Grower Stories #70: Zach Romey

Tia Moskalenko, author of the AskGrowers blog, brings a unique blend of content to her readers. She is known for conducting insightful interviews with key figures in the cannabis industry, including brand representatives, manufacturers, and experts. In addition to her interview skills, Tia has a keen focus on CBD. She expertly curates product selections and reviews, offering her readers detailed insights into the various effects and benefits of CBD. Tia's ability to combine in-depth interviews with comprehensive CBD analysis makes her a valuable asset to the cannabis community, offering a well-rounded perspective on the industry.

Published

Mar 24 2021

Updated

Oct 13 2023

Interviews

483

7 min

Not-So-Mechanical Medicine: An Interview With Cannabis-Infused Gummies Brand Robhots

Starting out with just a passion for making edibles and a robot mold, Robhots has grown from a single person operation to what it is today! Zach Romey, Founder & Head of Sales of Robhots sits down with AskGrowers to break down the many benefits of their cannabis-infused gummies, their plans for future expansion, and the future of the edibles market as a whole. #growerstories

Tia (AskGrowers) : How did you start the brand?

Zach Romey : I initially started by making edibles at home using material from my friend’s personal medical grow. Once I started making gummies, they became a big hit, so I decided to come up with a name and fun shape for them. I found a robot gummy mold, and since I was infusing them with BHO (butane hash oil), I put BHO right into the word robot, and that’s how you get Robhots. The “h” is silent, so simply pronounced “robots.”

Tia : What factors contributed to you deciding to produce edibles? Will you be expanding into other products?

Zach : I chose to go with the production of edibles because I’ve always had a passion for cooking really good food and desserts. It was an easier avenue for me to go into as opposed to growing or producing concentrates. We’ll stick to edibles, but we have lots of plans for a ton of new products in the future.

Tia : What is your best seller?

Zach : By far our best seller is our 1000mg medical-only line here in Colorado. People love the high dose option, but also the ability to dose themselves accordingly. With our 1000mg packs, you get twenty 50mg gummies, so people can get exactly what they desire as far as dosing. Combine that with five flavors in the pack, and you got a winner!

Tia : Do you have plans to expand into other states?

Zach : Yes! We’ve already expanded into Oklahoma and won Best Edible in 2020 down there. We’ve also expanded to Missouri and were the first gummy edible produced and sold in Missouri’s Medical Marijuana Market. Being born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, I truly couldn’t be more excited to be operating there. We’ve also got some more states on our radar, and plan to expand into California next with a goal to be on shelves there by this summer.

Tia : How difficult is it to stay compliant within the medical market with edibles?

Zach : Very much so, and this might be our most challenging aspect. Not only do you have to maintain compliance with the laws as far as packaging and legal text needed on the products, but those laws can change frequently. Ideally, you want to buy as much packaging as possible to bring your cost per unit down, but with how frequently laws can change it makes that challenging. There’s nothing worse than ordering six months of packaging, and then a law change renders all that new packaging useless.

Tia : How is your brand different from the other brands on the market?

Zach : For starters, we don’t have a big bankroll or investors behind us. We have 100 percent bootstrapped and funded this whole operation ourselves, and because of that we have a very tight-knit family relationship within our company from ownership down to the people packaging our gummies.

Our flavors really stand out too - we put multiple flavors in every pack; while this is more time-consuming, it really is worth it to have the variety within our packs of Robhots.

We also keep a big focus on the medical patients, and try to always have good high dosing options for them. Overall, we really focus on quality and consistency with each and every batch, and that is really shown in our end products that people have come to love.

Tia : Tell us more about your Colorado market. What’s the specifics of it and what did you have in mind starting it?

Zach : We really do great on the medical side, and continue to focus on that side of things, but we do have some new exciting things coming for the Adult Use market here in Colorado.

Starting out we really wanted to have a quality and consistent product that was extremely effective but also tasted great. We were the first company to infuse edibles with distillate in the state of Colorado, and we’ve found that it really leads to a great end product.

Tia : Can you tell how you guys negotiate and disclose the new taste to produce gummies? Who’s in charge of it?

Zach : I developed our recipe and all flavors we use. To date, I’ve easily made more than 100 flavors in our test kitchen, and have a ton of flavors we can roll out eventually. When adding a new flavor, I’ll get input from all our staff and see what they might want to see in a gummy. From there, I’ll make a bunch of test batches and we sample out, and see what is the consensus best pick.

Tia : What’s your cannabis consumption routine? What are your favorite products and ways to consume them?

Zach : I’ll generally smoke a few joints with my wife at the end of the workday, throughout our evening. Edibles in the evening to help me sleep are a part of the normal routine as well. I always have some resin around too, but only take a few dabs a week.

Tia : What are the benefits of your gummies?

Zach : I personally love them to help me sleep. I’ve had countless people reach out to me about how they are using our gummies for all sorts of ailments like anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic pain, and more.

There’s nothing better to me than to hear from a consumer that we helped them get off prescription medication. Anytime we can get someone off prescriptions and onto marijuana is a win!

Tia : Are there any brands you would like to work with?

Zach : We generally stay in our own lane and do our own thing. If I had to pick one brand, it’d be Apothecary Farms. They make an amazing product and have the best marketing in the industry.

Tia : What are the brands you appreciate and follow in your state?

Zach : Apothecary Farms is amazing in all ways from their customer service, their hash, their dispensaries, their products, their marketing, and more. Single Source is another one I’ve been on lately. They make absolutely amazing resin. A Cut Above is a staple as well for me, top notch flower and customer service.

Tia : Your advice to people who start a cannabis-related business? Any tips and tricks?

Zach : Be ready to work hard and non-stop! The competition never stops, and you really have to be ready and willing to work more than 80 hours a week to get it off the ground.

Tia : What trends are you seeing in the edible market?

Zach : People definitely love their edibles, as that segment continues to grow and grow. We’re seeing more people liking a single serve low-dose option, which we plan to roll out soon.

Tia : If you could smoke with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Zach : Wow, that’s a tough one! If I could smoke with [tooltip title="James Marshall 'Jimi' Hendrix" content="The US musician, singer, songwriter and one of the most influential electric guitarists."]Jimi Hendrix[/tooltip] and he could smoke and just rip on the guitar, I might have to pick him!

You can follow Robhots at:

Thank you so much, Robhots team, for taking the time to do the interview. To learn more about them, head on over to their website.

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