I would just say the biggest misconception is that we're not as hard-working as we are. We're building a plane while we're flying it, but we're also in a sky that's being built while we're flying through it. Hi everyone, this is Marav Ozeri with How Much Can I Make? Today, we're stepping inside a booming and yet often misunderstood industry, the cannabis farming. Our guest, Beck Mooney, is the Director of Operation at Supernatural's New York. She is here to tell us what it's really like to run a cultivation farm and grow legal cannabis in New York State. Beck, first of all, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Yes, of course. Let's dive right in and tell us how did you get into the cannabis industry? It kind of came out of nowhere in some ways, but in other ways it just made sense. We legalized in the state during the pandemic, and then by the time that was kind of winding down, the industry itself was actually starting to get rolling in terms of dispensaries opening and those kinds of things. I was a middle school English teacher, but I had been a caregiver for my partner who had very prolonged illness with a brain injury. During that time, I had taken what was like a lifetime familiarity with and enjoyment of cannabis to kind of a whole new level with my understanding of the many different medicinal facets of the plant and the different ways to dose it and the different ways to kind of treat all different types of symptoms. I also myself got a medicinal cannabis license in 2017 when they made PTSD a condition because I also use cannabis for treatment of PTSD. Okay. It was kind of both things, but I learned just so much more because of the illness my partner had come through. Then I wrote a bunch of books. I was a middle school teacher, and so I wrote a bunch of contemporary young adult novels. I got a book deal with McMillan. I was wrapping up my debut, and my spouse was actually doing a lot better, and I was like, okay, I'm ready to go back into something. I knew I didn't want to go into teaching. I kind of was flirting with the idea of going into publishing, but publishing is somewhat of a dying industry, and I found a growing industry instead. Literally. Yeah, it's a best joke. It became everything that I needed it to be. So I started actually, my first job that I took was with this post-harvest company. I was like a manual laborer and kind of like almost like chief of staff until they hired like a real chief of staff. Then I just networked out of that job, and the company I had gotten a job with, they were a startup, they still are, but they're a startup that basically tries to handle post-harvest for farms. What I learned from that position was that I really liked the, when I got on a cannabis farm, I was like, I like it here. When we went to our first client engagement, I was like, I could actually see myself working in a cannabis farm. I very quickly reached out to the guy who was in charge of that farm and was like, hey, are you hiring? This is so cannabis industry. He was like, maybe actually, yeah, you'd be great. And then he was like, actually, I found out I can't hire people, but he had actually connected me with my boss. And basically it was the emerging time when dispensaries were not yet opened in the Hudson Valley because there was this lawsuit, this like injunction that was holding them up. And all of a sudden, all of these farmers and people who had these crops, who had had no dispensaries to get their crop into, now not only did they have some dispensaries opening up, but they had these market places. And for the market places, you actually had to staff it. So like they all of a sudden needed people to be able to go represent their brand. None of them, of course, knew, you know, like how to nobody, they were farmers. They don't know how to set up, you know, marketplace brand reps. Basically, I was hired at first as a hand trimmer. I would go and I would like hand trim flower during the day. I brought like a little crew with me and we were just like hand trim as much as we could. I was paid by the pound to start out. How much did they pay by the pound? 150, 150 a pound. But it takes a long time. Trimming is a funny thing. Hand trimming is a funny thing because it depends on the material. Well, there was one day where the material I was dealing with was so fluffy and so light, but I made $90 for an eight hour shift. Oh, no. Yeah, it was miserable. It was miserable. Like I was like, I can't do this. But then there would be another day where it was a really dense, like heavy bud with like not a lot of leaf. And I cleared like I there were some days I did like two pound. Wow. Yeah. So it's so drastically different when you're hand trimming. But I basically wound up going from hand trimmer and CGS brand rep. All of a sudden someone was like leaving and he was the person who made the joints and none of the other guys on the team because it was all guys. Oh, it's not automated. You do it by hand. So we have a machine, but the machine takes an operator. It's called like a future roller knock box. It's one of the industry standards. And essentially, I don't know if you've noticed, but like, you know, how all joints nowadays are like these cones and essentially there are machines that there's like a loading tray and you load ours takes a hundred. And you load a hundred cones into it. And then you basically put a tray that's been loaded with ground cannabis flower in top of it. And then the machine, like it's kind of you kind of feel like a magician. You know, when like the magician pulls the tablecloth and everything falls, there's multiple