No, Not Another Distillate Vape: The Case for Solventless
This week we received a few remarks that we wanted to share comments back on. It covers a few topics that are incredibly important to us, and therefore, Matt & I felt it was worth the article.
End user post:
Absolutely love your products and would argue that you have the most consistent and highest quality product in the AZ market at any given time. However, the extremely aggressive price point on these new .5 gram cartridges is a bit overkill. There simply isn’t a more efficient process available or major quality difference that would justify these huge markups. Your competitors are also including a battery and a full gram for around that same price point. What research dictated that this would be the most beneficial? You are pricing this out of most people’s comfort zone and I truly believe you are missing a lot of lost revenue due to this. With the 20+ types of similar products out there I would recommend reviewing your rollout strategy and try to get this new cartridge in as many hands as possible and not just a few, let the product speak for itself and adjust pricing based on market needs and wants. You will never know the true potential if you don’t explore other options. This is my wheelhouse and I’m happy to elaborate more on a private message. Thanks! I have tried and loved it but hearing people in shops saying they are “super expensive but are really good” is a huge issue with this strategy.
Our input:
Thank you for writing this, we appreciate your words greatly. This is the type of feedback that we learn from the most, and it offers us an opportunity to share our insights. Additionally, thank you for the kind words regarding our brand and consistency. That means the world to the entire team here.
Breakout of points:
1) “There isn’t a major quality difference that would justify these huge markups.”
There are two types of cartridges in the Arizona market right now: a Distillate cartridge and a Live Resin cartridge.
The materials used in distillate cartridges are flower trim, wax, and other leftover materials that most would consider unsellable.
Live resin cartridges are made from fresh frozen flower that gets extracted using solvents such as butane, propane, etc. In many cases, distillate is actually added back into the live resin cartridge to assist with proper burning when taking a pull from the cartridge.
The Grow Sciences Live Hash Rosin cartridge is made from fresh frozen flower, extracted without the use of solvents. Instead, we use ice water (i.e. “washing”) to create hash, apply pressure and heat to the hash, which produces a solvent-free final product called Live Hash Rosin.
With that understanding of starting product, and materials used to produce each cartridge product, we strongly see a major difference in the quality and the material used in these cartridges, which we argue represents the finest cartridge-focused extract of cannabis in its natural form.
2) “What research dictated this would be the most beneficial? You are pricing this out of most people’s comfort zone.”
We started by examining the market and the current pricing structure that was available to Arizona patients. There are multiple companies who charge $50 for their cartridge in the 500mg size (our cartridges are filled to 600mg). That price point is found in the live resin cartridges sold by companies such as MPX , Item Nine and Nectar Farms at dispensaries around Arizona. Our cartridge is priced $5 higher than these, and is a solventless cartridge made from our premium live hash rosin. We are not competing with companies such as Select, Timeless, Pura, etc, as that is a distillate product, and in our opinion, nowhere near the same caliber as the material in our cartridge.
Lastly, the process to produce Live Hash Rosin has not yet reached economies of scale. Both Distillate and Live Resin products can be made using industrial scale equipment, allowing for enormous volumes of biomass to be extracted en masse. For solventless, we’re just scratching the service with a handful of small machines and processes that are very hands on, and incapable of extracting larger volumes. That all translates to higher costs.
3) “I truly believe you are missing a lot of lost revenue.”
When we go into choosing what products we want to release and how we tackle the market, quality has always been and will remain the first priority. We understand that higher pricing will turn people off, or worse, prevent some from being able to purchase it due to financial constraints. We saw this with our solventless extracts, which have fortunately evolved into tiered pricing, reflective of the materials and processes used to produce them. Will we get to tiered pricing for our Live Hash Rosin cartridges? We can’t say today. But for the people seeking all natural, clean solventless products with nothing added, combined with a mobile experience, we think this is product is the solution.