Video: The co-packer’s Wonka factory creates Fourteen Counties concentrates and much more
The headline of this article is hardly hyperbolic. If you consume weed products in Massachusetts, then you’ve probably been high from something manufactured in the Temple Hill Collective factory in Orange.
I try not to overuse the Wonka label, but a few spots fit the bill, and Temple Hill is among them. They don’t grow marijuana, but hot diggity dab, they do virtually anything that can be done with the plant after harvest. At any given time, Temple Hill is cooking edibles for Wana, injecting vaporizer pods for Pax, and brewing drink mixers for Squier’s.
On a recent tour, Temple Hill Co-Founder Tom McMenemy explained why his team got into what is commonly called co-packing, as opposed to primarily producing house brands: “For us, starting in a market that’s very competitive and that had a lot of well-financed operators coming to play, we looked at it as an opportunity to get a facility in place and then partner up with people that had more financing and operational sophistication that could help us get a leg up.”
Chris Carbone, McMenemy’s partner and co-founder, also noted the consumer loyalty that mega brands like Wana have established in other states. That translates to business from transplants as well as tourists, both demographics that would be harder to reach with a new concept.
When it comes to building those bonds, Carbone said not every relationship is the same: “Whether the brand finds us or we find the brand, we’re essentially going after that contract. The teams work together to execute an agreement, and from there we’ll start manufacturing.”
From state to state, Carbone said processes are “pretty standard,” though potency limits can vary; in Massachusetts, servings on the adult-use side are limited to 5mg, with most products maxing out at 100mg. Sometimes, brands from other states ask them to replicate tested and proven recipes, he said. Other times, they “have clients reaching out for development—maybe they have a new product in the market, and we’ll help them see that through.”
Diamonds for all of your cannabis needs
The nerve center of Temple Hill’s facility is its main postprocessing lab, where the company’s white coats extract cannabinoids using ethanol and hydrocarbon and make magic with their centrifuge and other devices and tools. Dan, the lab director, showed off a jar of glowing high-terpene extract and a cascading miniature mountain of isolate, or diamonds—pure mesmerizing crystallized THCA.
They’re creating boggling dab-able concentrates, honey to fuel everything from rosin cartridges to gummies. This stuff is the malleable future, a testament to just how far contemporary scientists can stretch the plant. At the same time, the output isn’t strictly for high-end vape fans and people who tote their own dab rigs to cookouts. As Dan explained, you can simply sprinkle diamonds in your joints for extra oomph.
“A lot of it is education,” said Nico La Guerre-Mercury, the brand manager for Fourteen Counties, Temple Hill’s own concentrates brand. “Of course there are people who love traditional hash, people who know about hash and rosin—heady people—but a lot of the market are people who just smoke carts in the car before a soccer game, and people who are home enjoying stuff on their own time. ”
“Rosin pressing is an art form”
Ian Mattson keeps his office, a state-of-the-art cooler with little more than his crystal-clear water supply and stainless steel setup, at 32 degrees. As the solventless extraction director for Fourteen Counties, he finds boundless freedom and creative joy in the windowless ice box.
“I have autism and I fixate on things,” Mattson said, “and I tend to fixate a lot on hash. It really just drew my interest.”
For him, this isn’t just weed manufacturing. It’s more like a religion.
“Everything is hand-wash, we don’t use machines. … Even when it comes down to moving the liquid from here to here, we’re trying to manipulate it the least amount possible.”
In a typical week, Mattson will process three separate washes, each one of which takes about 10 hours to complete. “Fifteen minutes on, going ham, you’re spinning, there’s water going all over the place, you’re all sorts of wet—but it’s a blast, and I wouldn’t do it any other way.”
Each wash uses about 44 gallons of water, which he thoroughly paddles through 16,000 grams of fresh herb.
“Depending on the strain, I can get anywhere from one to three full trays of one specific micron,” he gushed. “Sometimes we get dumpers, but it’s never about how much we get out of it. Here we care about the quality.”
We sampled their MAC 31 temple ball hash, a collaboration with frequent concentrate confederate The Fresh Connection, and can confirm the claim. As did the whirlwind of visuals dripping in Mattson’s finishing lab.
“Rosin pressing is an art form,” he said, two hands on the pump and both eyes on the ooze. “You’re slowly increasing the pressure … but honestly, you can tell someone how to press over and over again, but it’s really about the operator.”
Mattson continued: “Anything that goes into our jars is going to be the highest quality that I can get. I’m very picky. It’s the highest form of whatever’s coming off that plant—we want all the terpenes, we want all the THC.”
La Guerre-Mercury, the brand manager, explained the mission behind Temple Hill’s in-house creations: “Fourteen Counties is about putting out the best concentrates possible and collabing with the best people we can. We have a really in-depth process, caring about every step of the way, and we’re just making sure that we are working with really great people who care about our community, who care about the 14 [Massachusetts] counties, and who put out stuff that matches that quality.”
