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In Summary
Brett Mayo with Sweetwater Hemp joins us on the HempList this week, hosted By Chase Nobles, Founder of Kush.com
Brett & Chase have a ton to talk about with Sweetwater Hemp; everything from how the family grows herbs for Walmart (if there’s a future in Walmart Hemp Products), and how Sweetwater is currently operating the largest Ice Water Extraction facility in the world! Chase and Brett also get into the science of Ice Water Extraction, and how Sweetwater ensures the cleanest, full spectrum oils that are used to make a wide range of products in the Sweetwater catalog including tinctures, and gummies made in house..
https://sweetwaterhempcompany.com/
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Transcript (Auto-Generated)
hey everybody chase nobles here founder
of kush.com i’ve got brett mayo here
from sweetwater hemp and we’re really
excited to have you on the show brett
thanks for having me i’m excited too
yeah so you have an interesting story uh
you come from a a
background where it’s not just hemp you
have another business that you do but if
you don’t mind telling everybody the
story how’d you get into the hemp
industry what brought you here
so yeah we um so my wife and i moved
back about 10 years ago and um my
in-laws actually have a
business called sprout house where they
supply
about four or three to four 400 walmarts
with cut and fresh herbs
so we’ve been doing that for about 10
years and just to stay on the you know
the cutting edge of stuff and with the
growing family and stuff like that we
decided to open another business
i’ve been doing our homework uh i mean
not not only did it look cool but it
seemed to make sense to go into cbd and
hemp
and um you know we uh did our did our
homework for about two years
and then once we got the um go from the
state of nebraska we applied for our um
growing license and extraction license
and at the time we were the only two in
the state to get that
um together so um yeah so we just jumped
head first in last june and you know we
got the we got it built and we kind of
opened our doors you know about january
one we started the extraction
um
about
middle of february so
um along with that we do have a small r
d over in our other company um sprout
house where we grow plants and learn
about the seeds and figure out you know
which strains and stuff work the best
for us so um it kind of came full circle
and we’re doing extraction a little bit
of growing but we’re kind of bringing
biomass in from everywhere
right on now it sounds like you know
this thriving business was looking for
kind of a frontier market was that a
hard conversation to have being at a
family business in nebraska um not
traditionally super cannabis friendly up
there and then having really large
client like walmart for example
was that a
like a big risk and or was that a hard
conversation with the family to get you
know hemp and cbd brought into the mix
um i don’t i wouldn’t say it was hard um
you can kind of see where the nation’s
going with it with cannabis and cbd
everybody’s eventually gonna have to get
on board so we wanted to be out in front
of it and you know something that we
could grow
fairly quickly
but we know that it’s gonna be here and
it’s gonna be here to stay so it just
seemed pretty stable um you know
walmart’s um kind of waiting for on the
national level to get some some rules
and regulations before we can kind of
get into there so we’re kind of starting
out small locally
um kind of hitting um the websites
really hard
but
it just made it made all the sense in
the world us and it just seemed cool and
fun to get into
now starting just since june that’s
really fresh you know that’s a that’s a
young startup that you have right now
when it comes to this market what has it
been like since june you know you you do
all the research for two years you know
you do a little bit of r d here and
there and then you go okay it’s time to
start producing a product and selling
what has that been like since june since
launch
it’s been crazy you know since we
actually opened the doors over here in
january basically i said you know i’ve
been doing it for you know six eight
months or something like that completely
um but i feel like i’ve been doing it
for 10 years um but it’s it’s just a
constant education process especially in
the state of nebraska and talking to
people and teaching them about it and
know the benefits of it but uh we just
you know we’re just doing the best we
can and like i said we want to start
locally
educating people and just growing from
there um you know you guys have helped
out a lot we’re going down to your
convention in november and that’ll be
our first big one but we’re kind of
hitting small ones around here if you
practice up but uh we’re excited to kind
of build a national brand here in
central nebraska
right on yeah the show’s gonna be great
we’re excited that you’re you’re gonna
be there
i’m looking kind of at your product list
here you have so many different
categories for such a young startup
what inspired going that broad that
quickly because that’s just a pretty big
sku list and it’s it’s
with all the flavors and the different
potencies i would imagine that this has
probably been a pretty big challenge
just getting those products to market
