Welcome to Your Highness Podcast, a show where we get comfortable with the uncomfortable uncover areas of cannabis where accessibility and inclusiveness are lacking and elevate conversations about ways to affect real change in this space with a specific focus on folks who identify as women.
You're listening to your highest podcast. I'm your host, Diana crash, and today I'm joined by Katherine Raghavan, the VP of business development and strategy for Tara Berra. How are you doing today, Katherine? Hi, Diana. I'm doing well today. Thanks again for having me here. Anytime, because we're about to go into a topic that we really never discussed here. And I'm very excited about that. But before we start, we're going to begin as we do with every episode, or segment that is recurring. And that is called faith pot faith not pot where we each discuss our favorite cannabis related item, movie movement, book, whatever, and non cannabis related item at the moment. So I'll start with my favorite pot right now. I've been using this product for a long time and my sciatic nerve has been on fire. I don't know what happened. I pinched it or I did something but I always lean on this product. So I figured I'd mention it. It's Dr. Solomon's CBD, rich valve, rich valve self.
It's a CBD rich self. It's a five to one, five CBD to one THC. And it's it has like a rollerball, you know, so you can just kind of roll it on your back without making a mess. And I love it. So yeah, that's my favorite part right now. What's your favorite pot, Katherine.
I will say I am not really the biggest smoker. When it comes to cannabis. I tried it. And I know a lot of my friends love it. But I actually really like gummies, which I know a lot of people are terrified of using but want to gummies in particular. They're great. I just found like, they were not only delicious, and I have a big sweet tooth, but just the consistency. And you know, I probably purchased it a couple of times over the years. And every single time it's just been a positive experience. And I like you I like to relax. So I typically do a ratio that's higher and CBD and just takes the edge off. Especially like when I go skiing in Colorado. It's just a really nice way to wind down the day.
Nice. That sounds really nice. I'll take that right now. Okay. I love the wanna gummies they're great. And I'm actually having a lot of success with gummies lately. So I suggest if you're weary, do some research because gummies are where it's at when it comes to trying to microdose. So my fave not pot right now is this book is taking me forever to read because, you know, lack of free time and all of that, but it's called emotional intelligence. It's by Daniel Goleman. And he's also the author of social intelligence, which I have not read yet, but it's about how your emotional intelligence can matter more than IQ and it just like redefines the meaning of smart which is ablest in nature anyway, so it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool
book, man.
That's my review. It's a really great book because it talks about how being having a strong emotional intelligence is actually really important with your everyday, you know, dealings and also with business, then people don't realize how much it plays into business success, if that's your concern. So I recommend it highly. That sounds like a great read. Yeah. It is. It has a lot of information in it. So it's taking me a while because I'll go back and reread certain passages. But it's very interesting and and he has a lot of reference points too. So it's very well researched, I would say. Anyway, so what's your fav, not pot right now? Well,
as I mentioned, I'm expecting my first child and so everything has been Terra Vera, and then also preparing for the newest member of our family and I think my favorite non pop item right now is this product called the tummy shield. I don't know if you had to use this, but I live in Miami. And as you can imagine driving in like a 35 mile per hour zone, it's actually driving like a NASCAR race. And I used to live in Florida, I know what you're talking about. And I don't, you know, I bought it because, you know, you start to go bigger, and things start to get more uncomfortable. But, you know, I never really thought of this as a precautionary measure. But getting into a car is not a safe thing. And so when I got it, it's something that's actually developed in Australia. And it's been a lifesaver for many women that have gotten into car accidents and their their accidents, right? Like, you just never know, knock on wood. I've never gotten one myself. But, you know, I just, it's an amazing, like, piece of equipment. And that's awesome. Honestly, just takes my stress level down from 11 to maybe a, maybe an eight. Yeah, that's like my favorite new item. I I you know, what this? Satisfied is like, a lot of my friends are pregnant women I've met haven't even heard of it. Or I know, my friend just delivered it. She was like, I wish I had that. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's, that is one cool thing about when I was pregnant, I found out so many innovative things that are coming into the marketplace for pregnant women. And you know, if only we could match the healthcare, to those innovations. If only we could have the postnatal care and all of that match that level of But anyway, but you know, all about innovative tech, right? Because, yeah, you're working with Tara bear, or forterra Vera, I don't know how you want to word that. But you, you know about it. And you've been around and we're going to talk more about your experience. But there are a lot of things that the general public doesn't know about lab reports, I recently wrote about this just a little bit, you know, I just dipped my toe, so to speak, into this pool of finding out about lab analysis, there's so much that, like the general public doesn't understand with state limits, changing pass or fail methods, not measuring the number of heavy metals or pesticides, and many other elements remaining unclear. Consumers aren't getting the complete picture. So to start, can you explain why the general public should have an understanding of pesticide use in cannabis cultivation?
