Howdy all,
So I have roughly 60k lbs of biomass that we grew this year. It is testing on average from 6-10%. The flower is coming in at about 16%. We have roughly 10k lbs. I am looking for processing options and open to anything on flower. Does anyone have any options or recommendations for split processing or potential toll options? I figure crude would be a great start but obviously want to go somewhere from there.
I am located in Southern Oregon and would happily show the material to anyone interested. I will also travel to meet or deliver samples. Just looking for some headway!
Thanks everyone
It’s a grim scene right now. You are up against a substantial amount of material still stockpiled in S OR that is 13-15%. The very few sales of bio that I have heard of recently were in the $.60-$.80/% range and the middle men still want to swoop a dollar/lb off the top for the service of helping you loose your ass. Your thinking in the right direction on working with a lab but be careful who you send material too. Lots of horror stories of first year labs mixing up people’s material, claiming super low yields, etc.
If you can find a lab that will even do a split be prepared to stand at the back of the line, and even be asked to front your material. My best advice would be to find a reputable lab and toll a small pilot batch with them. Ask them to help you sell the final product, and use that revenue to cover the toll for the next batch. If you are paying to have your material processed it will get run much quicker than if you try and do a split. A good lab should have channels to help sell your product and they will be motivated to do so because it’s also cash flow for them to get paid to process more of your material. Perhaps even offer them a small commission to make sales for you. If they can move the product eventually you can have all your material tolled and sold without paying out of pocket. I personally wouldn’t go just to crude. See what Product the lab thinks they can sell the best and then decide if you want to go to distillate or iso. Don’t be afraid to ask for lower toll fees per input pound either, those numbers are coming down now. $14/lb input to iso is a real thing.
It’s a lot of leg work to get all the pieces in place but this is how we managed to survive. Your still looking at only ~$10/lb equivalent for the bio but it’s better than what you will see on a split with a lab and much better than the $5/lb you will get for a spot buy that will probably never happen.
We are down to our last 50k and I would be happy to connect you with the people we are using as soon as they are done running our material if you don’t have something else in motion by then.
5 Likes
Yeah man good luck on finding a home for your biomass. I’ve talked with a lot of farmers in Kentucky that are sitting on thousands of pounds of quality biomass. They’re all switching back to tomatoes and watermelon this year.
I would be really nervous about sending your biomass anywhere without legal documents or cash in hand. I know a guy that sent out 50k lbs for a toll deal and they processors still don’t have their facility set up. I told him to ask them what their sales channel was and they replied with “well we sell watermelon to walmart so we definitely think we can get a contract with them”. A lot of jokers out there praying for a hail mary.
2 Likes
Blows my mind that people send biomass to places that don’t have a facility up and running that they can give tours of to prospective clients, when there’s extractors like myself that work our asses off, provide competitive pricing and are willing to give outsiders tours to get customers and long term client agreements secured. We do have contracts written up by our lawyer that explain both client and extraction lab’s responsibilities. FWIW, $5.50 per input pound to W/D crude filtered to 1 micron in Colorado, 1200 lbs/day capacity, some negotiation on higher quantities, can’t yet do distillate in house so we refer potential clients to local labs like @Nomadgt 's for conversion to distillate. I know we can’t offer everything under the sun, but damn, still frustrates the hell out of me to see people getting taken by such lazy and underhanded tactics when there’s honest labs that recognize that their long term success is determined by making the right connections and keeping their clients happy.
I agree wholeheartedly on the sales channels, entirely different markets for hundreds or more kgs of crude or broad spec distillate, and very few of the farms that have no problem hocking watermelons or other produce at local farmers’ markets are vertically integrated enough to take their plant product into lotions, tinctures and other retail products that could be sold alongside their produce.
I also agree with the above post about splits and cashflow, if you want a lab offering a split to take your biomass seriously, you need to have an outlet to sell the crude at market price if the lab doesn’t already!
And nothing personal, but I know and have talked to several extraction labs that are sitting on hundreds of kgs of quality crude, if we’re having a hard time selling it, an individual farmer is likely to run into the exact same challenges given the current market.
3 Likes
I’m in Colorado, but let’s set up shop an turn it to rosin
1 Like