MIKE ROSATI

SCALING UP CANNABIS

The Cannabis industry is ripping through the atmosphere, a half-built rocket to the stars. With every passing moment, every quarterly report, every election – everyone on board has the same question: What’s this going to look like once it’s finished?

And that leads to another question. Who’s going to survive? Who’s going to be able to scale to meet future demand? Who out there is building the Anheuser-Busch, the Sierra Nevada, the Lagunitas of Cannabis? For years, Brad Zusman has watched as would-be titans of industry begged and borrowed their way to vast, industrial-mega-scale manufacturing capabilities, only to be met with diminished demand and stifling legal and regulatory hurdles.

As the owner of Mellow Vibes, a multi-line confectionery company broadly distributed in

Oregon and Nevada, Zusman has been watching – and all the while, he’s been building his own rocket. He and his company – run largely by family and friends Zusman gathered during his decades as a restaurant and Cannabis business operator in Portland – got a start in the medical days, building retail and then manufacturing from the ground up. “We started with one induction burner, one pot, and one table, pouring jelly into a square mold and cutting it with guitar strings,” Zusman said. At the first taste of success, Zusman didn’t immediately run out and jump on rounds of capital raises. He kept building the thing. This month, Mellow Vibes is flipping the switch on a new setup in a facility south of Portland that should allow them to

The Mellow Vibes crew, and Brad Zusman, center. manufacture 72,000 units per shift. It’s an iterative move - Zusman has the ability to scale up much faster, but with the THC market for that facility confined to Oregon, he must be creative.

“I don’t see that there’s going to be a huge need for largescale production until we have interstate commerce,” he said. “We can only scale up so much, so there’s only so many people and so many ways of indulging. I do see an explosion when interstate commerce comes around.”

It’s that pending explosion that makes scaling up tricky. Build too large now, and you run the risk of suffocating like a fire starved for oxygen. Wait too long, and when the regulatory curtain between the states disappears, so will your ability to compete with the scaled-up players.

Zusman’s company is approaching the issue from multiple angles, and not just by building to suit the CBD market – which he is doing.

Zusman is currently working to license the Mellow Vibes brand in multiple markets around the country. He will manufacture all of the non-medicated materials – the confectionery slurries, syrups, and other pre-made ingredients – in his own facilities and ship them along with packaging to licensees. “We want to be His company also will offer a line of pre-made confecable to produce tionery ingredients, along with up to 2 million recipes and SOPs that they gummies per day.” will distribute to companies across the country in the THC, CBD and nutraceutical -Brad Zusman, Mellow Vibes Owner industries. Between those plans, man ufacturing his own brands, and contract “white label” mellowvibes.com @mellowvibesedibles manufacturing brands for companies without their own facilities, Zusman’s growth is starting to pick up speed.

“I have a 3,500-square-foot THC kitchen, and a 3,000-square-foot CBD ingredients kitchen, and we’ve already grown out of both buildings,” he said. “And that’s just doing our brands and a few other white label brands.”

Next, Zusman plans to build a 40,000-square-foot-plus nutraceutical manufacturing plant. And then another. Both will serve the CBD and vitamin markets until THC becomes federally legal. “We want to be able to produce up to 2 million gummies per day,” he said, in addition to tinctures and raw ingredients for confectioners who want to be able to replicate their product.

“Just like Sysco Foods has ready-made muffin mixes, we want to have ready-made ingredients and mixes for jellies, for people to mix however they want, and add their own CBD or THC. Anyone who wants to do small to mid-level manufacturing, we’ll have a ready-made product. The beauty about this model right here is that any white label manufacturer on the market that makes dry mixes, can make this product for you.”

For Zusman, it’s about building the supply chain to meet future demand for a federal THC market that doesn’t yet exist. Get the machines up and running, get the processes in place and when the time comes, flip the switch.

“The reason these big companies aren’t coming in is that we don’t have the supply chains completely set up,” he said. “Once it’s all set up, and they have large-scale supply chains built from field to cupboard, then the large global companies will come in and buy them up.”

Either that, or the smartly-scaled Cannabis companies will be the ones doing the buying.

“Utilizing science and ingenuity, the Dab Rite has taken all of the guesswork out of dabbing. With adaptive goose neck design, the unit is universally capable of reading the temperature of any style of rig.”

FUTURE OF CONSUMPTION

Make hot dabs a thing of the past with the most modern, versatile and inventive digital IR thermometer to be found: the Dab Rite.

dabrite.com | @thedabrite

Industry experts, glass collectors and owners Dr. Seuscio, Dan Wynick, Cody Johnson and Bryan Berc joined forces in January of 2020 to bring this revolutionary commodity to market. After an intensive year of research and development, their team turned the Dab Rite from a concept to prototypes, ultimately helping their product become the gold standard in the industry.

Utilizing science and ingenuity, the Dab Rite has taken all of the guesswork out of dabbing. With adaptive goose neck design, the unit is universally capable of reading the temperature of any style of rig.

Unlike other companies that have products that are only useful for banger hanger style rigs, users can bend the flexible neck in any direction to accurately read the heat of the quartz nail on their unique piece of glass art.

After getting the goose neck dialed in, users can set the temperature anywhere from 200 to 800 degrees fahrenheit. We would recommend 500600 degrees, depending on your nail. Dabbing your favorite concentrates at lower temperatures results in the most pronounced terpene expression achievable.

You will never miss another dab again, as the Dab Rite lights up, flashes and beeps whenever it has reached the set temperature, making this an ideal product for those hard of hearing. This fabulous feature will save you a ton of butane in the long run. With replaceable silicone guards on the temperature gauge and above the screen, users can mix and match silicone inserts to customize their Dab Rite units.

With over 50 years of combined industry experience, their company’s goal is quite simple: To provide a high-quality product that lives up to its own high standards and expectations – something that their entire team can confidently stand behind.

They believe that whether or not you are dabbing top shelf concentrates and extracts out of a higher-end piece, that the experience should be as tasty and enjoyable as possible. The Dab Rite is here to help take your sesh to the next level and the creators are honored to have their products included in your dab shrines, or as Dr. Seuscio calls them, “The Terpification Station.”

As a philanthropic group of individuals, their ownership stepped up last year and found creative ways to give back to our community. After the horrendous forest fires in Oregon, the Dab Rite team offered their second drop of product to the public with a necessary donation of at least $15 to $50, ultimately raising $4,000 so far for a great cause.

Keep an eye out for their recent collaboration with 710 Labs, as well as their official launch party later this month at Lifted Veil Gallery on January 30 with Toro Glass. Make sure to grab yourself a Dab Rite ASAP – your future seshes will thank you! High Tech continues next page