I mean, absolutely. You just take it from your everyday schedule, right? Everybody goes to a grocery store at some point or maybe nowadays, you order online, but you I think people should look at cannabis where they would look at a strawberry, really, and, and, you know, I think what we'll eventually get there, but right now, because cannabis, intense purposes is still actually difficult to get. And certain states legally. People just want to get their hands on cannabis. They're not even thinking about how all they are thinking about the potency, but they're not thinking about how the sausage is made. And wow, that plants actually grown. I think people actually forget that cannabis is a plant a lot of the times and yeah, I've had the benefit of actually been been to many, many cultivations, both large and small, and it is actually eye opening each time when you just see these C's of green. Because when you think of cannabis, you think of a coffee or you think of its dried form and a bowl, but you don't actually think of it as something that was like a little clone or see that sprouted into a plant that got harvested as with any sort of crop that you would see in a supermarket. So I think just getting past that mental block of cannabis is actually a plant that's grown. It's also susceptible to the same diseases, you could think of coffee or wine. And that's just something again, I grew an appreciation for that having spoken to a lot of growers, as a lot of these folks have horticultural backgrounds in different crops. And, you know, a lot of people say, well, cannabis is really, really resilient. Sure. But if you ask any grower as to which genetics in their garden, they could tell you, you know, it's this, but there's still no way to actually trace this genetics. I'm sure you know, that people have crossed so many breeds and, you know, things have been taken over state lines. And you could call something blue diesel in one state, you go to the state, like next door and it, you know, genetically is probably a little different. So just like those in consistencies, I mean, people, people just aren't aware of how sophisticated cannabis is and actually how sophisticated the process of growing cannabis has, has become. And right now once you get over the accessibility part, I think people need to be thinking, Okay, how did this little piece of flour actually get grown and what was done in the process. And I just, like I said, there's so many, so many operators out there. Very few brand names, like as much as I, you know, you and I probably are at the forefront of speaking to people in the industry. But if you ask your average consumer, they're not really aware of the biggest brand names. Most people don't know what a multi state operator is. So you're not getting the same brand recognition as you would, you know, like regular way beverages like Coca Cola, or even beers for that matter. So it's just not on people's minds. That that's kind of in a nutshell is that we're still kind of coming off of the black market mentality. And you know, that this is actually something that people are using more regularly rather than as something that should be seen as illicit. And once we kind of get over that mentality, I think people start paying attention to the quality of their their cannabis, which again, it's something I didn't have an appreciation for until I got into the industry in 2015. And then even more so having left kind of the the operators side of cannabis to a provider or service provider. And what is how Terra Vera,
right? I mean, what you pointed out is so relevant, the accessibility side, you know, we're also focused on the accessibility of our medicine, that, you know, the rest of it seems like, well, do we really have to worry about it? It's a plant, it's natural. You know, I've heard these things. And yeah, I might have thought them in some way, in the past, but when you really think about it, like you said, a strawberry, right? Like my one friend is very concerned with, well, everyone should be right. But she she has one of those pesticides, scanners, right. And she will do these videos where she'll scan the organic strawberries, and they're off the charts with pesticides. It's like people don't realize there are so many different elements that go into it, like, all the way down to what the lab test technicians are wearing, and how those clothes are, are sanitized. I mean, this all is relevant to what you're putting into your body, you know. And while there are a lot of other unknowns that that can affect these things, we have to be a little bit more vigilant about understanding the process, like you said, the sausage being made, we have to understand that more. And talking to you is a definite way to do that. This is only just like a scratching the surface type of episode because there is so much to talk about. And luckily, you're making it accessible to us to use that word again. I mean, and that is really important. So can you talk about cultivation, compliance when expanding into new states and what that means for lab reports? Because that was one of the biggest eye openers for me when I was doing research?
