4 minute read
Tracking cannabis from seed to sale
Are you on top of the track-and-trace needs of your medicinal cannabis business? There are many considerations for emerging businesses in the cannabis industry, such as watching your supply chain and the way your products move from seed to sale. The standards and regulations are also tricky to navigate.
In South Africa, permits and licenses to produce and sell cannabis are currently onerous and legal advice is necessary to participate in this sector. Local market growth has also sparked the need for increased traceability of cannabis and hemp ingredients.
The more cannabis is added to pharmaceuticals and beauty products, the more aspects such as chain of custody and the traceability of products become important factors in a supplier’s operations.
Cannabis traceability means noting the serial and lot numbers and plant ID to trace a batch back to the specific strain. In addition, data on the weight, health and growing conditions are required for each plant or group of plants in the growing stages throughout their lifecycle. This data is required before you even get to the point of tracing the cannabis along other points in the supply chain.
A track-and-trace system should also provide strain information and performance data while ensuring that the packing weight is consistent.
Effective technologies for complete tracebility
Pairing UIDs to products along their supply chain journey will further protect your business and provide you with the track-and-trace insights and supply chain visibility you require to follow plants from growth and distribution to sale. Yet, this is not without its challenges.
Providing complete seed-to-sale traceability has created a demand for effective technologies that can ensure everyone involved – including growers, manufacturers, processors and dispensaries – can or will meet existing regulatory requirements.
Software from Mitas Corporation can help commercial cannabis growers track every gram of cannabis throughout the lifecycle from seed to delivery to the manufacturer, resulting in increased visibility across all supply chain levels, ultimately ensuring the accountability of growers, processors and producers of finished products.
Once the seedlings are ready to be transferred from the tray to the field, unique polypropylene RFID tags are attached which are specially designed for tree and plant inventory, maintenance and tracking. These tags are customisable with QR log and serial numbers. Each tag is linked to a plant in a tray and refers to the specific strain that connects the individual plant to a particular row within a specific field, so different strains can be planted in the same field.
Monitoring the entire farm
Tracking cannabis is not the only solution Mitas Corporation can offer commercial medicinal cannabis growers.
With the use of its Internet of Things precision farming management solution, the quality and quantity of cannabis products can be increased by monitoring the entire farm, which in turn provides data on pH, moisture and humidity levels. This data can help to lower the number of waste plants processed during harvesting.
With the CIJ plant passport solution, a barcode is printed directly onto the individual seed trays. The udaFORMAXX offline solution allows for a plant passport to be printed offline, easily and quickly, on stock cards, plant labels or cardboard labels. Printing a barcode onto the trays gives the traceability of the seed planted in the tray. This solution is easily integrated into a production line and shows the time and date when the seedling was planted, the strain, how many seeds are in a tray, and the tray’s location.
Next-level solutions
During the harvesting process, traceability makes cannabis easier to process without mixing strains. Strain information is also recorded by using a mobile handheld RFID reader to scan the RFID tags on the individual plants. When buds are trimmed and sorted, size samples are taken for testing and anything under a specific weight becomes a retention sample.
Mitas Corporation can also trace the produce and not the packaging by applying DNA barcodes during regular processing, providing the only on-food safety solution. Vacuum-sealed bags are weighed and coded by either labelling or using CIJ or thermal inkjet printers to print lot codes, ingredients etc. The products are then boxed.
The company also has solutions to assist with high-level inventory and warehousing. And if cannabis is processed into capsules, logos, a best-before date and any other alphanumerical codes can be engraved directly onto the capsules themselves. •
With the CIJ plant passport solution, a barcode is printed directly onto the individual seed trays
Unique polypropylene RFID tags are specially designed for tree and plant inventory
