Mostly; we do have a few light dep hoop houses, but they amount to only about 2% of our total canopy area.
5 Likes
Howdy - love this healthy conversation! Definitely good to get a sense of benchmarks within a grow as well as in the industry.
With regards to a “calculator”, our team has created a Product Margins module that takes all of the overhead, nutrients, labor, etc into account (by integrating with accounting software) and then collating that against your grow batches (by pulling in seed to sale or grow journal data).
As many of you have pointed out, it’s hard to take all the factors into account, but not impossible. Once you have the data model set up, you can see the unit costing on any given strain / batch to help drive the business side of the equation.
6 Likes
Wow such a great response! Thanks guys, this is really the discussion I was hoping to have.
6 Likes
Sure thing! Here is a screengrab for a vertically integrated company that shows the products they sold at retail and the gross margin for each product. In this case, we did not include G&A costs, but that’s certainly something we have done in other contexts.
(As always, we never show real client data for demo purposes. This is modeled off a real company, but is not their actual data for privacy reasons)
Here is another screengrab for grow yields that we aggregate from seed-to-sale data on batch records:
All of our modules have real-time interactive filters (not shown in these screengrabs, but happy to show in a live demo) to drill into specific grow spaces, strains or categories (that are defined in the kickoff process). The key here is an actionable insight from a simple & intuitive output screen so that all the calculation complexity happens behind the scenes. For that reason, we work with business owners and their accounting / CPA teams to nail down exactly how they classify their expenses, and the metrics that are actionable for their team, to display in the final dashboard or report.
I firmly believe that grow managers and business owners would make more profitable decisions if they had the right metrics at their fingertips.
12 Likes
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Thank you for sharing some insight into your platform. We are working on an analytics software project behind the scenes that might fit well with your platform. I can reach out when we are opening up the beta to partnerships!
7 Likes
This is a very cool indicator of how the industry has evolved. Thanks so much for sharing!
6 Likes
Sure thing and sounds great!
5 Likes
Always, and my pleasure! My personal agenda is to make data more intuitive and accessible - I think that’s the only way this industry will continue to prosper and thrive.
Sounds like you’re already at the forefront of data sophistication, so kudos to you and your team!
6 Likes
YESSSS! We all learn together! I am immediately turned off when I hear the term “trade secret” in reference to plants! This is agriculture! Keep the info flowing!
9 Likes
Thank you!
3 Likes
Did anyone calculate sq ft and being able to roll tables so there is only one aisle? And we just built “bunk beds” for a grower that has tripled his square footage.
3 Likes
You have pictures of that? 
2 Likes
This is the larger rolling table and the mock up of the “bunk beds” buyer approved the design without the top layer, essentially taking his 40,000 to 120,000 - his dimensions. Pans are 12" deep
6 Likes
Great pictures, thanks! I think both rolling benches and vertical growing increase your yield per square foot. Of course your cost will go up as well. I’ve always considered looking at cost and yield per cubic foot in these situations. But that isn’t really a fair comparison to other grows, OR useful for cost analysis.
Maybe someone with more accounting knowledge can chime in, but I would assume you’d calculate your cost and yield using the same square footage as a traditional grow in the same space.
3 Likes
I tend to use the metric of $/lb when describing operational expenses, since this is how the industry tends to speak about both the price and cost of cannabis spot pricing. At Trym, we actually show growers how much they are spending per pound on energy and how their costs compare to other growers.
Let me know if you’d like to learn more. I’d be happy to setup a product demo!
7 Likes
Thanks all for the insights, this thread tells a story of how metrics are used.
There are metrics we use to promote our product and we’ll choose the ones that help us shine.
A greenhouse might tell the grams per watt story when they efficiently use natural lighting.
A vertical grow might tell the story of grams per area understanding that bldg sq. footage limits traditional ops.
A larger op might tout grams per man hour if they can scale without adding many folks.
For an ops internal use, the bottom line metric of input-output $/lb will determine success as a business but may not offer the context needed to find new ways to improve. Good for the shareholders, but not necessarily actionable insight to become more efficient.
And we should consider the performance trade offs through the lens of many metrics to do this.
For the home grower, smart plugs prices are falling and can even help track utilization: Amazon.com
At Kindbot.io, we have been testing our security feature of motion detection/recording to estimate time spent in the grow room. We are building this info into our application which integrates info like energy utilization to help the home grower become more efficient.
Ultimately, we are working toward the development of a platform that we believe will enable greater transparency to the consumer regarding cannabis production.
The consumer wants to choose ‘the most ______ op’ to support and sharing that story with the world can be helped with #quantifiedCannabis so you can differentiate your product and connect with your supporters.
3 Likes
Interesting… I actually feel the $/lb metric is the most accurate metric for creating actionable insights to reduce operational expenses. At Trym, we show this metric on a monthly and annual basis, for each facility, room, and soon to be batch so that you can gain insight into your profitability and efficiency compared to other parts of your operation or even compared to the average of other growers in the area. We considered using g/W or g/kWh but decided that translating operational expenses back to a metric that is widely used throughout a cultivator’s operation is the best way to make cost information useful and intuitive. Also, there is substantial ambiguity in using g/W and g/kWh if attempting to use these numbers to reduce costs . A grower in Sacramento spends half as much on energy as a similar grow in Oakland. A kWh used in the middle of the day often costs twice as much as a kWh used at night. Because of this, significant calculations are required in order to make g/W and g/kWh actionable with respect to comparing your costs between your rooms or facilities, much less comparing your costs to the broader market.
We also use our SmartAlerts system to provide automated insights to the grower based on the data we collect… whether its an issue with a piece of equipment or a savings opportunity. We run the analytics for the grower so that they can do what they do best in the most efficient and cost effective way possible.
2 Likes
I couldn’t agree more. I think the $ per unit of produced cannabis ($/g or $/lb) is the most comprehensive metric to use when considering operational efficiency of your business.
3 Likes