Sure, I mean, the short answer is because of the decentralization regulations across the various legal markets, I mean, cultivation compliance is disjointed. I mentioned multi state operators. Yeah, and you know, those some of these folks operate and 20 plus states. And they may use the same lab for five of those states. But I will assure you, those lab reports probably look so different, right, mainly because they're, they're driven by the state regulations. And you're probably aware of this, there are some states that are super lacs, and don't actually require much to get product on the shelf, right, let it pass or fail type of pass or fail, or the thresholds are really, really high. So most people pass or, I mean, worst case scenario, they just don't have great labs that have the sophistication to test on the level that any consumer would want their product to be tested. And then you have the opposite you have the Massachusetts or the California is of the world were super strict. And then you you if you're an operator there, it's very difficult to let's just say put product on the shelf or do so in a way that they like you can mean 10 year profitability. And so it's like to like very, very fine tuning balancing act between making sure you get good safe product to the consumers but also not driving these operators out of business correct, like right is tough sometimes to grow clean canvas. Yeah,
yeah, that's the other side of it, you know, it's like, but, I mean, they're making some of these companies definitely can afford to put this. Let's not broad stroke it. But for some of the smaller, you know, operators, it's, it's definitely a struggle.
You know, you work with an operator and I'll take Oregon as an example, there are still a lot of boutique operators there that are more mom and pop shops that want to provide high quality very select products to their consumers, if they have a crop failure, because let's just say a staff, a new staff member didn't know that proud protocol. And they lose a third of their crop to a testing failure, that's really detrimental to them. And those are the types of folks that, you know, we're thinking about, I mean, we we look at the multi State offers, But to your point, they've got a lot of budget bandwidth. But it's more of like these, how would call them under 30,000 square feet, grow facilities were testing failure, really damage the livelihood of these businesses. And as you can imagine, it's just become more competitive as these other operators have grown in size there. They're not like the smaller operators are facing price compression, because there's just a lot of supply. Now, if you're not in a Limited License market, you're now one of many. It's become a green rush. And so we're seeing that if you could get to market with high quality, consistent product, you have an edge. But again, any good grower will tell you, all it takes is for one person to not follow protocol to take a very clean environment, and actually have a systemic issue with their grow that it takes multiple harvests to eradicate if that some people never actually walk
them. Wow. That is just, I mean, that's mind blowing. Really, I mean, because it's just their their whole life. You know, yeah. So talk about how Tara Vera plays a part in pesticide free cannabis?
Well, as you can imagine, myself and members of the terror team were intimately dealt with these challenges of growing clean and safe cannabis. Our CTO also worked in highly regulated markets, particularly water treatment. And so I believed her Vera uniquely understand what both an executive and a growers, you know, challenges will be on a day to day. And that allows us to really attack the problem at hand, I will tell you, executives want to make sure good products get to the market, because as you can imagine, building a brand is very difficult. But it's very easy to tarnish. Once you have a testing failure. for growers. Same thing, they take a lot of pride in their grow, and what they put on to their mark into the market. And, you know, one, bad testing failure could really, you know, mean, the end of a career for some, which is really unfortunate. There are a lot of jobs where you actually have a lot of do overs. I think growers in that regard, have a tough, have a tough sell, don't want to ever be responsible for millions of dollars of lost product. And so because we understand how this conundrum of how do you how do you balance between doing the right thing, putting out good clean product, but also, you know, maintaining the bottom line, I think we kind of had that solution, and our biggest sell right now is that our technology is all natural, it's and it's something that our bodies do naturally every single day. Let's say you get a cut, for instance. I mean, our bodies are naturally programmed to have an immune response to fight that infection, we create an antimicrobial within our bodies. Once the infection is fought those sent that same antimicrobial will go back to being just you know, benign products in your body. So your your body doesn't get attacked. It's just the infection. Similar thing with our system. It's a system designed to pretty much mimic that process. Take all natural ingredients, combine it with water, electricity, and, and then you have this very potent, effective antimicrobial that's safe on live tissue. While and that's kind of our selling point is a lot of these pesticides that people are using are not really that safe for for plants. They're really, really strong. And that was kind of our conundrum when developing this technology was, it's very, very