things. You pull the thing and everything falls into the papers and you pull the thing and everything falls into the weave. It like looks like they're dancing. Like it goes for like a minute and a half to three minutes, depending on what you set it at and the cannabis falls down into them. And then they just like dance like this. That is funny. How big is your farm? So we are a small company. There are only 10 people who work for our company, including the two owners who are both on maternity and paternity leave right now. We handle all of our operation, our cultivation, our processing, our distribution, all of our sales. We are all over the state when it comes to being in dispensaries. We are in about 85 dispensaries from like Buffalo to the Saranac Lake like region and then down to Long Island and San Island. We grow in two different locations, but they're only a half hour apart from each other. And how many growing acres you have in each location? So we actually can only grow a quarter acre on our company. Yeah, we are a micro business license, but we basically we do and we we're fully sungrown. So we do rotating canopy. So we will do like three flips of a quarter acre. So it does wind up being about three quarters of an acre. We used to have our old license. One of the first licenses that came on the market was the adult use conditional cultivator license. That's what we had originally. And that was that was one acre. But we actually grow the same amount on a quarter acre. Now that we know how to rotate our canopy that we used to on a on a one acre canopy. And we're allowed to buy in 500 pounds also as a micro license. We can also buy in 500 pounds so we can find other people who have a similar operation, you know, who want to get rid of like bulk material. Since we have a brand that's out and we can like do something with that bulk material, we are allowed to buy it. How many different kinds of plants do you grow? It depends. We used to actually grow more varieties now that we have a feel for the marketplace, what consumers want and kind of like the flow. We've actually started to grow fewer varieties. But I think this year probably I would say between 20 to 30 maybe. How long do you have to hang it to dry before you can start packaging it? We try to do it for I feel like it's like three weeks is like maybe two weeks. But like we we have to sometimes slip it over. But we actually have come up with a process where we don't stop the the dry. Like so I don't know if you're familiar with the old paper bag method where people literally would just like cut the like dry dry the weed to a certain thing and then put it in a bag to basically cure it. What the paper bag does is that it can still breathe. So whenever we are like under like pressure where it's like, oh, we have to harvest from this field and this stuff like is not it's not where I want it to be. It's not it's not dry to the point where I want to put it in its final curing state. We do this paper bag intermittent thing and then we let it stay in there for a while. It dries out its last bit and then we can put it into its final package. So what is the process? How long does it take from seeding to harvest? I would say like 10 to 12 weeks total. Maybe maybe some like 14. But then we have quick like autoflowers are the fastest. Autoflowers are seeds that were hybridized with like rooteralis from like Russia. Other really short fast flowering plant. Those will flower like super fast. Those are what we plant the earliest in the season. Those can be like eight weeks total. Walk me through what is a day to day operation for you in the farm like right now? We have no plants in the ground because we are a sungrown operation. During the year we have my boss who's like the owner farmer. And then the past two years we have had one cultivation employee who has done the entire field. I'm more on like the structural end. But for the actual day to day like like operation on the farm, we have two people who work the pre-roll production. So there's the pre-roll production lead and then he has an assistant and they make anywhere between like 5000 to 10,000 pre-rolls in a day. There are some days where instead of making pre-rolls, they are using the grinder, the miller. So they might be milling up the flower. Then there is a technician who works on bucking. So that means removing the flower from the stem. And he prepares it for our trimmer. So that's in one shipping container. There's bucking, trimming, pre-roll making and grinding. In the other container, not container really, but like a trailer that's been built out into a production space. That's our packaging area. So in that space there's usually two to three employees weighing out pre-rolls, like checking them for quality assurance, making sure that they look right. They'll fix the tip. Then they package it. So we actually weigh them out. We put them into their packaging and we hand sticker every single item that goes out the door. There's a production and inventory manager and his responsibility is to set the pace for the day. Like basically, like, you know, what's the plan, what needs to be done today, which skews, like, which, you know, items are you working on? He will also inventory all the stuff through the seed to sale tracking systems. And so seed to sale is like everything. I always explain this to people, like, when they're like, Oh, why isn't it just like alcohol? And it's like, it would be like alcohol. If to make beer, you had to tag every single barley plant and then track it from its origin to its final product. That is crazy. Now, I want to go back for