yeah it’s been crazy when you’re when
you’re out on the road and you’re trying
to do sales a lot of the the businesses
the smaller business even those a little
bit bigger businesses want to bring in
more than one sku at a time um we
started up with the tinctures
and then people were like
maybe if you had this you could jump in
here a lot easier you know we could
knock out maybe a couple brands and keep
your brand stay local
um and the other thing we did is we
hired somebody that has uh experience in
the business and she’s helped out with
formulations um our senior lab
person aaron sutley has been great um
we started to do this and i looked at my
brother and i was like there’s just no
way that we can handle this we don’t
have a scientific background and she
kind of just fell into our lab luckily
so
she’s helped out a lot
the topicals have been going over well
we’re right now we’re formulating our
gummy we have some gummies for sale
online but we’re going to formulate our
home and i think we’re really close to
having our own gummy making everything
in house which is the goal so
wow we’re also talking to dog treat
companies and stuff like that so we’re
just trying to grow get as many products
as possible and you know get as much
flowing kind of the land and expand get
get a couple of big accounts and then
expand the product line within them you
know start adding
more and more to you know make sure that
the flow through on the shelves is good
that’s that’s great
one of the interesting things about your
business is you claim to have the
largest ice water extraction in the
country and that’s a that’s one
really big claim but two ice water
extraction you just don’t see a lot of
that in the market after doing two years
of research what led you to ice water
extraction and how big is it what what
exactly are y’all doing over there
so during our research we
we
rory did a lot of the research but
talking about it it seemed like the
future
um people today they want stuff that’s
clean they want to know where it came
from um they want to know what’s going
on their bodies from you know all the
way from the sea all the way to when
they’re getting their tincture or their
gummy or whatever
and then the more and more we thought
about the more more it made sense to do
the water extraction we got hooked up by
the company out of canada um and we have
two 2000 liter systems
um which we can run through about 135
pounds of biomass in each each machine
each day and we can run it up to three
to four times a day so we can go through
it very quickly and we make bubble hash
from those machines and then we go
directly into
ready to consume oil so
it’s a little bit different process in
co2 10 and stuff like that it’s cleaner
it’s also safer for my employees and
it’s also safer for the consumer so um
they know exactly what they’re getting
we also go above and beyond as far as
testing
another thing that we really liked about
this process is we we can retain
terpenes and um minor cannabinoids and
flavonoids that other
processes can’t so when you’re getting
our product you’re getting not only full
spectrum oils and gummies and stuff like
that you’re getting a fuller full
spectrum because we can retain all that
stuff and keep it within what we’re
doing
yeah with no solvents it’s really
interesting a lot of people
extract with co2 you know you know kind
of the
to get a similar um i would say
product in the sense that you’re not
using any harsh solvents but ice water
is a whole other animal you you come out
with this bubble hash when you run that
much hemp through
you know ice water extraction what does
it actually look like coming out and
then how do you get it into
you know the oil state
so what we do is we get our bubble hash
out it comes out you know you see a lot
of videos and stuff and they’re like
cleaner and a little more yellow sandy
color
are actually comes out a little bit
darker because of all the flavonoids and
the terpenes that are in it and then
what we do is we go directly in our
chirp reactor
which is kind of like a big pressure
cooker and what we do is we have water
to stabilize it and then we use mct
organ and coconut oil and then that
bubble hash what it does is it
decarboxylates and then we cook it
um anywhere from three to five hours
anywhere from 200 to 280 degrees and it
comes out as a ready to consume oil
only thing you would have to do from
that stage
is dilute it to whatever you’re trying
to do in a tincture or a gummy to get to
that correct consistency that you’re
looking for
right that’s wild it’s i haven’t heard
of anybody doing this at a large scale
and being the world’s largest
ice water extraction facility that’s got
to be a pretty big undertaking to just
get that process styled because you know
having to take all that bubble hash and
then turn it into oil and then put it
into the tinctures is probably it
involves a lot of processes and systems
and checks and balances in place to make
sure that you’re getting that clean
product that you’re going for
one of the concerns is microbials and
other um you know kind of contaminants
with ice water extraction have you had
to deal with that at all or has that
been
fairly easy because of the the input
material
so with our biomass when we go into our
chirp reactor since we cook it at such a
high temperature
