Tier: 2
Location: Spokane, WA
Product Offerings: Flower, Pre-rolls, Infused Pre-rolls, Disposables
About the Farm
At Good Earth, they like to discuss what it means to “Be Good”. For them, it’s a holistic approach, which means they’re fighting to create a company that provides great product at a great value for customers. That being said, they seek to go beyond that. They are strongly informed by more aspirational goals like wellness, promoting products, employee happiness, and environmental stewardship. Even their approach to the “environment” is viewed from a wider lens. It is an all-encompassing approach that includes the people, places, and things around them.
Promoting wellness means providing a safe product for their customers. While they cannot make health-promoting claims for legal reasons, they do strive to make their products as safe as possible. So much of what we ingest and consume in our society is made purely with what Henry Ford dubbed “the profit motive” in mind. This means profit is put before everything else; the consumer, the company’s employees, and the environment. As a result, much of what we consume is produced without human health being considered a primary concern. A good example of this is high fructose corn syrup-based products. While not necessarily toxic, these products can have a suboptimal impact on the consumer’s health and society as a whole.
When producing any consumer goods, it is hard to measure its health impact. Knowing beforehand the potential harmful effects of your process on consumers is often not crystal clear. So, it is incredibly important that companies keep this in mind with everything they do.
Genetics/Seeds
At Good Earth, they have genetics sourced from all over the world! They brought in over 2000 seeds and about 200 cultivars from many of the best breeders in the world from Holland to California. They even brought in clones from Northern California and continue to pheno hunt their seed packs to bring the newest, hottest strains to their customers.
Pest Management
In terms of pest management, Good Earth uses beneficial insects either through bulk release or via mini sachets that are continually hatching over time to provide preventative maintenance of inbound pests and attack anything that may be present. They specifically employ two species of beneficial insects: nematodes and mite predators. Nematodes are microscopic worm-like bugs that attack pests that live in the soil, such as root aphids and fungus gnats. Mite predators are at the core of the pest management program and do a bulk of that hard work on this end. These predators work hard to manage pests like spite mites, root aphid flyers, thrips, russet mites, and more.
The Grow Process
Good Earth grows their cannabis in 3-gallon organic coco coir pots mixed with perlite. It starts out in a sterile medium, but they add beneficial microbes, mycorrhizal fungi, kelp extracts, and a number of other organic and bioactive ingredients to aid in root development and add flavor and overall vigor to the plants. This growing method allows them to combine the benefits of a hydroponic system (higher yields and high THC content) with the benefits of living soil-grown cannabis (disease resistance, increased vigor, terpene production, and overall health.)
The growing environment is tightly controlled to provide optimal temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels for the plants to allow for maximum growth and overall health, as the plants love to be in a hot and humid environment. They have custom-built trays to allow their plants the maximum room to grow and thrive. In fact, many of their plants are over 6 feet tall at harvest! In that regard, their system is currently a little different than other people’s. They use standard air filtration systems, which include MERV filters and UV light to address any existing mold spores and airborne pathogens.
The Extraction Process
Good Earth concentrate products are currently extracted by their partners over Purform, another beloved brand here at Cinder. Good Earth’s freshly harvested and frozen strains are taken to their facility, where they are turned into live resin. The live resin is then blended with distillate to make their cartridges. They are also looking into other methods with the goal of doing in-house extraction in order to have full control over the process. That being said, they are happy to be working with Purform and have been thrilled with the quality they provide.
The Pre-roll Process
Good Earth pre-rolls are made fresh to order and packed through a combination of a Futurola Knockbox and hand-packing. Fresh flower is ground by a shredding machine and is then carefully sifted to remove any stems and loaded into the pre-roll machine. After the joints are packed, the team hand-packs the top of the joints and either twists them or finished them with a Dutch Crown fold (depending on the product line).
Infused pre-rolls are made in two ways. For their Uplift, Unwind, and Balance along with their newer Strain Specific Live Resin Infused Pre-rolls, the ground flower is blended with live resin and packed with the flower. For their premium double-infused Strain Specific Pre-rolls, standard joints are carefully hand-painted and rolled in kief – a true labor of love.
Ethos
At Good Earth, they believe human health is human happiness. It is important to them that they always operate with integrity and respect for the people who ingest and consume their products. They care about their ingredients and their growing process, and they want their products to be safe for people to put into their bodies. This is a core tenet of what they aim to provide as a company. It’s also a guiding spirit for how they produce products for the consumers who put their faith in them. They feel this spirit is a major differentiating factor in how they operate and it is a defining element of what it means to be Good Earth Cannabis – and to Be Good.
The Team
The second tenet that they focus on at Good Earth is providing for their team, or rather their family. The cannabis industry is highly competitive and they have seen this play out in a way that leaves employees and companies across the industry in unfair situations. Running a business is hard, and in competitive industries companies are forced to make hard decisions about hours, pay, and issues of fairness. Too often we see companies treat employees like a commodity. While they believe it takes exceptional effort to be successful in this world, there is absolutely no circumstance in which people should be objectified or treated like machines. Working for someone, or having someone work for you is about relationships at its core. At Good Earth, they believe in their people and their people believe in the team as a whole. They spend a lot of time talking about the team.
Good Earth has a vision to provide a great living for everyone at their company. In fact, they currently provide some of the best wages in the industry. They are able to do this because their team is exceptional and they all work exceptionally hard with and for one another. Despite the incredibly competitive price environment in the current market, they find a way to make it work. There is no Good Earth without good people, which is why their team means so much to them. They will continue to fight together to build a company that provides for everyone under their roof. There is no higher achievement than providing for those around you. Good Earth is driven by the clear sense of purpose that comes from this sentiment.
Conclusion
Finally, we zoom out even wider and examine what it means to “Be Good” in terms of environmental stewardship. Good Earth examines their footprint in everything they touch and directly addresses the areas in which they can do better. They believe that they can always work to do better. Always aiming to do better does not insinuate that they aren’t doing a good job, it just means that they aren’t satisfied with the status quo. Good Earth isn’t afraid to examine what can be done to level up on what it means to “Be Good”.
Special thanks to Jess Brown at Good Earth for her contribution to this article
Good Earth’s Website | Good Earth’s Instagram | Good Earth’s Facebook
Products listed are available at Cinder locations: Cinder North, 6010 N Division St, Spokane, Wa 99208; Cinder Downtown, 927 W 2nd Ave, Spokane, WA 99201; and Cinder Valley, 1421 N Mullen Rd B, Spokane Valley, Wa 99206
This product has intoxicating effects and may be habit-forming. Which is to say, cannabis can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. Therefore, do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Furthermore, there may be health risks associated with consumption of this product. For use only by adults twenty-one and older. To sum up, keep out of the reach of children.