easy to kill off a pathogen, but it's very, very difficult to not kill off everything in the process. So that was kind of what our team looked to develop, which was how do we create something that's effective at attacking, you know, a cannabis growers, biggest threats, powdery mildew, detritus, Aspergillus, but also keeping the plants safe. And also the the actual staff. I mean, I don't know if you've ever stepped into a grow. But the last thing you want to see are our people with respirators or, you know, a warning that you can't go back into a grow room after 24 hours, right? It's, it's actually unsettling. And I can only imagine as a staff member, like what are you walking back into after a room was fogged with a chemical. So that's kind of what we're trying to do is not just think of problems in isolation. But if everything is connected, we have in our, our goal is to provide a solution that is not only safe, so that you can have healthier plants, but we're really thinking of the bigger picture of people on the planet. I hate to say it, but the cannabis industry is not the best for the climate right now, I think, especially with indoor grows, there's a lot of electricity use water usage. And I know nowadays, a lot of operators are leaning towards more sustainable practices like reclaiming their water. But I still don't think people have tackled this pesticide issue. And where those pesticides actually run off to. And, and so that's kind of the beauty of the technology of Terra Vera is that once that antimicrobial dries up, it actually becomes a nutrient that the plant can uptake. And it's non detectable, and it's naturally occurring. So when that product or she goes to testing, you're not getting heavy metals, you're not getting pesticides, and you're not getting any microbials because that's the purpose of using it.
And really, what Terra Vera is really versatile in is that it can only be used on live plants can use it post harvest, you can use it on your surfaces and tools. It is very, very versatile in that regard. But like I said, it's it's it's a very potent antimicrobial, but it does have a short life and that it degrades back down to all natural ingredients. And it's just something that we view as a more sustainable way of treating plants. And it's not just for remediation, actually we prefer people use it as a preventative measure. Kind of like the way I use my Tommy, she'll I'm not waiting for the problem to occur to be reactive. I actually would prefer never to have the problem, but I'm armed. Right? For instance, in the event that a pathogen breaks out that, you know, I have Tara Vera, and I've been using Tara Berra
That's awesome. And so how can the cannabis community best support you and Tara Barrett like both? both things, you know, separately. Both things separately, if that makes sense.
Biggest thing and I've seen this in the industry, the cannabis industry specifically is there's there's a lot of camaraderie. You know, we all are part of this cannabis movement. And so I think the biggest way to support us would be the way you support the movement in general is you know, share a story with your friends in the industry. I we offer complimentary IPM assessments and demos, we know that no two grows, whether or not next door without they're part of the same family of grows, when they're all going to be a little different. because no two grows, we're built the same. And I mean, just in a nutshell, we're trying to change the standards and agriculture. So for us, it's you know, what better way to start with making cannabis safer and more enjoyable for consumers. We really love the people that are in the industry, the consumers I mean, we're really changing what the next decades gonna look like for medicine, you mentioned that you use it to to help you. And that's kind of what drives the Terra Berra teams that we all know somebody that's been afflicted with some sort of ailment, and in some way, shape or form cannabis has helped them humans, they need it. We all have problems, right? Like any sort of medicine, yeah. Or you know, special food, you want it to be clean, you want to be safe, you know, you don't want the problem to grow worse because that product you thought was safe is actually tainted with mold or something that could actually hurt you and further and That's kind of the saddest part of of this whole process is that it's more common than you think. And, you know, I just don't think that cannabis businesses have a lot of good options right now, not the way other agricultural companies do. And that's kind of what Tara is trying to bring two tables, is give that optionality that to this date. I mean, I haven't seen anything like it.
Yeah. I haven't heard of anything like it. And I mean, I don't work in tech. So I don't see anything really like that. But that is amazing. And I can't wait to get a chance to see it in real life, and at some point, so I really would love to have you come back at any time to talk about this topic further, because it's, it's bigger than cannabis. And it's something that needs to be ongoing and, you know, much more nuanced but included today. But I think this is a really great starter conversation. And I think that we touched on some really important points. And I'm really very happy that you joined us today. So thank you for that Katherine. And please do come back anytime. Thank you for having me. So until next time, stay high and beautiful. Bye. Thanks for listening. You can find us on Instagram at Your Highness Podcast, or on Twitter at Highness Podcast, be sure to rate us on iTunes and subscribe.