Grower Stories #55: Matthew Friedlander

Born and Blazed: An Interview With the Founders of Premium Cannabis Processor Skagit Organics

Washington-based cannabis flower and oil processor Skagit Organics takes pride in its work. Its mission is to create clean, consistent cannabis products for medical and recreational users everywhere. The three founders, Claude, Corey, and Matthew sit down with AskGrowers to learn about their products, process, and passion.

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Tia (AskGrowers) : How did you guys start Skagit Organics? Tell us your origin story!

Matthew Friedlander : Skagit Organics is wholly owned by three individuals that all had extensive experience in the medicinal cannabis industry before successfully transitioning into Washington's recreational market. We also have all been involved with cannabis for a long time personally and after continuing to hear incredible stories of people successfully treating a number of health conditions we became intrigued by the possibilities of what we could achieve with cannabis from a health and healing perspective. The owners Claude, Corey, and Matthew formed the company with the goal of providing medical-grade products within Washington's recreational system. We decided to specialize in food-grade ethanol extraction specifically for the purpose of creating RSO or Full Extract Cannabis Oil, which we believe to be unique and more medicinal than oils made using other solvents.

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Tia : Tell us about your biggest challenges/obstacles so far?

Matthew : The biggest obstacles for us have been the numerous rules and regulations we have to follow that other industries are not forced to deal with. The first few years also saw many changes to these rules that complicated things further. A lack of access to traditional banking and loans is one example of a restriction that creates major challenges for our entire industry.

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Tia : What is the ethos behind Skagit Organics’ marketing efforts, and what is the message that you want to convey?

Matthew : We are dedicated to creating medical quality products, to providing education and support for consumers, medical patients, and industry employees, while engaging with our community to help counter many of the negative perceptions people have about cannabis that was created in large part by misinformation and lies from the failed war on drugs.

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Tia : What is the ultimate goal of Skagit Organics?

Matthew : Our goal is to be the premier processor of medicinal quality oils and a trusted provider of accurate, relevant, and current cannabis information and education.

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Tia : Do you think customers should be looking for strains with super high THC levels or something more balanced?

Matthew : We believe customers should be looking for cannabis products that contain other minor cannabinoids specific to their needs. This is why education is so important and why we are one of the only companies with an on-staff Department of Health Certified Medical Cannabis Consultant whose main job is to provide information and education to individual customers, patients, and retail stores.

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Tia : How does Skagit Organic maintain transparency in their product line from seed to sale?

Matthew : Because we do not grow our own cannabis, we label each product with the name of the grower responsible for growing and we frequently provide information and bios to our customers and retailers through social media and our website about these growers. We have done extensive pesticide testing on the material we purchase and dedicated ourselves to the promise of testing each batch of finished oil for pesticides as well, to ensure the product that reaches a consumer or patient is accurate, clean, and effective. All these test results are available to the customers.

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Tia : What is your stand on indoor vs outdoor grown plants? Do you believe products differ based on how and where they were grown?

Matthew : The growing methods and mediums are more important to the quality of the finished product than just the fact of being grown indoors or outdoors. The nutrients, fertilizers, growing medium, and use/non-use of pesticides are ultimately responsible for the unique characteristics of each plant and strain.

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Tia : What is your favorite cannabis product and why?

Matthew : I believe live resin and solventless products make some of the best tasting oils but I prefer our RSO Original for the complex nature of the extract and the deep relief I get from ingesting cannabis as opposed to smoking.

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Tia : How have you guys changed/evolved with the ever-changing cannabis industry?

Matthew : We have added some more recreational style products to our offerings such as infused joints and vape carts but for the most part we have focused on just improving our tried and true methods of simple whole plant extraction.

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Tia : How do you choose growers that provide you with cannabis flowers for your extracts? What details do you pay attention to/ look for when choosing these partners?

Matthew : There is no federal organic certification for cannabis at the moment but there are a few certifications available to growers that adhere to clean growing practices at the state level. One of the best known is the Clean Green Certification that holds growers to a high standard, so we have sought out growers with this certification. Once we connected with these potential growers we have a strict protocol that we follow to ensure that the cannabis we are using is pesticide-free.

We use a Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light system to categorize growers. The Red Light category is mostly for new potential growers. We will purchase a small amount of material and immediately send out a sample of the material for pesticide testing. This test needs to come back showing zero pesticides. If it shows the presence of anything we return the material as per the conditions of the purchase agreement we sign with all of our growers. If this test comes back clean we take another sample of the dry material and set it aside, then proceed with the extraction.

The finished oil is then sent out for pesticide testing and again needs to come back clean or the grower is obligated to pay us a processing fee to cover our costs of the extraction and reimburse us for the material. If the extract comes back clean, this grower is moved to the Yellow Light category. For growers in the Yellow Light category, we will take a sample of the dry material, setting it aside, and proceeding directly to extraction. This finished product is then tested for pesticides and upon receiving another clean test we will move this grower to the Green Light category. Being a Green Light grower gives us more confidence to purchase larger quantities of material but we continue to test every single batch of finished extract for pesticides.

