Walking into a recreational cannabis dispensary can be a bit like wandering into Willy Wonka’s factory. Everything from flower to pre-rolled joints, vape cartridges, concentrates, edibles, tinctures, topicals, and more line the shelves in colorful packaging, ready to offer a new and exciting experience for the canna-connoisseur. But have you ever wondered what exactly goes into crafting all those cannabis goodies?
To learn more about the wide world of cannabis product development we turned to the team at The Pass, a vertically integrated grower and producer of adult-use recreational cannabis products based in Sheffield, Massachusetts.
The Start of the Field-to-Label Process
True to its Berkshires-inspired farm-to-label philosophy, The Pass grows its own cannabis and manufactures all its branded products in Sheffield to ensure the highest quality. While cultivation is the vital beginning point of the process, production is where the flower comes to life.
After the flower is harvested, it takes a short trip over to The Pass’ on-site production facility, where the processing, lab, and kitchen teams get to work. The teams number around 20 people right now, but The Pass is in the process of converting a nearby defunct factory into a third, 40,000-square-foot facility, which will create up to 50 new full-time jobs to support the manufacturing process.
Formulation Station
First, the processing team trims and cleans up the raw flower material to get it ready for the two-person lab team, headed up by Extraction Manager Stephen Golden, who has worked in the Massachusetts cannabis industry since 2015.
Through biochemistry and extraction methodology, the team isolates and distills specific cannabinoids and terpene profiles for specific products and effects or blends desirable compounds for whole-plant entourage experiences—the basis for all of The Pass’ products.
This part of the process is all about precision, which is of utmost importance given that the team is working down to the fraction of a milligram of THC. “We maintain quality and consistency by doing primarily small batches and using precisely calculated formulations for all of our infused products,” Golden says.
Into the Kitchen
Over in the kitchen, Rosemary McCormick is the one-person dream team churning out all the recipes for The Pass’ products, from waxes to gummies to tinctures and more. “We try to develop products with purpose,” she says. “We take in people’s experiences and anecdotal and scientific information to create products that are effective and enjoyable.”
Like many people entering the legal cannabis industry, McCormick came to The Pass with a wide resume that includes everything from sampling and compliance to inventory tracking systems, food safety, power tools, and basic machine breakdown and repair.
“I’ve worked as a baker, a bookstore worker, a carpenter, a sauerkraut maker, a geologist, a waitress, and a bunch more,” she says. Though she works primarily on her own, she says that others on the team are always willing to pitch in when it’s time for recipe formulation. “There are only so many spoonfuls of MCT oil I can eat,” she jokes.
To the Dispensary and Beyond
After all the edible, topical, and tincture products are formulated in the kitchen with the specific milligram target set by the lab, they go back to the processing team for packaging.
Once tucked into their bold, eye-catching boxes, bags, jars, and tins, the products head out into the world in just a few weeks from the flower’s curing stage—ready to make their debut on the shelves of The Pass’ dispensary or the 28 other Massachusetts stores that carry The Pass' products.
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