com

Rad Source Technologies Inc.

www.radsource.com

Ramtek Precision Grow Solutions

ram-tek.com/pro-grow-solutions/

RapidGrowLED

www.RapidGrowLED.com

Redlight Distro

www.pufffin.com

Rees Scientific

www.reesscientific.com

Regrow

regrow.io

Reita Lighting

www.reitalight.com/

Reusable Transport Packaging

reusabletranspack.com/

Revelry Supply

revelrysupply.com/

RF Agriculture, Inc.

www.rfagriculture.com

Rhythm Cultivation Solutions & Services, LLC

www.rhythmcss.com

Riceland Foods Inc.

www.riceland.com/rice-hull-product

Ridder, Formerly Hortimax

www.ridder.com

Ring Organic

www.ringorganic.com

Riococo

www.riococo-mmj.com

Riverview Farms

growwithrvf.com/about-us

Roberts Gordon LLC

www.robertsgordon.com/greenhouseinfrared-heating

RollPros

www.rollpros.com

Root Pouch

www.rootpouch.com

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MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Root Sciences

www.rootsciences.com

RootMaker®

www.rootmaker.com/

Rootseller Seeds

www.rootsellerseeds.com/

Royal Gold

www.royalgoldcoco.com

Royale Botanicals

royale-botanicals.com

Rx Green Technologies

www.rxgreentechnologies.com

SAF Tehnika

aranet.com/

Sakata Seed America

www.Sakata.com

Sasquatch Mills

sasquatchmills.com

Scales Plus

www.scalesplus.com/

SciPhy Systems

www.sciphysystems.com/

Scynce LED

scynceled.com/

SEMPERMED USA, INC.

www.sempermedusa.com/

Sevenpoint Interiors

www.sevenpointinteriors.com

SGM Labs

www.sgmlabs.com

Shenzhen AAA-Grow Intelligent Co,.Ltd

hd-leds.com

Shenzhen Aurora Technology Limited

www.aurora-grow.com/

Shenzhen Guanke Technology Co., Ltd.

www.GKhorti.com

Shenzhen Luxponics Technology Co.,Ltd.

www.luxponics.com

Shenzhen SNC Opto Electronic Co., Ltd.

www.snc-lighting.com

Shenzhen Turbomol Technology Co.,Ltd

www.hydrogrow.net

Shivvers Manufacturing, Inc.

www.shivvers.com/hemp/

Sichuan Green Triangle Technology Co., Ltd

www.gtgreenhouse.com

Signify

www.philips.com/horti

Silver Bullet Water Treatment

www.silverbulletcorp.com

SKYLIGHT LED INC.

www.skylightledinc.com

SLF-100

www.socascade.com

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MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

Smart Fog

www.smartfog.com

Smart Pots

www.smartpots.com

SmartBee Controllers

www.smartbeecontrollers.com

SolutionAir Group

www.solutionairgroup.com

Spacesaver Corporation

www.spacesaver.com

SpecGrade LED

www.SpecGradeLED.com

Spectrum King LED

www.spectrumkingled.com

Sprung Structures

www.sprung.com

Square One Starts

www.square1starts.com/wordpress1/

SRC Refrigeration / Motor City Grow Systems

motorcitygrowsystems.com

SRS Conveyors

www.srsconveyors.com

SSE Group, LLC

www.ssegroupllc.com/

Starrco Grow Rooms

www.starrco.com

STEM Cultivation, Inc.

howtogrowfast.com

Strimo

www.strimo.net

Success Nutrients

successnutrients.com/

Sunbelt Rentals

www.pestheat.com/

Suncom Energy

suncom-energy.com

SunGrow LED

www.sungrowled.com

Surmountor Lighting Co., Ltd.

www.surled.com

Surna Cultivation Technologies

www.surna.com

Sustainable Village, LLC

www.sustainablevillage.com

Tecogen

tecogen.com

Temeka Group Inc

www.temekagroup.com

Testrite Visual Products

www.testrite.com/

Thar Process

www.tharprocess.com

The Good Earth Organics, Inc.

www.goodearthorganics.com/

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MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

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COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

The Greengro Biologicals

thegreengro.com

The HC Companies

hc-companies.com/cannabis/

The Original Resinator

www.theoriginalresinator.com/

The Triminator

www.thetriminator.com

Thrive Agritech

www.thriveagritech.com

TO Plastics Inc

www.toplastics.com/

Tom's Tumble Trimmer

tomstumbletrimmer.com

Tricarico Architecture and Design PC

www.tricarico.com

Trimpro

www.trimpro.com

Trolmaster Agro Instruments Co., Ltd.

www.trolmaster.com

True Liberty Bags

www.truelibertybags.com

Trusscore

trusscore.com

TSRgrow

www.tsrgrow.com

Twister Trimmer by Keirton Inc.

www.twistertrimmer.com/

UbiGro

www.ubigro.com

UFO Lighting Inc

www.ufo-lighting.com/

United Label

www.unitedlabel.com

United Strains of America

unitedstrainsofamerica.com/

Universal Grow Controls LLC

universalco2.com/

urban-gro, Inc.

www.urban-gro.com

Urschel Laboratories Inc

www.urschel.com

Van der Hoeven Horticultural Projects B.V.

www.vanderhoeven.nl/en

Van der Knaap USA LLC

www.vanderknaap.info

Vegalab S.A.

www.vegalab.com/

Venas

www.growlights.venas.com

Vist Labs LLC

vistlabs.com/

Vital Garden Supply

www.vitalgardensupply.com

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MJBizDaily Buyers Guide Indoor Cultivation

mjbizdaily.com

COMPANY NAME

WEBSITE

VOLT Grow

www.voltlighting.com/led-grow-lights

VZ-TEC

vz-tec.com

W.G.F.T Cannabis Genetics

www.weedguardiansfamilytree.com/

Wadsworth Control Systems Inc

www.wadsworthcontrols.com

WayFast

www.GoWayFast.com

We Architects Group

www.WeArchitectsGroup.com

West Tune International

extractionsolution.com/

WestAir Gases and Equipment

westairgases.com

Western Steel Buildings, Inc.

www.westernsteel.com

White Knight Engineered Products Inc.

www.wkep.com/

Willow Industries

www.willowindustries.com

WolfCreekWorks

wolfcreekworks.com/

Wood Bros Ind

woodbrosind.com

WRH Industries, Ltd.

www.wrh.net

WS Hampshire

www.wshampshire.com/

WSD LED INC

www.wsdled.cc/

XSY Lighting

www.luxgrow.net

Xtra Laboratories

www.xtralaboratories.com

Xtreme Gardening / Reforest Technologies International

www.xtreme-gardening.com

Xtreme Nutrients

xtremenutrients.com

ZeroCool Systems

www.zerocoolsystems.com

Ziel

www.ziel.com

Zodiak's Moonrock

zodiaksmoonrock.com/

Zoom Technologies

www.doublebarrelzoom.us

ZUNA INC

www.zunaco.com

Zwart Systems

www.zwartsystems.ca/

52 Copyright 2022, MJBizDaily, a division of Emerald X, LLC. You may NOT copy this report, or make public the data and facts contained herein, in part or in whole.

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