Progress Report: 1.14.22

Grasshopper Family,

Happy Friday!

And what a week it was! I was at the farm this week. I was there primarily for a state inspection. But, so much more ended up happening!

We kicked off the week with Adam going to retailers! Yes! We started our sales cycle! Adam, Kayla and I met and we talked through the sales approach, resources, routing, and pricing. Once aligned, Adam headed out. The initial goal is to visit 4-8 customers per day.

Look. This was a big step. How would we be received? How would our materials be received? How would our pricing be received?

Well, we have our answers. Love and acceptance. We have officially been accepted with open arms on all fronts. And we received our first order on day one. Boom! In fact, the very first retailer Adam visited!

People are surprised by who we are and how we are operating. I used to think of this in an aspirational sense. But, it has since become a consistent theme from everyone who comes to the farm.

Wednesday was the day for our inspection. We have built a solid farm. We have strong operations. We go above and beyond with compliance. But, you never know. We started by emailing some of the materials we were going to cover in the inspection. I found out later that we are the only organization to do that and our inspector loved it. We also proposed a flow for the agenda to our inspector, rather than having her tell us what to do next. Also something that no one else does. We walked her through everything and concluded by passing with flying colors. She said that we are the best licensed facility in the state and asked if we would be open to speaking at MRA sessions to help other facilities in how they approach regulatory compliance. Boom!

It was such a great day! And then it got better. I have known Caroline's mom and dad for a while. Before her, in fact! Caroline's dad stopped by with something that her mom had made - a custom Grasshopper Farms art window. Check out the picture! This blew me away!

As we continued to prepare the first order, we needed to improve the quality of our QR code stickers. These are the codes anyone can scan with their phone and it tells them the state approved lab results for that specific product. Caroline and I stayed late on Wednesday to finalize the stickers and they turned out great! Check out the picture of Caroline holding the stickers and then leaving for the night.

Thursday started with excitement. It was the day of the first shipment to retail. We finalized the placement of the product cards. We finalized the placement of the bamboo tongs. The secure transporter arrived, we loaded them up, and the first shipment departed, destined for Seven Engines Provisioning Center. Check out the picture of Adam with Katie from Seven Engines!

The pickup was seamless. The transport company mentioned that we were more prepared than anyone they have worked with. The product was delivered and our theory became reality - the retailer was BLOWN AWAY with our packaging, resources, and quality of the flower.

After the retail pickup we had a biomass transfer as well. It's hard to explain how much we just sold. So, I will let the pictures do the talking. It's a lot. That's a 26' truck.

The first sale pickup ended up hitting me harder than I had anticipated. It was really emotional. This was the first retail sale since we had conceived of this in 2019...since we had broken ground on October 14th of 2020....since we were licensed on April 20th of 2021...since our harvest last October....and since so many more events. Milestone just doesn't seem to be the right word. I was completely overwhelmed. Honored. Grateful. Happy.

I also had the chance to talk to someone on the team this week who completely caught me off guard. This person told me that for the first time in their life they are proud to say where they work and what they are doing. We had a whole conversation about it. Wow. Super grateful.

This was an incredible week.

I am so proud of our team and what we are doing.

We are Grasshopper Farms.