Features

Q&A with Logan Dunn of Dunn Cannabis

Published on December 16, 2022 by David Wylie

Photo: John McDonald/the oz.

We spoke with Logan Dunn, founder of Dunn Cannabis, based in BC.

Why did you get into cannabis?

I was a medical patient, I grew cannabis through the MMAR and ACMPR for a long time. I really enjoyed it. It was something I knew how to do really well. I knew how to manage that business. Once there was an opportunity with legalization to put small producers on the map, I was thinking about the Tweed days where they were discussing about being the first licensed producer in Canada; they had so much recognition from it. They were the No. 1 guys on the scene. They’re in the cannabis space in a big way today—maybe not in the high-end formats—but they still are a big player in the industry. I figured if I got involved in the craft space right at the beginning, then maybe we could be that recognized craft brand across the country. And I think that we are now. A lot of people know who we are and we are constantly evolving our position and where we are in the industry. Brands know about us. We offer help to a lot of people and give back to the other guys that want to get involved in the space too. It’s a big market. It’s not just for one company.

How does your legacy experience factor in today?

If you’ve ever been a good producer in the grey space, you know you’ve tripped already and you’ve stumbled and you’ve found a niche that works for you. That’s why you’ve continued to do it. For us, I’ve noticed that a lot of people who don’t know how to produce cannabis got involved in cannabis because they think there’s this river of money that’s never going to stop flowing. A lot of times these suits don’t really understand cannabis the way a grey producer does.

  RELATED: Making a name: Dunn Cannabis goes national

It’s been a big disconnect with the industry between experienced growers and grey market producers that can have that relationship, that can talk to each other and understand, that can realize it’s not just the grey way—there’s a grey component to it when it comes to production, but there’s also a way to do business legally and properly. Being able to synergize with that group of people will advance you in this industry. We’ve been able to do that with our partner, BZAM. To be linked up with BZAM is a dream come true for us. They’re a private company, they’ve got a great team behind them, they’re supportive and we can work together to do some pretty cool things and build some new SKUs and brand awareness. Both our companies are really supporting each other as we move forward in the industry.

What would you say is your mission?

We want to keep the craft brand and name linked to the fact that you get
quality, cared-for cannabis in the industry. At the same time, we want to expand our brand and make sure that we can supply people across the country, all the way to Newfoundland. That’s a big part of what our headspace is; we want to support ourselves, we want to support other companies, and we want to make a name for ourself in the industry by producing some of the best product available.

It’s been said you stand out for your gas and gelato strains; would you agree?

We’ve got cultivars that are different from everybody else’s. We have strains that no one brings to market. We want to resonate with the guys that are experienced and let them know that black market-quality products are available in the recreational space.

Tell us about your branding…

I wanted something that people were going to be familiar with, strong. We worked with BZAM to touch up our branding. They can point out potential legal and trademark issues. It’s opened our eyes when it comes to how we want it to look, whether it can reach the States at some point. That’s what we want.
We want our products available internationally if the laws allow us to.

What stands out about your growing process?

We hand-feed, hand-water. Attention to detail. Our production practices are small batch, so a lot of attention goes into the way the plant looks, not just operation and procedure. A lot of people have a schedule and just follow that Monday to Sunday. We look at the plants and sometimes they tell us different things as they produce, and we make adjustments along the way. We hand trim. We cure everything in the dark for 21 days. A lot of guys just want to get their lots to market ASAP, which they can do, but we just find the experience is way better when you slow it down.

How are you working with others?

I’ve found, like in the grey market, it’s all about relationships and making life easy for guys like us. When it comes to genetics, we don’t even charge for babies. The upside when you work with us is you get really great genetics, you get information on how to produce them, and they sell at the end of the day. But they don’t actually have to come up with the dough for the clones out of the gate, which can be a costly expense for companies. There’s another incentive for people to do business with us. Of course we have the option to buy those cultivars back off them. A lot of times we do and other times we opt to let them wholesale it and support them however we can when it comes to doing those transactions for other people. They’re still able to retain their whole business and produce the way they know how and the way they have been. We give them advice and point them in the right direction when it comes to getting a product registered with the province. We point them in the right direction if they wanted to wholesale some stuff. We have people that we work with that buy wholesale and they’re well known in the industry too now.
We give them really good products and point them in a direction that makes them cash-flow positive.

Do you have your facility built in such a way that it’s farmgate friendly?

We sure do. There’s a reception area where consumers can come look and smell. We have an area in our production facility that’s windowed, where people can walk by without actually going into the room and see an actual flower room in production. If the city allows us, which we really hope they do, we’re going to implement a production retail store at our facility. That could be an additional building on-site, it could be part of the existing building. I don’t quite know how it’s going to look yet but we’ve definitely ramped up for it and ready to get involved. We’ve applied for a processing licence specifically for that. We have applications in with the city preemptively letting them know that this change is coming and that we’d like to be a part of it, so we’ve got a good response from them. We’ve spoken to the (BC Cannabis) Secretariat and been involved in the conversations on how the development of that program could look, should look, and how we’d like to see it, what kind of freedoms we’d like to have as it evolves. We’re going to be involved.

What do you think about how the industry’s evolved so far?

It’s difficult and we’re learning as we go. There’s some areas that could use some improvement but there’s also a lot of areas where we can find our niche and stay in our lane and do some really great stuff. Rules and regulations will change over time as we see them talk about farmgate and a few other great moves in my opinion. As those evolve, you’ll see smaller companies get a little bit more freedom to be able to do some things that are what we always expected cannabis to be recreationally.

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