Inside SoHum’s Flow Kana Facility: We Take a Look Around

Workers creating pre rolls at the Flow Kana facility. [All photos provided by Emily Hobelmann]

The Flow Kana processing facility in Southern Humboldt is up and running again after a three month lapse in licensing forced the company to temporarily cease operations at its Whitethorn location.

The cannabis brand initially began operating at this newly constructed facility under a temporary license back in November 2018. When the temporary license expired the following February, state regulations did not allow for an extension, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) was not prepared to issue an annual license at that time.

Flow Kana was able to recommence operations at this leased facility in May when it received a provisional license, which is valid for a full year.

The approximately 10,000 square foot warehouse is located at the Whitethorn Construction complex, right behind Caffé Dolce. It is a spacious and spotless area, with a large portion of its square footage devoted to climate-controlled storage.

Pre rolls being made at the Flow Kana Whitethorn facility.

Flow Kana Director of Processing Drew Phillips welcomed me (Emily Hobelmann) for a tour of the facility on a Friday in mid-June, when there were about 13 or 14 full-time employees working on the processing room floor. Phillips says Flow Kana will employ about 32 people full-time at this facility when operating at max capacity. “We’re working on staffing up right now.”

My tour started in the well-appointed break room, where Phillips gave me background on the company and its operations over cold sparkling water and a lazy Susan packed with snacks. The break room is equipped with a full kitchen, complete with a stainless steel refrigerator and an ADA-compliant gas stove.

The break room.

Flow Kana did not construct this facility; Phillips credits the McKee family for the design, build out and thoughtful details. Flow Kana wound up here, he says, because of fortuitous circumstances, basically, a “right place, right time” situation that arose when another company backed out of leasing the space.

Flow Kana holds both distribution and processing licenses, and the company is well funded. This press release from mid-February describes how “Flow Kana has raised a total  of $175 million  to date to build and scale the California cannabis supply chain centered around small, decentralized, sustainably operated cannabis farms.”

Flow Kana’s current operational model is to aggregate and process sun-grown cannabis from local farms at its Laytonville and Whitethorn hubs. From these two locations, materials are moved downstream from to the Flow Cannabis Institute (FCI) in Mendocino, Flow Kana’s sophisticated sorting and packaging facility at the old Fetzer Winery in Redwood Valley.

Flow Kana moves retail ready 1/8ths and full flower pre-rolls from FCI to dispensaries all over the state. Since the company sources from a variety of small farms, Phillips says the product line is “ever changing,” and their customer base likes the variety.

Local cannabis farms that work with Flow Kana include Rebel Grown, Ridgeline, Sun Roots, Happy Day Farms, Full Sun Farms, Moon Made Farms and Emerald Spirit Botanicals. The Willie’s Reserve and Brother David’s brands are also affiliated with Flow Kana. (Brother David’s is the new cannabis company founded by Dr. Bronner’s CEO David Bronner).

Licensed cannabis cultivators are not necessarily required to send their crops out for processing at facilities like this warehouse in Whitethorn. The state does allow for cultivators to process onsite, but only as long the local jurisdiction has approved post-harvest production activities for that particular license, activities which can include, trimming, packaging and making pre-rolls.

Scale at one of the processing centers.

In general, onsite processing at cultivation sites may not be practical or permitted because of the need to develop infrastructure for processing employees or because of complications around hiring extra hands. But it can be done, again, only with explicit approval from the local jurisdiction.*

The Flow Kana facility in Whitethorn is not affiliated with any single cultivation operation. It is essentially a service station where product from many farms is processed, then moved into the legal market under the Flow Kana brand. Carter and Phillips both believe demand for processing facilities like this will build in the coming years, accommodating cultivators that either do not want to or cannot process their crops on-site.

The warehouse has a large storage capacity.

Phillips points to another draw to the Whitethorn facility for licensed cultivators – its storage capacity. Proper storage is an important factor in the legal market, and Flow Kana can legally transport cannabis off the hill into its secure, insured and climate-controlled facility until the product is processed and ready to move elsewhere.

These services come at a cost, of course, and Flow Kana’s spectrum of processing options and fees are intended to minimize cost to the farms. Fees can depend on whether the material comes bucked or un-bucked (“We do take on branched flower”) and on how the material is graded and processed (single-A, double-A or triple-A; hand trimmed and/or machine trimmed).

Drying and curing is all done on farm, Phillips says, and Flow Kana does not currently “R&D” test materials before transport to their processing facilities. The company does, however, plan to implement this type of preliminary testing for the first light deprivation crops of this season. COA [Certificate of Analysis] testing happens in the final form of the flower, once the product has an established retail route.

Phillips says that when Flow Kana does take possession of materials for processing, the goal is to “make the flower shine.”

If the flower is dense and round with structural integrity, it may be machine trimmed then polished by hand. In fact, Phillips says, “We get a more consistent trim across the board if we machine trim first and then give it to trimmers.” But if the flower has “a lot of dips and valleys or foxtails sticking out of it – we’re going to full hand trim that. It’s not going to go into a machine.”

