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This year’s installment of the Marijuana Business Convention (MJBizCon) boasted over 1,000 companies showcasing their offerings for the cannabis space. Numerous market sectors were represented, from bongs and rolling papers to CBD brands and multiple ancillary products and services.
One of, if not the most prominent, sectors featured on the floor was plant processing machinery. The abundance shouldn’t come as a surprise. The plant is essential to the booming industry, with the global cultivation market expected to increase at a 14.3 percent annual growth rate through 2027, reaching $358.8 billion in sales that year.
While some oversaturated sectors, like packaging, saw companies replicating the same business model, hoping to stand out through marketing and branding alone, ag-tech offers a variety of value propositions and possible solutions. Companies stand out by targeting specific-sized operations, from small brands to multinational operations, as well as through proprietary equipment, processes, and, in some cases, legacy market experience.
A Hybrid Stands Out In The Las Vegas Desert
Triminator was one of the more prominent ag-tech and processing brands on the MJBizCon exhibitor floor. With a larger-than-most, open space exhibit, the NorCal-based company showed some of its range of products, including dry trimmers, buckers, shredders and rosin presses. The newest addition to the lineup is the Hybrid Trimmer. The highlight features of the Hybrid include variable speed control, precise trimming tech, an integrated tilt adjustment system and top-level value for small- to mid-sized growers and brands.
Custom settings allow producers to trim various flower densities, be it wet, dry or semi-dry flower. Speed is just as integral to the process, with Triminator calling out the competition, using field tests to state that their pounds-per-hour throughput reigns supreme. The Hybrid Triminator boasts a single per hour feed rate of :
- Wet (18 percent+): 40 pounds
- Semi-Dry (11-18 percent): 20 pounds
- Dry (9-11 percent): 15 pounds
Throughputs more than double when hooked to a tandem device. Speaking of doubling, at its price point, $10,900 for pre-orders, Triminator claims to double the output of the next closest competitor.
During the demo, the Made in America company highlighted numerous other selling points, including easy to clean and assemble components made of food-grade quality stainless steel, an integrated vacuum and trim separation system and, overall, a smaller footprint. As an added bonus, the Hybrid functions on standard 110V power, which means it can be used pretty much anywhere.
The Hybrid’s proprietary blade system was another centerpiece, as it is designed to ensure that the flower spends as little time tumbling as possible. The factory-calibrated blade system claims to produce razor-sharp cuts every time. Still, attendees at the conference only got to see a small portion of the equipment’s potential. Like most other brands on the exhibitor floor, Triminator’s full capabilities were best displayed off-site.
The Demo in the Desert
On Day Two of MJBizCon, Triminator and its partner brand Mobius Trimmer showcased the capabilities of its line at their Las Vegas facility. Dubbed the Demo in the Desert, Triminator featured its line for small to mid-sized productions, with Mobius focused on the larger operations, like multi-state operators (MSOs) and multinational companies.
High Times was granted an early look at the Hybrid before the crowd arrived later in the afternoon. The Hybrid was the centerpiece of the demo allowing us to see the equipment first-hand and give it an initial review, while additional Triminator products provided a mini-history of some of the company’s innovations. Currently offering trim machines for dry dry trims, company developers explained that the Hybrid was the convergence of past developments, bringing trimming under one technological roof for all densities and moisture levels.
During the demo, Hybrid developers explained that Triminator’s latest innovation helps set the cannabis industry apart with dedicated machinery. Using food-grade stainless steel and a more compact package, the Triminator offers a sleeker, more efficient process to a space that can be often saddle producers with bulky and cumbersome equipment–a significant pain point for operations with limited space. The Hybrid has its own industry-specific integrated trim separation system rather than modified technology made for other industries, like woodshop dust-gathering devices used to collect trim which are seen on most competitive machines.
While modified tech is suitable for cannabis, the burgeoning industry deserves equipment explicitly developed for the marketplace. Instead of using the previous technology, which often sees flower hitting trimmer blades thousands of times, darkening flower along the way, Triminator products feature a cut-and-drop type approach. The process allows trims to be conducted without damaging the plant as other products can do.
Feeding hemp flower into the Hybrid, buds were quickly introduced to the superb piece of machinery’s helical blades. Watching the action unfold over heard, I noticed that the time spent in the trimmer felt like moments, as the cannabis flower exited in seconds, resting in the attached trim bin below. In just minutes, pounds of flower, trimmed to the same high quality, had been processed, living up to its billing.
Overall, flower quality remained intact, with the hemp coming out without being bashed and beaten. In just minutes, pounds of cannabis had been trimmed to perfection without any loss in quality. The blade speed can also be adjusted to accommodate any type of preferred trim.
How did it trim?
Once the trimming is complete, companies can easily disassemble the entire machine without using tools to clean the machine’s cut and separation modules quickly. By the end of our early look at the demo, company representatives were almost ready for the public showcase, with several hundred attendees RSVPing.
A Growing Team of Cannabis OGs and Outside Minds Fuel Pot Ag Tech Innovation
Between Triminator and parent company Eteros Technologies, the company considers itself one of the earliest and longest-running teams in the mechanical trimming space.
Taking its earliest steps in 2008 by Dana Mosman, Triminator’s humble grow site-to-grow site communal growth approach began as a way to help friends in the Northern California cultivation scene looking to machine trim their premium pot. After proving successful, the team started replicating the success in other grow regions. In time, the approach caught fire, and Triminator officially launched in 2011.
Now a full-fledged market presence with facilities in several U.S. states and Canada, Triminator operates under the Eteros banner alongside Mobius. Triminator’s team includes experts from the legacy cannabis market and other industries, including food processing and machine engineering. Mosman told High Times the combination of legacy market and outside sector expertise helps fuel innovations like the Hybrid. With solutions in-house, the team has been able to expedite research and development (R&D) efforts as well. Using what they considered a company technological trickle-down effect, the Hybrid went from ideation to development in roughly six months.
As the venture has grown, Mosman and the Triminator team continue to embrace the same company ethos it began with in Northern California. The spirit of the independent, family-owned brand appears to remain intact, with the focus still squarely on supporting farmers of just about every size, be they indoor or outdoor.
One day before Luxembourg legalized cannabis use and cultivation, Mosman and developers noted their excitement about the evolving industry and its ongoing legalization. With many long-time employees on the team along for the ride, they’re eager to see what comes next regarding pot legalization in America and their impact on the agricultural sector.
Made in America Helps Sales, Supply Chain
The Demo in the Desert served as the final showcase for the Triminator Hybrid before pre-orders began. As mentioned before, introductory pre-order prices for the Hybrid will run producers $10,900, with production expected to start soon at the company’s Las Vegas production facility.
An in-house production solution should allow the company to avoid cargo hold-ups like many internationally produced brands currently face. Like the benefit of in-house brand solutions to advance R&D, Triminator believes that its current position in the market should help itself, Mobius and Eteros all remain significant players in the cannabis cultivation and processing space for years to come.
The post Demo in the Desert Highlights Cannabis Machine Trimming’s Latest Innovation appeared first on High Times.
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