New state-of-the-art facility has Earth's Healing growing for the future

Arizona is not much different. While sales saw early growth after legalization, sales between the state's medical and recreational markets actually peaked back in March 2021, about two months after dispensaries were able to serve recreational customers.

While it's not quite as dire as in other states, something has to give, and soon.

“There’s going to be a culling,” said Chris Walsh, CEO of MJBiz, a cannabis trade-industry magazine, during the opening address of MJBizCon, the largest cannabis industry convention of any kind in the nation.

Although markets are now contained by state boundaries, many states are seeing an oversaturation of products from a glut of companies offering similar brands.

Will there be a place for local, smaller companies, especially in the face of possible federal legalization?

Earth’s Healing is betting big on that answer being yes. With its new west side facility, the company is looking to change the game not just locally, but eventually nationally.

Planting the seeds

The name “Earth’s Healing” recalls images of health and wellness and natural therapies just as much as it does cannabis cultivation. And when talking with Vicki Puchi-Saavedra, CEO of Earth’s Healing, that’s by design.

“We’re making it so that people are comfortable with cannabis, with cannabis as wellness,” Puchi-Saavedra said. “We really try and foster a comfortable atmosphere for our patients and customers.”

Earth’s Healing has grown since 2013, when it opened its first original southside location with just six employees, according to Puchi-Saavedra (for more on that story, read about it here).

That location was rebuilt in 2021 into the larger and more modern dispensary that stands at the address now. There’s a second location for north-side Tucsonans on River Road, as well.

The company also has a family flavor to it, with Puchi-Saavedra’s children holding budding careers within the company: her daughter Magie Saavedra is the chief culture officer, and her son Eddie Saavedra runs the extraction lab.

With two dispensaries and multiple in-house brands thriving, there’s a lot to be proud of for a local company that started with just six employees. However, just like for most cannabis companies, 2022 has not been kind. Sales are down and inflation throughout the economy remains stubbornly high. 

But the company’s new west side facility gets Puchi-Saavedra and chief cultivation officer Miles Sadowsky excited for the future.

Growing the plants

While there are larger cannabis-only/cannabis-centric indoor or greenhouse grows within Arizona – like Copperstate Farm’s gargantuan 1.3 million square foot facility in Snowflake, one of the largest of its kind in the world – Earth’s Healing new hybrid greenhouse/indoor facility is by far the largest within the city of Tucson.

“The facility is currently comprised of 14,000 square feet of laboratory, packaging, and logistics supporting a 60,000 square foot modernized, mixed-light greenhouse," Puchi-Saavedra said. "We chose this particular location for both is proximity to the interstate as well as its plentiful room for growth.” 

It's quite a bit larger than the company's old primary cultivation facility, which was around 10,000 square feet. According to Sadowsky, it's being repurposed.

“Our previous indoor cultivation is playing a new and integral role in Earth’s Healing’s mission to provide the community with access to an uninterrupted flow of superior cannabis genetics.” Says Sadowsky.

Sadowsky and the Earth’s Healing's cultivation team are hard at work implementing and refining the processes that will have to stand up to the unique challenges of scaling and progression.

“Increasing production while maintaining the quality that we are known for was the primary goal of this expansion, and I believe it is a goal that has been accomplished here at this facility.”

The facility, or “compound” as it’s referred to, is the new headquarters for a company that Puchi-Saavedra said employs about 230 people total, with between 70 and 80 of those working in some capacity at the new HQ.

The facility is large, nearly 10 acres total. But for any cannabis consumer, the up-and-running greenhouse is, by itself, the most impressive aspect.

Cannabis plants are separated by their stage of maturity, sorted into different climate-controlled rooms to maximize growth and yield, stacked on portable rows that allow for workers to walk between them when needed and close them against each other to maximize the amount of square footage used to cultivate, and watered by a complex irrigation system filled with nutrient rich water.

The undeviating, assembly line-like nature of the cultivation process is by design, Sadowsky said.

“You saw how uniform our plants were and how uniformly we dry and we cure. It's all done for a reason. Consistency is paramount because this will turn into medicine," he said. "Not if, but when federal regulation comes into play all cannabis products in all stages of manufacturing must be monitored and verified safe and as described.”

Harvesting for the future

So why such a large facility?

First, while demand in more established markets like Washington and Oregon is stagnating or in the case of California falling, in Arizona, sales are down, but not as drastically as in other markets.

Second, in the immediate term, the new greenhouse allows Earth’s Healing to offer its own home-grown lines of cannabis flower, something it literally had to farm out to other growers. That problem has been solved with the new facility.

“We will however continue to carry the outside brands our customers know and love and maintain the great diversity of product our retail locations are known for,” said Puchi-Saavedra.

The new facility also allows Earth's Healing to keep its product prices in line with other, larger cannabis companies, some of which are based out of state and have more resources at their immediate disposable. 

“Without this facility we wouldn’t have the ability to maintain our prices during these uncertain times," Puchi-Saavedra said. "Prices are increasing all around us and we are so happy to be able to give back to the community that helped us become who we are today.”

Last, it’s all in anticipation of the (eventual) end of cannabis prohibition at the federal level. Like most cannabis industry watchers, the brain trust at Earth’s Healing sees prohibition ending as a “when” not an “if.”

Sadowsky believes with this facility, Earth’s Healing is primed to take advantage of Arizona’s most abundant resource, which coincidentally also happens to be the most important resource in growing the best quality cannabis: sunlight.

“Right now we're operating in these kind of falsely protected markets with without federal legalization,” he said. “And when it all falls the best outdoor (cannabis) is gonna come from where the best outdoor environment is. The best greenhouses are gonna come from environments like this, where there's great dry air coming through and huge amounts of sun.”

What’s next

Although not nearly as optimistic with his “State of the Industry” speech as he was last year, Walsh did note that companies who are setting themselves up for the long game are the ones who he thinks will be successful.

That’s good because he also noted that bigger players, like multinational corporations that have mostly stayed out of the cannabis space, will probably be making an appearance soon.

"As the industry becomes more mainstream and federal change takes shape, we'll see big names in retail, consumer packaged goods, agriculture and technology get in the game,” he said.

For Puchi-Saavedra, Sadowsky and Earth’s Healing, that’s what makes the investment in the new HQ worth it. Puchi-Saavedra said she can foresee more cultivation infrastructure going in to meet the eventuality of coming demand.

“We want to become experts in what we're doing here,” she said. “And then duplicate it so then we'll have two more greenhouses, maybe three out here.”

Sadowsky sounded as if he was ready to get to work yesterday.

“We believe that this facility, the room for expansion it provides, and its strategic location puts us in a position to continue providing opportunity and quality products to our community even as our community becomes national,” he said.

IF YOU GO

Earth's Healing North: 78 W. River Rd. 

Earth's Healing South: 2075 E. Benson Hwy.

Hours for both locations are Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Online ordering is available at both locations. Visit Earth's Healing's website for further details. https://earthshealing.org/