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This week, Jill Ellsworth, founder and CEO of Willow Industries, joins the Cannabis Equipment News podcast to discuss why consumers should not be sold moldy products, full stop.
It's been three years since Jill Ellsworth visited the podcast, and the industry is in a different place. While the market has leveled out, Ellsworth remains confident the industry is heading in the right direction.
In the last few years, the world of decontamination has become saturated with many new players entering the game. And though Ellsworth has seen several cultivators succumb to market pressures and constant regulatory changes, she believes rescheduling will present a significant opportunity for the cannabis industry to gain more mainstream legitimacy.
However, she says operators must start implementing good cultivation and manufacturing practices if they hope to survive. Rescheduling will bring more strict regulations, and consumer safety will be paramount, so cultivators must be ready to set themselves up for success.
When Ellsworth founded Willow Industries, she wanted to create the cannabis kill step with inline organic cannabis ozone decontamination solutions. For example, the company's WillowPure 360 can clean 24 to 35 pounds of post-harvest flower per cycle.
Over the years, Ellsworth has seen a shift towards preventative treatment rather than reactive. She says cultivators are implementing decontamination technology in their SOPs, inline with production. Cultivators are realizing the importance of having cannabis decontamination on site to ensure uniform treatment of all batches.
Cannabis decontamination, as a whole, remains a hotly debated topic that Ellsworth describes as "visceral and triggering." Still, she says, "You don't buy moldy strawberries, so why is it okay to buy moldy weed?" Ellsworth says consumers should not be sold moldy products, full stop.
Willow recently released WillowAir, a new product focused on employee safety in cultivation environments. The WillowAir filtration system is designed to capture and remove airborne contaminants like Aspergillus to ensure a safer workplace and healthier plants.
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