Hi Folks, with hopes of landing new clients for my company, Hemp Harvest Innovations, I would like to share details of the work I’ve done the past couple years on lipid infusion. I enjoy reading the discussion here but it is obviously concentrate-centric. Part of me is surprised that lipid infusion is less prominent here but I think there is room for that to change since it carries so many advantages! In particular, lipid infusion equipment can
- extract biomass with high efficiency (90%+)
- produce high-potency tinctures (100 mg cbd per mL and beyond)
- full spectrum output that closely replicates input biomass quality
- no hazardous solvents so processing begins immediately up on infuser delivery
- tinctures can be color remediated
- cost very little to operate
disadvantages include,
- few options for thc remediation (if any?)
- distilling cannabinoids to make concentrates is exceedingly difficult
To the subject of my post: I have worked enough with the process to get a good handle on its economics beyond the scale of crock pots (which appears to be the go-to method for many current lipid infusers). The output and infusion cost of the infusion process is highly predictable–see the attached costpermg.pdf which compares HHI’s infusion cost to 71 retail lipid infusion tincture prices. Does infusion at a cost of $0.001 per milligram strike anyone as attractive? The real cost of infusion of course depends on specifics such as the input biomass potency and the oil output potency–I would be happy to guide anyone through that is interested.
Full spectrum lipid infusions even sell for higher prices, on a per milligram of cbd basis, than cbd isolate or distillate. For example, I have made over a 55 gallon drum’s worth of oil at 5% cbd (about 10 kg CBD), over the course of four production runs that our company billed out at $60k. This oil is then turned around and sold wholesale for over four times our cost. At the retail level, the price is even higher – check the document I attached for a compilation of the retail cost per milligram for several lipid infused products. To me it seems the market for lipid-infused oil is a lot murkier than that for cbd concentrates. With lipid infused products carrying a high level of ‘whole plant synergy’ a company really needs to have an established brand to make it work since there is an education gap to overcome.
HHI has built two infusers that process in the vicinity of 20 and 50 pounds per day. So the scale of lipid infusion is small relative to solvent processing but view this process as potentially advantageous to several groups in the cannabis space including: 1) farmers ready to invest in a quick-to-implement solution to process there own biomass; 2) established CBD brands with ready-to utilize tincture bottling and gel capping capacity and 3) large processors looking to diversify their product offerings. Furthermore I believe there are major opportunities to formulate with infused oils–I imagine that any recipe calling for an oil could also be formulated with an infused oil.
Finally, although I have done this work primarily in the hemp realm… I think THC centric lipid infused products are an opportunity too. I am aware of lipid infused THC tinctures to the tune of 10 mg per mL, which is well below potency output capabilities of HHI’s equipment. However I imagine it could also be advantageous to formulate an edibles with a tiny amount of a THC infusion at 100 mg/mL (like, one mL per chocolate bar). For the THC market I foresee it being of interest for HHI to build infusers at even smaller processing scales (say, 1 lb per day).
If anyone would like a free 1 oz sample dropper bottle, send me a direct message! I will give out up to 20 1 oz. samples of an MCT infusion to 66 mg cbd/mL made with two different quality hemp strains. I am also eager to solicit small-scale infusion batches with your biomass to produce samples that are representative of our equipment output. Finally take a look at the HHI website–we have a lot of talent ready to produce more infusion equipment or take on new projects altogether. Cheers!
2020-12-13 costpermg.pdf (218.3 KB)
