Cannabis Manufacturing Overview with Pete Mitchell of Mother Earth Wellness

Filmed onsite at Mother Earth Wellness in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Cannabis Science and Technology sat down with Pete Mitchell, Director of Manufacturing. Mother Earth Wellness hosted the Canna Boot Camp during Cannabis Science Conference Fall 2023, and gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look into various aspects of the facility. In this interview, Mitchell shares his experience and insights into the methods and challenges of manufacturing, the importance of quality of hardware, how he got his start in the industry, and more!

Read an excerpt from the interview here:

What are some of the challenges that come with manufacturing cannabis?

Pete Mitchell: A lot of the challenges that come with manufacturing cannabis are actually pricing and logistics, especially in this new competitive world that we're in. Knowing the amount of money that you're in for, and understanding how much money it takes for startup of that facility, that fixed cost to get into the game, and then looking at what is the business models that are successful. In this market in particular, or any market you're working in and trying to build a product line that can be competitively priced, high in quality. The best of both worlds would be to say that you make a better product for cheaper—that would be ideal.

What would you like to see change with manufacturing in the next five or 10 years?

Mitchell: I definitely hope that the stigma of hydrocarbons goes away. Earlier 2010, 2015, you'd have a lot of stigma against butane propane extraction. Working in the industry, I would make the personal argument that a fully engineered and peer reviewed C1D1 lab is going to be safer than a C1D2 lab just because a lot of the different pressures that things operate at. So I definitely think there's some stigma that still exists around butane due to the dangerous nature of the solvent. But when it's appropriately set up an engineered, it can actually be incredibly efficient, it can be more cost effective, it can yield a better product. So a lot of the those stigmas, I hope they continue to go away.