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Tia : Are all flowers the same when it comes to extraction? Are there strains that do better in extraction than others/ better transform their terpene profile/ cannabinoids, etc?

Matthew : Extraction material varies widely. With our process, the biggest difference we notice is the quantity of oil we get per pound of material (the yield), and the potency. The cannabinoid profile will also vary depending on the starting material, especially with CBD dominant strains but is always a reflection of the cannabinoid profile in the actual plant itself.

We do not notice much difference in the terpene profile and we believe this is due to our purging process which uses much more heat than other oils. We use this higher heat process in order to activate the THC-A fully, as most people are ingesting our oils as opposed to smoking which is usually where that activation process occurs. The cannabinoid profile in our oils is really what is responsible for the distinct effects from batch to batch.

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Tia : What major extraction methods dominate today’s cannabis market and why you preferred food-grade ethanol to these other methods? What should customers keep in mind in regards to extraction methods when choosing a cannabis product?

Matthew : Hydrocarbon and CO2 extraction are the most prevalent solvents used. They do make great tasting oils but due to the chemical nature of those solvents, they do not extract many of the plant constituents that food-grade alcohol pulls out of the plant along with the cannabinoids. Food-Grade Alcohol is a polar solvent as opposed to being a non-polar solvent like Butane or CO2. This polar quality means that alcohol attracts plant fats, waxes, and chlorophyll alongside the cannabinoids. We believe the presence of these plant constituents adds to the medicinal potential of our oils and is what makes RSO or FECO so unique and sought after by people looking for true relief for specific medical conditions.

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Tia : When you focus on cannabinoid-specific extracts (CBG/ CBD/ THC) - is that achieved through choosing original flowers of a specific strain rich in these cannabinoids, or is there an extraction technology that allows extracting specific cannabinoids?

Matthew : The cannabinoid profile comes from the plant material itself and we don't do anything in the extraction process to change this. We believe a simple extraction process leads to oil that better represents the original characteristics of the plant. We do however create custom blends for specific patients in order to provide them with different minor cannabinoids for specific conditions and now with the availability of CBG material being more widely grown this just adds another level of customization we can provide to patients.

We recently started extracting this CBG material which is very exciting. This cannabinoid is great for people with Glaucoma or digestive problems and is a very uplifting cannabinoid. We did blend THC and CBD oils to create three distinct CBG dominant extracts, all with over 20% CBG (2% CBG is considered fairly high for this cannabinoid), one with a kick of THC, one with a kick of CBG, and one with an almost equal ratio of CBG, THC, and CBD. As we advance with our knowledge and understanding I believe these blended oils with specific cannabinoids will become more prevalent.

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Tia : What's your best-case scenario for the future of the cannabis industry?

Matthew : I personally believe federal legalization is ultimately the goal for a number of reasons, especially reducing and remedying the harm done to people and communities negatively affected by the failed war on drugs. The way this is handled and the resulting regulations and rules will determine whether the business side of legalization will be dominated by large businesses and corporations or remain true to the cannabis culture and the people that have been involved with the plant for decades.

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Tia : What’s the most common mistake that new companies make when it comes to their branding?

Matthew : A big mistake is having just a name without any story or mission behind it. A brand should connect to the emotions of its consumers and this is usually not achieved with just a clever name.

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Tia : Where do you hope to see your brand in the next five to ten years?

Matthew : We would like to license our brands, processes, and procedures to other small companies in different states with the goal of helping good people achieve their dreams of operating a cannabis company without having to spend several million dollars just to get started.

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Tia : Are there any brands you appreciate and follow?

Matthew : There are many that we love, Trailblazin’ Productions, Eagle Trees, Walden, Emerald Twist, Fairwinds, WildMint. These are all companies that we work with as well, partly because they share many of the same values as we do.

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Tia : If you could smoke with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why? :)

Matthew : Smoking with [tooltip title="Nikola Tesla" content="An ethnic Serb born American inventor, electrical and mechanical engineer."]Nikola Tesla[/tooltip] would have been very interesting. Inventors have always fascinated me and he was especially unique among an already unique group of people. How do you think of something that doesn’t even exist? It blows my mind. Or an old-timey pioneer. Being part of one of the first groups west over the Rockies must have been an incredible trip composed of some intense individuals.

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Tia : What's next for Skagit Organics? Can you tell us about your next big release?

Matthew : We are about to launch a CBG dominant line of RSO oils. These are great for people with digestive problems and glaucoma among other things. CBG is also a very energetic cannabinoid and is great for day time use. We are excited to be able to offer such a unique product to the recreational customers and medical patients of Washington State. We have also launched a hemp-based CBD brand called Northwest Natural Care, nwnaturalcare.com. We create capsules and tinctures from the same style of oils we create through Skagit Organics, just without the THC. We are excited to see this brand grow across the country!

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