you basically kill everything that you
don’t want in it and that chirp reactor
is specifically designed to hold the
terpenes in the flavonoids so you keep
everything in the good
and get out with all the bad
um the other thing that we do is it
comes kind of comes out and then there’s
like a glass in front you can look at so
there’s three different levels that we
see in the glass you’ll get
maybe
a foot of grade one pure
ready to ready to go into tincture oil
and then you have a little bit of a we
call it second grade but there’s just a
little bit left of the plant matter and
stuff like that that the heat doesn’t
zap and then you have your water
so what we do is remove all the first
grade
then we drain all the water
and then we run that second grade
through a filter press and it takes out
all those leftover contaminants and we
turn that second grade back into first
grade
so you can legitimately see the
different levels of oil coming out of
the terp reactor also it’s a different
density so you can totally see it in the
glass so we just bring the water in take
out the first grain and you have your
second grade and then you drain the
water out and then you do your second
process with the filter press and it
takes all the rest of the contaminants
out oh that’s awesome and what a name
for a machine a terp reactor who
wouldn’t want a terp reactor yeah you’d
want it
really cool
what’s that it’s really cool and it
allows us to do so many different things
too so other things that i’ve been doing
with it so we can save our second grade
oil and i can put it into the batches
with the bubble hash so i can bring up
all the other minor cannabinoids and the
terpene levels and stuff like that so i
can kind of make kind of frankenstein
batches with different strains and match
different strains
so if i see something’s lacking
somewhere i can put a second grade of
this oil in the tie in it and kind of
mesh it together
so a couple of the cool things that
we’ve done with that is we um so we go
in with wet bubble hash it seems to work
a little bit better
um i did 30 kilos of cbg i want 20 kilos
of cbd
with the mct oil and it came out almost
50 50
um cbd to cvg
so one of the most interesting products
we have right now is that which we’re
actually testing for cosmetic companies
and stuff like that is we have a cbd cbg
mix there’s 5050 and it’s a 900
milligram
um two ounce jar and it’s we’re testing
it on everything from facial cream to
eczema to dry skin
um to anything like that and we’re
getting really really good results so
we could do a ton of different things
with that chirp reactor which is really
fun i’m excited to try it that’s
interesting from an fda and kind of a
regulation standpoint cosmetics are one
of the key markets that these big box
retail stores might actually buy and so
that’ll be really cool to see that come
out
one quick question how big is this terp
reactor is it big enough to possibly
fall into and then turn into some kind
of cbd hemp superhero is that is that at
all possible with this terp reactor
because i that seems like you know kind
of an intro to
my next favorite comic
yeah you know
even the company that developed this
they have smaller ones around the world
but this one is big it
it holds 200 liters whatever you’re
doing so what we do is we put in the
bubble hash we we’ve done a bunch of
different tests as far as how much mct
we want it but then you just fill it up
to the 200 with the water and it just
helps stabilize it but yeah it’s
it’s something that that once we learn
and we get down and we can create
certain batches
i think it’s going to be something
that’s going to just kind of
revolutionize what we’re doing because
we’re holding all those flavonoids in
those terpenes and we’re willing to post
all that stuff on our website answer any
questions about it so you know exactly
what you’re getting um in your tincture
so
it comes out cleaner it comes out better
smelling better tasting
we we try not to flavor our stuff too
much we want you to taste the hemp
because we like the taste of hemp and i
don’t know why you wouldn’t want it
um but it comes out just just really
cool really fun to work with stuff
so just to be clear it is big enough to
fall into and
you know possibly turn into a hemp um
superhero correct yeah
okay
a couple of months make sure nobody fell
in if they did we know where they are
and that they’re you know a good
superhero not a bad one
and if you want to jump on our website
there’s or jump um hit us up on facebook
or twitter or instagram or linkedin or
anything we have pictures of all this
stuff we’re completely transparent if
anybody has questions about it that’s
one of the things that that we decided
that we wanted to do as a company is be
transparent
put our testing out there um you know if
you ever want to do a tour you can call
me you can set that up
we’re having a grand opening on
september 19th we’re gonna have band and
food and i’m gonna be getting tours all
day so
oh that’s awesome i think because you
all are doing ice water extraction and
because you’re you know more or less
using a pressure cooker and mct oil
which is like really refined coconut oil
right
there’s nothing dirty in this process at
all there’s nothing to hide so why
wouldn’t you show all the test results
why wouldn’t you open up the tours why
wouldn’t you you know it really sounds
