For millennia, cannabis has been used for spiritual and medicinal purposes. Ancient cultures would manually separate the resin from marijuana buds and concoct unique forms to treat a wide range of medical ailments. Fast forward to today and the modern cannabis consumer has a cornucopia of marijuana-infused products to choose from.

Cannabis concentrates are all the rage across most states with medical and recreational cannabis access laws. While marijuana flower buds can yield up to 30 percent cannabinoids, cannabis concentrates offer a significantly higher potency reaching over 80 percent cannabinoid levels. Within the concentrate segment, marijuana consumers can choose between solvent-based and solventless concentrates.

Cannabis concentrates are a must-have product offering for brands looking to reach a growing cannabis consumer base. Concentrated cannabis compounds can be used to make a wide range of medical and recreational products such as topical ointments, edibles, capsules, transdermal patches, suppositories, and small-batch extracts. While THC concentrate products currently dominate the adult-use market, hemp-derived CBD concentrates are tapping into the trending and lucrative health and wellness segment. 

Vacuum purging is an essential component when creating high-quality cannabis concentrates. Vacuum purging solvent-based extracts removes residual solvents from light hydrocarbon extraction products to improve consistency, texture, color, and purity. The result is a translucent and pristine concentrate that’s both potent and safe for consumers.

As the cannabis concentrate market balloons to an estimated $8 billion in sales by 2022, business-savvy and licensed marijuana producers are making the measured investment in a professional closed-loop extraction system. Cannabis extraction equipment can increase profits and reduce processing costs associated with trimming and curing flower for many wholesalers. Concentrates command a higher price per item compared to flower (buds) and include a range of products such as odorless distillate oil for edibles or flavorful terp sauce for those with a more discerning palate.

Bobsled Extracts purchased their first extractor back in 2017 and it completely transformed their business. 

How can the IO Extractor help your business grow and scale? 

Cannabis concentrate connoisseurs are avidly searching for pure, potent, and flavorful extracts. Whether it’s shatter, wax, live resin, or crumble, premium concentrates contain a higher percentage of cannabinoids compared to fresh or cured marijuana flower buds. Unfortunately, most solvent and solventless extraction methods utilize high temperatures and pressures, which can degrade much of the strain’s original flavor and aroma. 

In recent years, however, a new and especially fragrant extract has gained favor among those that appreciate cannabis’ unique aromatic terpenes along with their THC and CBD. Terp sauce is a type of high-terpene full-spectrum extract (HTFSE) that can take your dabbing experience to a whole other level.

Cannabis concentrate popularity may slowly dwarf flower sales with estimates that see extracts reaching over $13.78 billion in revenue by 2026. High-quality concentrates such as distillates and high-terpene full-spectrum extracts (HTFSE) can be used to make everything from vape cartridges to edibles to topicals for a consumer base starving for product variety. Solvent-based extraction methods are typically used to produce higher, safer, and purer yields than amateur and dangerous open-blasting techniques.

Hydrocarbons such as butane and propane are the solvent of choice for many licensed manufacturers when making butane hash oil (BHO) concentrates. Butane is non-polar and has a relatively low boiling point (31.1ºF), which is particularly helpful when preserving terpenes with lower boiling points than cannabinoids. Besides the solvent solution used, manufacturers must consider multiple factors to determine how much material their equipment will be able to process in a shift.

Getting financing as a cannabis company is littered with federal and banking obstacles that prevent cannabis companies from securing funding to scale. Even entrepreneurs with sizable earnings saved up may require non-traditional financing options to be financially prepared.

Michael Grillo of financing company Helo Capital, specializes in merchant cash advances for businesses looking to get quick capital even with complicated credit scores. Cannabis-friendly financing companies like Helo offer an opportunity for businesses that have nowhere else to turn.

The exploding cannabis concentrates market has always attracted bad actors looking to cash in with sub-par products and improperly sourced materials. For those companies taking shortcuts and disregarding the health of the end-user, the chickens may have come home to roost. 

Flavored vape sales have suffered a crushing blow due to a recent health scare that has seen hundreds of vape users hospitalized with a mysterious pulmonary illness. While regulators and researchers haven’t zeroed in on a specific culprit to the epidemic of lung injuries, they suspect harmful additives or shoddy vape hardware as the components responsible. 

Regardless of the origins of this deadly vaping-related illness, live resin now stands alone as the best choice for consumers concerned with their own health and well-being.