Trimming machines will play a significant role in the future of cannabis, minimizing processing time and cost, but Phillips believes there will always be a need for the human touch. “Cannabis is a very delicate flower,” he says. “A lot of it needs to be hand trimmed, and I don’t think you can replace that.”

A big part of his job is to ensure cultivators that Flow Kana is going to treat their product with respect, and Phillips spends a great deal of time showing clients around Flow Kana’s facilities so they can see the processing operations first-hand.

A glass viewing window onto one of the processing floors.

“Even the toughest farms that hang on super tight, I’ve gotten them to start trusting. And the trust is there because the proof is in the pudding,” he noted.

Phillips says in addition to all of the considerations around trimming methodologies, Flow Kana has kept their inventory tracking mechanisms tight from the jump because they are dealing with so many different entities. The onus is on Flow Kana, he says, to make sure products are kept clean and separated at all times.

This is a huge departure from Humboldt’s arguably infamous trim scene and black market sales culture, I observe to him, even more so because the facility will be operating year round and will therefore be a place for stable employment.

Phillips laughs in response to my comment and offers a pertinent anecdote, telling me how it’s often quite hard for new processing employees to take required breaks, as many seasoned trimmers are used to working non-stop for hours on end.

Entry level processing positions at Flow Kana start above minimum wage and receive full benefits, including dental, vision and life insurance policies, paid holidays, paid sick leave and paid time off, the company says. Flow Kana also runs its own in-house version of a Community Supported Agriculture program. Phillips says most of the current Whitethorn staff live in Shelter Cove, Ettersburg and Petrolia.

And while Flow Kana does not necessarily have straight up trim work available all of the time, “we do have things to fill those gaps,” he says. For example, on the day of my visit, the bulk of the processing employees were clustered around a station of stainless steel worktables making Willie’s Reserve brand pre-rolls.

Making pre rolls.

Lara Martin is one of the full-time processing employees at the Whitethorn facility that was ready to talk on record during my visit.

Lara Martin

She says her time with Flow Kana has been “really wonderful” so far. She is enthusiastic about the benefits package and the fact that the facility is within 15 miles of her home in Shelter Cove.

Martin worked in a corporate environment for decades before moving to Humboldt County, then she did trim work and housekeeping for about five years before getting this job. “This is the way companies should be doing business,” she says of Flow Kana and its “blend” of corporate and laid back Northern California cultures. “The people are amazing. They take care of us.”

I ask if any locals have given her a hard time for working here, and Martin says she got some flak initially. Her response was to tell people to check the company out, to research how Flow Kana is fighting for the farmers. Now she says people ask her, “How do I apply for a job?”

In the same vein, I ask Phillips what it’s like to field resumes for full-time, above-board trimming jobs. He says some people will reach out to Flow Kana for employment and will say, “’I don’t feel comfortable sending you a resume about what I’ve done in the traditional market.’ And that’s fine.”

It all comes down to the interview, making sure the applicant understands cannabis, that they actually know how to trim and that they are decent people. “[Trimming] is difficult,” he says. “It’s skilled labor… You can give flower to lots of different people and get lots of different trim jobs,” including totally destroyed flower.

For me, it’s a novel experience to talk about trim work in the context of resumes and 40-hour per week jobs with eight-hour days. The tour conjures up endless contrasts in my memory, the variety of black and gray market trim scenes I’ve witnessed over the years, in person, in story and in the media. This facility is not unique in the grand scheme of cannabis, but it’s definitely a new and different vibe in Southern Humboldt.

Supplies are organized in the lab setting.

As the tour wraps, Phillips tells me he believes this facility will become Flow Kana’s “major touch point in Southern Humboldt,” a sort of “water cooler” for farmers. He is enthusiastic about the Whitethorn location, saying “We could be in a warehouse anywhere, but to be somewhere that has life already, that has a story, is so much more important.”

“This is where it started,” he adds. “The community is so vibrant.” To him, the cannabis farming history and culture on the west side of SoHum makes the half hour drive to reach Highway 101 worthwhile. His crew is stoked on Caffé Dolce , and they have a farmer who brings in cookies or donuts for the staff on a weekly basis.

You have to check in.

The facility is secure, however, and you can’t just show up there willy-nilly expecting a warm welcome, even if you have a box of pastries. This is a licensed cannabis processing facility — I had to schedule my visit in advance, sign in as a guest upon arrival and wear a lab coat on the processing floor.

Everyone has to wear a lab coat.

Formalities aside, I found the crew to be professional and friendly and the well lit, air-conditioned, modern and legal trim scene environment to be agreeable. Perhaps Flow Kana will have me back when the facility is in full swing with this fall’s outdoor harvest.

Workers at Flow Kana.

*Thank you to Holly Carter from Oxalis Integrative Services for clarifying the nuances around CDFA cultivation and processing licenses. Carter is an expert on cannabis licensing and Co-Founder and Owner of Oxalis, a company that offers compliance and licensing services to sun-grown and traditional farmers in the Southern Humboldt area.