like an insanely clean process as long
as you know the systems and the
processes are in place to maintain that
which having worked with you know big
box retail stores they’re not going to
want anything less than that to put into
their products especially on a highly
scrutinized product category right so i
think you’re doing everything right on
that front and it’s it’s exciting to see
somebody as transparent as you are you
know inviting people out to come see it
you know posting everything on your
social media i’m soon i assume they can
find those just searching sweetwater
hemp company um to kind of pull up your
social accounts
the the last the last thing i wanted to
ask is could you run through the
different product categories that you’re
offering so that people know what’s out
there with the sweetwater brand and um
if there’s anything on the frontier that
you’re looking to expand into you know
what can people expect over the next you
know 12 months when it comes to product
development
so what we offer right now is we have a
tincture line
we have four different um well we have
two different sizes but we have six
different flavors
we have a 250 milligram 600 milligram
1500 milligram and then we jump up to a
2 ounce which is a 33 000 milligram
um a lot of people ask us why we don’t
have higher milligram tinctures
we’re getting a lot of feedback that our
middle middle end is as good as a
high-end tincture from another brand
because of all the extra things that are
added in with our process
um the next thing that we jumped into is
topicals
um we have eight different topicals
um
two of them are actually the same just
kind of different essential oils so
different scents um but our two best
sellers have been our 900 milligram cbd
cbg mix
which has been just a hit kind of all
over the place especially for just daily
skincare on face and then
problems on topical skin problems like
dryness and eczema and stuff like that
and then we also made a sweet relief
which is a 750 milligram
basically kind of like a bio freeze icy
hot
that has been really well
we’re actually at the state fair in
nebraska right now and pretty i would
say probably 90 percent of the people
that try it come back later 15-20
minutes later and buy it because it’s
just so quickly absorbing your skin
being oil-based bread water-based that
you just get so much relief within you
know 10-15 minutes and you you know feel
great
um the other things that we have is we
have smokeable
um so we do pre-rolls and then just bud
and then the last one we’re just we’re
just dipping our foot in the gummies
like i said we kind of brought in some
gummies made with our oil
um but right now we’re trying to perfect
our gummy that we want to make in-house
what we’re waiting on
oh go ahead go ahead and the last thing
that we’re working on right now is
actually with a couple of big animal um
dog treat dog food companies
so that’s kind of the next which is dog
tincture or animal tinctures and then
food for animals as well
that’ll be a really exciting to see it’s
just such a huge category of the market
everybody loves their fairy friends
cbg really came on the market but the
prices were insanely high and now that
you’re doing the cbg cbd one-to-one mix
it’s got to be um
a different aspect of supply chain
management and sourcing whenever you
start bringing in these other
cannabinoids
this year cbg prices have come down
quite a bit because people grew a lot
more what does the supplying of cbg look
like for sweetwater has that been a
challenge or was that pretty easy this
year
well as far as us being a startup is
still getting our name out there we
haven’t needed a ton of it
like i said when we run our
superhero turf reactor we get about 64
liters
ready to make product oil
so we it takes a lot to go through that
much oil
but as far as cbg goes we’re working
with somebody out in western nebraska um
who’s provided almost probably 80 to 90
of what we’ve been going through um and
he’s been really great to work with um
super easy um we’re kind of going to
work hand in hand going forward with
what strains we like which streams we
really like
the best strain that we’ve worked with
besides that cvg strain has been big red
which was developed out in western
nebraska
so you got your husker big red
development and they actually have a
herbie husker which is a cross between
trump and big red
so we’re kind of excited to run that
here in probably
about
probably about a month and a half so um
lots of fun stuff but we’re trying to
keep everything local locally sourced
and find really good people to work with
that we can trust
so we know what we’re going to get when
it comes to the doors
right on amazing well it’s exciting to
see a company
playing the real serious game up in
nebraska in the him industry making a
big splash coming out to the texas show
that we have coming up in november and
it’s really exciting to have you guys on
the platform as well so thank you so
much for being a part of the network the
community uh with our our platform and
our events wouldn’t be the same without
companies just like yours so thank you
so much fred it’s been a pleasure
talking to you today
i appreciate it look it up september
29th you’re around come out and see us
right on thanks a lot brett be safe and
we’ll talk soon
yep thank you
you