Native Roots

Native Roots

Maximizing Efficiency

We had the opportunity to speak with Nelson Oldham, the Senior Manager of Flower Processing at Native Roots, to learn more about why they decided to upgrade to Mobius M108S Trimmers.

Native Roots is one of the largest dispensaries in Colorado with 20 locations and more on the way. To maintain a healthy stock of their own premium flower in their shops, they’ve built a large, in-house cultivation operation.

Native Roots Operational details:

  • Perpetual harvest model – harvesting 450-550 plants per day
  • Grow a wide variety of cultivars – more than 60 in their catalogue
  • Proud of their product quality and attention to detail
  • Employ 4 distinct teams in the harvesting / processing process, including:
    • Harvest team that runs bucking and machine trimming
    • Manicure team that hand-finishes flower and operates as last-line QA
  • Currently trimming wet, but have begun testing a dry trim process for some cultivars

 

THE PROBLEM

 

Purchased four years ago, Native Roots had been machine trimming with a fleet of 12 Twister Trimmer T4s. They were operated in tandem configuration (two units paired front to back), so on a daily basis they had up to 6 trim lines operating at once. As their machines aged, they began to see a steady and growing stream of problems.

Our Twisters were falling apart. The cost, time, and effort to repair and maintain them was climbing all the time. The real problem though was that we weren’t getting the customer service we needed. Calls to support seemed to turn into sales calls, which rubbed us the wrong way.

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NELSON OLDHAM
Senior Manager Of Flower Processing At Native Roots

Nelson and the Native Roots team began looking for other options. They needed to decide whether they wanted to make another purchase of machines that weren’t serving them well, but “did the job”, or make an investment in new technology. GMP certification is a goal at Native Roots, so they were especially interested in machines that were designed to fit into a highly-regulated facility

THE SOLUTION

I’d been watching Mobius since the M108 was launched in Canada, and was excited when I saw them start to pop up in the States.

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NELSON OLDHAM

Native Roots made the decision to purchase two Mobius M108S Trimmers to run in a tandem configuration with conveyors. The hope was that they could replace nearly all of their aging Twister T4 units with a single Mobius trim line. To help keep their cleaning time down and extend the life of their AirThread Tension Tumblers, they also opted to purchase an Automated Tumbler and Brush Washer.

native-roots-case-study

THE Results

Mission accomplished! According to Nelson, after nearly two months of operation, the improvements have transformed their post-harvest operations.

The replacement of their fleet of 12 Twister T4s with only two M108S units means that they have less equipment to set up, less equipment to clean, and less equipment to maintain. This equates to substantial time and labor cost savings. They’ve kept their manicure team in place, but their time and effort is vastly reduced.

We have our manicure team in place for QC, but the amount of product they actually have to touch is much less. One of our big focal points is to get as close to hand-trimmed quality as possible, and the Mobius gets far closer to that than any other machine I’ve ever worked with. Our 'manicure team' doesn’t do a whole lot of actual manicuring now that we have the M108S in place.

Learn More About the M108S

M108s Trimmer