a second to growing the plants. You must start with clones now, because if you'll get a male, it will kill your crop. Feminized seeds. So we do grow from some clones. Yeah, but feminized seeds came out in like the early 2000s. I've never heard of feminized seeds. Yeah. So you can you can grow just and know that when I buy seeds, even in my home grow, when I had started home grow, I would always buy feminized seeds. We grow mostly from seed at this point. We do keep but each year we'll do a phenol hunt. And a phenol hunt is essentially where you grow a ton of the same seed, like you grow a bunch of them. And then basically you look for characteristics that you really like clones are very stable. The reason why people work with clones is because they're very stable. You took them all from a plant as opposed to these are all different seeds. And all the different seeds might have slightly different characteristics. There's one plant that we grow from seed called purple Mandy. And she grows this three distinct colors. There is a very deep purple. There is a very light, soft green. And then there's a pink. And when you walk down the field, you will see whichever one that seed grew into is the phenotype. And then people will basically do phenol hunts and they'll try to select for characteristics, whether it's oh, I really like the way she looks. I really like the way she smells. I really like the way she smokes. That's usually the one that's the most important. But then it could also be for our needs. Oh, that seemed really like it was mold resistant. That seemed really pest resistant. You know that like there was something about the way that structure really like was resilient against the new. Right. So we have tended toward trying to phenohunt for viability in our environment. And there are certain strains that we have phenohunted. We have something called galactica. We have something called super cake. And actually that super lemon piss, the cheetah piss straight lemonade. That's also who names them, by the way, the breeder. Those will actually know. So galactica galactica. My boss came up with that one. Super cake was actually that's also him. So when you when you phenohunt, you can basically make your own name. It's like now it's like yours. But before that, they all came with names. So the galactica was originally it was a jet fuel gelato. That was a phenoh of jet fuel gelato. What happens if we have a dry season, you have to water your plants, you have to fertilize, right? And how do you keep the ground and the earth prolific? Excellent question. People who work in living soil, especially with cannabis, because cannabis pulls a lot. Like it's a very hungry plant. It pulls a lot out of the soil. You need to test the soil to basically know what you need to amend with. And we will do that with compost. We actually get compost from Ulster County. We don't put in any synthetic amendments, you know, no synthetic fertilizers. We use worm castings, bone meal, fish emulsion. There's this time of the year when they're making like the the starts and like like working with the holes where they're going to put the stuff in where my boss always comes in and he smells like like fish. Like I can't tell if I want to cook cook it into like a Thai meal or like throw up. Like it's it's very potent. Were you always interested in agriculture? I've always loved plants. I'm super nature, you know, like I'm a super nature girl. Like one of the things about working for our operation in particular is like it's pretty rugged. I always tell people the first when they're coming to interview, I'm like, I know right now you got stars in your eyes. You're like, it looks like cannabis camp. Yay. The first few weeks, you'll be like, I can't believe I'm here. And then eventually you'll be like, oh, this is hard, you know, like I'm on a farm. Like we all share one bathroom. It's a thing that I don't know if I if I wasn't from like a hippie like camping, you know, like rugged family. I don't know if I if I would be able to hack it. And what would be an entry level job in a farm like this? So for us, it would be a package or or like an assistant position or like an apprentice position. We mostly bring on people and start with weighing out joints and putting them into their packages and stickering them. And how much can they make doing it? It's usually the starting wage is usually $18, but we try to go up pretty fast just because we don't have benefits. So in terms of like, I, you know, we need to be paying like a pretty competitive wage. A lot of the companies that are like a larger company, like a pharma can or a cure relief, they're going to be offering 16 to 18 to start with a full benefits package. So we have to, you know, we have to give as good a wage as we can. We would love to pay everyone, you know, so much more. Like we are that kind of company. A small farm, let's say like yours, how much can they actually make after all these expenses? And God forbid you have a hurricane in the middle and it kills your crop. And there's a lot of challenges in any form. Yeah, yeah, it's an excellent question. So in terms of what would we do if we had a catastrophic loss, we are allowed to appeal to the office of cannabis management and purchase in more than our 500 pounds if we were to have a catastrophic loss. To be honest, that's a question that's yet to be determined. Like how much can one of these companies make? If you look at the statistics for other states, you will find that most cannabis companies are not profitable. I did some more digging in relation to some of the stuff I'm trying to figure out