Can mobile vertical farming save millions of pounds of wasted cannabis?

More than 1 million pounds of unsold commercial cannabis destroyed

• In 2022 alone, Canadian cannabis companies destroyed more than 600 million grams (1.3 million pounds) of unpackaged cannabis, about one-sixth of the total amount of cannabis produced that year across the country. According to the latest data available, 2023 doesn’t paint a better picture: nearly 265 million grams (585,000 pounds) of unsold cannabis flower were destroyed. And that’s just the first six months!

• Additionally, since 2018, these businesses also destroyed approximately 24 million packages of cannabis, an estimated 2 billion grams.

• Over the past five years, Canadian cannabis producers have struggled to find a balance in supply and demand, and a global pandemic only complicated matters. As with other perishable packaged goods, cannabis has a shelf life and is subject to supply-chain disruption.

• But many cannabis industry experts believe that the problem goes much deeper than expiration dates and COVID-19 confusion.

Cannabis waste: Deeper than just COVID chaos

So what really happened?

The Green Rush of the late 2010s pushed hungry startups and investors to produce the most cannabis possible to get in on the action. But because they went wide on different strains and products to attract the widest audience, they were guaranteed to sell out of what’s popular and be left holding what wasn’t—namely, high-THC versus low-THC flower and products, respectively. COVID only exacerbated an issue already simmering below the surface.

It would be shortsighted to write this off as supply chain disruption or a market anomaly. The core of the issue lies in cannabusinesses too focused on spinning green into gold and not looking toward the future, or the waste it would create, to say nothing of pivoting more dynamically when consumer trends warranted it.

Growers who don’t learn from this history are doomed to repeat it. So what can you do now to strengthen your operations and minimize waste in your indoor farm or greenhouse?

How to calibrate cannabis growth with custom VF systems to prevent waste

• Mobile vertical farming systems have always been exciting because of the sheer volume of racking vacancies available for the same small footprint, but a smart cannabis farm will understand that growing the biggest canopy isn’t everything—it’s really about investing in the solutions that allow you to scale up and back precisely and efficiently as the market shifts, even when those shifts are unprecedented.

• With custom mobile vertical farming systems like GROWRAK and GROW&ROLL, you always have scalability in your back pocket. Their collapsible design and tool-free adjustability allow for a more strategic, more market-responsive approach to growing. A smaller tiered racking system can still provide the same crop output of a full grow room of static shelves with half the footprint. As your business scales, you can add more carriages for optimized plants per cubic foot.

• Mobile vertical farming systems put in your back pocket the vertical and horizontal grow advantage necessary to meet increasing demand with a scalable supply, but as you’re building a reputation with your client base and producing around their interests, your racking is always useful for other purposes and space-conscious enough to keep operating costs low and your layout organized.

• If you’re interested in how mobile vertical farming can maximize profits and minimize waste, contact your local Authorized Montel Distributor for a free no-obligation consultation, which includes 2D and 3D renderings of your ideal mobile vertical farm layout.