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This week, Jake Goodyear, president, and Sarah McLaughlin, director of product R&D at Melt-to-Make, join the Cannabis Equipment News podcast to discuss how they are making it faster and easier to make high-quality edibles.
Around 2017, Jake Goodyear took a call from his old boss, Tim Van Epps. Van Epps was starting a new hemp business, Heritage CBD, and wanted Goodyear to help run it. Goodyear was skeptical but wanted to help his former colleague. Van Epps made a similar call to Sarah McLaughlin, whom he had heard about from a mutual acquaintance.
McLaughlin, a dietician with a food science background, had previously founded Sun Valley Natural Products and made whole-foods energy bars until Nature's Bounty acquired her company. Goodyear and McLaughlin both decided to join Van Epps in his new venture.
Heritage CBD made topicals, tinctures and soft gels. McLaughlin insisted that the one thing the company would never make was gummies. She thought gummies would be a nightmare. But after she found a recipe online and made the first batch of gummies in her kitchen, she kept working at it. She ran into myriad problems, but she eventually dialed it in, and the gummies received rave reviews.
A little later, McLaughlin was charged with assisting a chef struggling to make edibles at Heritage's sister company. Van Epps suggested that McClaughlin simply send the company some bulk gummy mix. There was a problem; bulk gummy mix wasn't a thing.
Shortly thereafter, Melt-to-Make was born. The company's patent-pending gummy bases simplify the process of making large-batch gummies. Its gelatin and pectin gummy bases help operators make gummies faster, more consistently, and with fewer mistakes. Now, companies can stop melting down gummy bears and breaking depositing machines and start making gummies.
Jump around:
- Early days at Heritage CBD. (4:40)
- Early R&D in home kitchens. (11:48)
- The birth of Melt-to-Make. (13:11)
- The downsides of melting gummy bears to make edibles. (19:04)
- Expansion plans. (25:56)
- Problems with the supply chain. (34:02)
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