for our operation. And I saw numbers like maybe 10 to 15% typical profit, depending on how many million dollars a year you're doing in revenue. We get profits that we're able to reinvest in the company and do things that we need to do. But we're not at the point where it's like, oh, yay, look at all this extra money. But we are in a better boat than most people that I know in the industry. The question is, at what point as a small business do you ever start making enough profit that it doesn't just go back into the small business? And I know that's not unique to cannabis. Right, that's a good business. Yeah, I talk with a lot of small business operators. And there's some things that are unique to cannabis, the hyper-regulation, all that stuff. And then there's some stuff that's just like, well, it's a small business. It's hard. And this is actually in terms of where there is the subject of your podcast, where there's the most money to be made. Someone told me early on that the most money to be made is in compliance. Like compliance has to do with the ways in which you are responsible for all of the regulatory bodies, whether or not it's their guidance, whether or not it's the Office of Canada Management, OSHA, or GMP, good manufacturing practices. I recently read that the prices of cannabis went down a lot. Do you feel it? Yes, so this is what we in the industry call the race to the bottom. The race to the bottom is the plummet in flower price that happens in every state. I do feel it. It's interesting because we are positioned as a small company with a lot of added value characteristic. Like, we're creating a lane right now. We call it craft cannabis. You know, like it exists in other states, but in New York, we're like actively like building it out. The only insulation you have against that race to the bottom is added value characteristics, things that people are willing to pay more for. I can't compete with people on a bottom line. I just had, I think I just lost a dispensary over the fact that I can't compete with one of the largest operations in the state on price point. A lot of it for us is about finding the right vending partners. We have our products priced where we can. How do you protect the fields so nobody will come and steal plants? That's an excellent question. There's regulations for that. So you have to have a fence. You have to have an enclosure. You have to have a property breach. Like so, like you have to be able to know, like if they have to have cameras, you have to have lights on certain things. There are a lot of things that I'm surprised the industry has been lucky about to this point because, you know, if you have any familiarity with what it's like in California, you know, I know people whose job was to be security and I'm talking real security, you know, like I'm not talking like, oh, I sit there, you know, with a little shirt. That's a security. For me, that's a big concern with sungrown. You know, it depends on where you live and how remote your property is. But even that, most of these addresses are public knowledge in somewhere, you know, like in some database with the OCM. And it is a concern, but every, in terms of with the OCMs, anywhere where there is cannabis, they're supposed to be security. What is an OCM? The OCM is the Office of Cannabis Management. They're the governing body that oversees all of our all of our regulations. What is the biggest misconception about working in the cannabis industry in the form? I would just say the biggest misconception is that we're not as hardworking as we are. It's just really hard. You know, I always tell people it's like we're building a plane while we're flying it. But like we're also in a sky that's being built while we're flying through it because the OCM regulations change constantly. And we, you know, like for instance, we didn't know we're going to be paying $5.10 for every case in tags. That's a massive, massive difference. And we have to just roll with it. I really think people think we're high and we are, but the being high actually enables us to be this resilient and flexible. We'll work like insane hours. Right. What's the biggest reward of the business? Cannabis is so important to so many people and so many beings. And the idea that for so long, this was a thing that was just like in the shadows and we couldn't necessarily be open and talk about it with everyone. It has been so amazing to just have this be my professional life. And I get to talk with people and help them. And when people come up to me and they're like, I've had people come up to me and be like, you're like, this thing that you guys made is like the only thing that gets me to sleep. This thing that you made is the only thing I use when I have sex with my partner. Just like all these different cool things that you're like, wow, we are literally increasing quality of life and joy. Talking about joy, what is your favorite season on the farm? Early summer, there's a lot of plants that are just starting. They're really bushing out. There's like, we've got our companion plant. The calendula looks pretty. You know, like everything is just starting to warm up and there's flowers everywhere. That whole like three week period where the plants are just starting to really come into their own. It's nice because it's before the harvest. It's after the planting and it's not the winter. All right. And on that note, thank you so much. That was so interesting. Thank you, Maro. That's it for today. Thanks for listening. And if you like the show and want to hear more like it, please follow us. And until next time, stay curious.
