This article originally appeared in the September 2017 print edition of Cannabis Business Times. To subscribe, click here.
As cannabis supply increases, product prices decrease. As prices decrease, the cost of production becomes even more important, and producers are forced to adopt more efficient practices.
Extremely low costs of production, which are difficult to compete against, are already being achieved. Recently, a Canadian cannabis producer announced its new cost of production of raw, dried cannabis: now $1.11 per gram, down from $1.73 per gram—a 36-percent reduction. An Israeli producer I consulted for was able to achieve a 50-cents-per-gram production level utilizing greenhouses more than five years ago, with no compromise to the quality of the finished product.
As they say, “Time is money,” so you must direct your workflow efficiencies to cultivation, processing, extraction and super refinement.
For starters, consider how much time it takes to properly decontaminate and clean every surface in the growing environment between crop rotations. TIP: If you were to intentionally minimize surface areas to eliminate unnecessary cleaning, you would then minimize cleaning effort and labor. Filling a cultivation environment with anything not required is inefficient.
To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' September issue, click here.
Top photo: © Ruud Morijn | Dreamstime.com
