At MJBizCon 2025 in Las Vegas, Jonathan Ballard, vice president of LeafyPack, unveiled the Spider, a pick-and-place robot that uses advanced AI vision systems and machine learning to assess pre-roll quality, identify orientation, pick them up, and place them into tins, jars, or tubes.
Ballard said LeafyPack is embracing end-of-line robotics, especially for niche, industry-borne products, like pre-rolls, which are incredibly popular but difficult to package. LeafyPack's Spider is capable of 45 to 50 picks per minute.
“As the production process automates, whether it's from cultivation to processing to packaging, what I see happening next [in automation] is what happens after the primary packaging,” Ballard said. For example, LeafyPack has developed cobot palletizers and corrugate case packing to reduce the amount of labor-intensive work on employees.
Robots have never been more affordable and easier to use, Ballard said, which should hopefully accelerate adoption in the cannabis industry.
