A California cannabis company has commissioned a new processing facility in Monterey County.
Cannabis grower Lowell Farms recently announced the commission of the new drying and midstream processing facility, located near its cultivation operation in the Salinas Valley.
The 10-acre, 40,000 square-foot processing facility, which Lowell says is the first-of-its-kind, will handle drying, bucking, trimming, sorting, grading, and packaging of up to 250,000 pounds of wholesale cannabis flower annually.
Lowell says the new facility will process nearly all of its locally-grown cannabis.
The company is also launching its Lowell Farms Services (LFS), which will offer fee-based processing services for regional growers in the Salinas Valley.
According to Lowell, the area is one of the “largest and fastest growing cannabis cultivation regions in the country.”
With no other solution in sight, Lowell Farms Chairman of the Board George Allen says the company is commissioning LFS to answer market processing needs.
“We seek to service the massive and fast-growing cannabis cultivation industry in California, not to compete with it,” says Allen. “Large-scale processing and automation are the missing pieces that will make California cannabis dominant in this exciting new frontier.”
Lowell says the new facility will initially include eight environmentally-controlled, segregated drying rooms which can accept up to 30,000 pounds of wet cannabis per month.
Mechanized and hand trimming services in the facility’s bucking and trimming area will include 70 stations and process up to 800 pounds of cannabis flower daily.
To further drive innovation in its product offerings, Lowell says it plans to add the country’s first “end-to-end, fully automated pre-roll manufacturing lines.”
Lowell says the pre-roll manufacturing line will bring an unprecedented level of choice to the cannabis industry’s “most discerning customers.”
