Juan from CannaCribs Consulting emphasizes that designing a cannabis cultivation facility is a blend of art and science. The ultimate goal is to create a scalable, compliant, and successful business. This comprehensive approach goes beyond mere blueprints, laying the foundation for long-term operational efficiency and profitability.

Before anything else, CannaCribs Consulting focuses on the essentials: your budget, the chosen cultivation system, the overall facility size, and the total output you aim to achieve. A key initial step is sizing the rooms, which is considered critical. Rooms that are too small can complicate operations, while those too large can lead to unmanageable batch sizes. The consultants typically prefer designing rooms in multiples of four. For instance, a facility with four rooms could harvest every two weeks, while eight rooms could enable weekly harvests

The design of post-harvest areas, including dry rooms, curing rooms, vaults, and trim spaces, is directly linked to the batch size produced in the flower rooms. These areas must be adequately sized and structured to efficiently handle the production coming out of the flower rooms on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Proper planning in this stage is crucial for maintaining product quality and workflow efficiency.

While cultivation and post-harvest are central, support areas are equally important for a well-thought-out and operational facility. These include spaces for staff such as lunchrooms and locker rooms, as well as critical operational areas like sanitation spaces, warehouses, vaults, and offices. Ensuring adequate space and design for these support functions contributes significantly to a facility’s ability to operate smoothly for years to come. Ignoring these needs is a common pitfall.

Recognizing the dynamic and evolving nature of the cannabis industry, CannaCribs Consulting prioritizes designing facilities with scalability in mind. This means creating a design that allows for future expansion, enabling a facility to grow from, for example, 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet if needed. Designing for growth from the outset ensures that the business can expand without extensive rework, preserving capital and momentum.

For operations in medical markets that permit product import or export, facility design must be compliant with Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards. Adherence to these strict standards is critical, and the layout and process flow within the facility are designed to support and ensure compliance. This rigorous approach helps facilities pass necessary audits and meet the highest regulatory requirements

CannaCribs Consulting distinguishes itself by designing facilities as if they were their own, focusing on operational practicality and client growth. Their mission is to build a foundation for a scalable, sustainable, and viable business, encompassing all elements necessary for success. Whether you are starting a new operation or optimizing an existing one, their expertise aims to help clients achieve their business goals.

[00:00:00]
Hey, I’m Juan from CannaCribs Consulting, and today we’re here to discuss some concepts that we implement to help commercial growers all over the world operate as efficiently and successfully as possible.

Designing a cannabis cultivation facility is both an art and a science. We understand that designing a cultivation facility is more than just blueprints. It’s about creating a scalable, compliant, and successful business for our clients. First, we consider the essentials: your budget, cultivation system, facility size, and the total output that you want to produce out of your facility.

[00:00:32]
For us, the first step is sizing the rooms. Room sizing is critical. We don’t want rooms that are too small that make the facility too complicated to operate, or too big and make it so that the batch size is too large to handle.

We usually prefer to have rooms in multiples of four. So, for example, if we have four rooms in a facility, then we know that we’re going to be harvesting every two weeks. Or if we had eight rooms in a facility, then we should be harvesting every week if you have a vegetative one.

[00:01:00]
The post-harvest areas are designed to match the batch size. Whatever batch size we have in a room, that’s what we want to design our dry rooms to be able to handle.

But it’s not only the dry rooms—it’s the curing rooms, vault, trim spaces, and everything else that goes along with that production that’s coming out of those flower rooms every week or every other week.

[00:01:19]
Even though we’re growing plants, it’s not just about cultivation and post-harvest. The support areas are just as important. We want to make sure that there’s enough space for people to have their lunch, locker rooms, sanitation spaces, warehouse, vaults, and offices.

All these rooms are part of a well-thought-out facility that we’ll be able to operate for years to come.

[00:01:37]
And because we know that the cannabis industry is constantly growing and constantly evolving, we like to design our facilities with scalability in mind—with the ability for a facility to go from 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet, if that’s what is needed.

We always design facilities that can scale up and be able to grow as the business is growing.

[00:01:55]
If you’re producing in a medical market where you’re allowed to import or export your product, then we make sure the facility design is compliant with GACP and GMP standards—Good Agricultural and Collection Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices.

In facilities that comply with these standards, it’s critical that the layout and the process flow supports compliance with the district standards. Our designs ensure that your facility meets the highest regulatory requirements—that will pass every audit that you need to pass.

[00:02:21]
One thing that sets us apart is that we design facilities as if they were our own facilities—facilities that we would operate ourselves, and that we would help our clients to operate and grow into.

At the end of the day, we’re building a foundation for a business—for a scalable, sustainable, and viable business that includes all the elements that are needed for success.

[00:02:39]
Whether you’re starting from scratch or you have a facility that you’re trying to optimize or expand, you can always reach out to us to help you with your facility designs and reach your business goals.

So reach out to us in the Typeform below and let us know how we can help you.