Cannabis Flower Brands with Consistency Win

Cannabis flower brands that are consistent have a much better chance of winning in today’s market

While a certain level of quality is required, consumers want to know that they are getting the same product every time they purchase packaged flower. An excellent brand equals trust. A brand that is consistent in quality and delivery will be preferred over one that is not. This is true across various industries such as restaurants, service centers, or fitness classes. Many chain restaurants people frequent may not have the best food, but they are highly likely to be consistent. 

Consistency is key in the cannabis industry. Consumers have no patience for inconsistency. A piece of yellow flower or poorly trimmed flower can lead to an unhappy customer and a loss of business. If a cannabis company is lucky, the buyer will give the brand another chance. However, with the wide range of options available to consumers, there is a chance they will never purchase from that brand again and may even discourage others from purchasing as well. A poor Reddit review or Tweet can have long-lasting implications, particularly if it happens more than once. 

It is not always necessary to have the best or cheapest cannabis to win in the market. Consistency is just as important. Lowering the cost of flower is great for consumers. Even better is lowering the cost and increasing the quality. The challenge then becomes delivering on that customer expectation over and over. With the nuances of cannabis cultivation, the challenges in the labor market, high turnover, and lost knowledge transfer – producing highly consistent cannabis can be a challenge. 

To ensure consistency, several classifications should be considered such as potency, nose, dry/cure, and visual appeal – most notably trichomes and trim quality. Potency and nose can be most impacted through genetics and cultivation practices. The nose is also greatly affected by the dry and cure. Modern technology such as a Cure Puck can take out the guesswork of curing and ensure a consistent cure every time. 

The challenging part with cannabis flower consistency is often left to trimmers. If you are hand trimming, training trimmers to be consistent is relatively easy, but the difficulty arises in maintaining consistency with turnover. The biggest risk with humans is their lack of consistency and bias. It only takes one person not to trim to the brand’s standard for a day, or worse, to miss a piece of yellow leaf, powdery mildew, or mold from entering the package. When thousands of buds pass through a facility a day, it is easy to miss imperfections, even when multiple layers of quality control are in place. 

Innovative technology is now entering the market such as optical grading. Devices such as Marvel visually scan the front and back of every piece of flower, sometimes at multiple stages in the post-harvest process, to ensure it meets the consistency your brand requires. The speed at which it will scan is fast, less than 100ms per flower, and it can scan over 80lbs in an hour. The system can be trained to use your current grading system or the Marvel Standard. And because it is driven by artificial intelligence, it gets smarter as it goes. 

Less advanced vision technology has revolutionized quality and customer experience in other industries such as nuts and berries. More advanced technology can now be used in the cannabis industry to protect brands and ensure that every flower has been fully inspected before entering a package. With Marvel, cannabis operators can sleep well at night knowing their brand is being protected.