MJBizMag April 2022 - 34

Calibrating Quality
How Do You QC?
Cultivation and manufacturing experts offer strategies to maintain quality
independent of lab testing
By Omar Sacirbey
As with all consumer packaged goods,
sound quality-control systems are
key to winning customer confidence
in marijuana and hemp products.
Because of the state-by-state nature
of the cannabis industry, regulations
vary by market. However, there are
several steps companies can take to
ensure consumers are getting safe and
satisfactory products, regardless of
their location:
* Research standard operating
procedures in industries such as food
manufacturing and pharmaceuticals
and implement similar quality-control
processes at your own business.
Cannabis flower is weighed
by packaging and processing
teams at multistate operator
Ayr Wellness. Courtesy Photo
F
rom writing standard operating
procedures and vetting raw
materials to starting in-house
labs and conducting retail audits,
cannabis business owners lean on best
practices for quality control.
Regulators in state-legal marijuana
markets require that cannabis
businesses have their products tested
by independent and state-accredited
laboratories before they're distributed
to retail outlets for sale to consumers.
But there are many actions beyond
third-party testing that cultivation,
manufacturing and retail executives
can take to improve quality control.
These measures improve the final
product, protect consumers and
provide executives with some peace
of mind.
34 April 2022 | MJBizMagazine
Following are eight tactics veteran
cannabis executives use to ensure
quality control:
1
Use other industries as a
guide to create in-house
standard operating
procedures, or SOPs
" We created our own processes and
systems. Because we make edibles, we
created our own quality-assurance and
quality-control program to ensure that
our products are best in class and meet
the state-required testing specifications, "
said Erin Gore, co-founder and
CEO of Garden Society, a cannabis
company in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Gore added that the company
adopted several best practices from
the food-manufacturing industry as
* Develop relationships with state and
local regulators to keep abreast of
policy changes in labeling, testing
and other key matters.
* Consider what differentiates cannabis
from other products-sticky resin on
flower, for example-and develop
ways to work around it when
conducting testing and sanitization.
* Several standards-development
organizations are working on
publishing a set of testing standards
for laboratories and cannabis
companies to implement. Watch for
these standards and ask whether your
third-party testing lab is using them.
well as certifications from standardsdevelopment
organizations such as
ISO and ASTM.
For Brian Kiniry, the Philadelphiabased
senior vice president of
operations at multistate operator
Ayr Wellness, Good Manufacturing
Practice, or GMP, is the " baseline. "
" As we look to other industries
that a lot of us have come from-food
MJBizMag April 2022

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