Making incredibles’s Edibles Credibly Incredible
“When Derek started us down the path to hydrocarbon extraction, that’s when we really started understanding who, what, and why,” said Eschino. “Hydrocarbon extraction is a proven technology that, once we perfected it for our facility, allowed us to do anything. It is the medium that allows us to make anything correctly and accurately.”
Colorado currently has slightly more than 500 cannabis dispensaries to serve a population of about 3 million people. To meet demand, incredibles produces 5,000 to 7,000 pieces of chocolate a day. “Or we can do about fourteen cooks of gummies a day and get about 4,000 pieces out of each cook,” said Fink. “So, that’s thousands of pieces a day.” The company could increase production to meet increased demand, he added.
Dedicated to employing sustainable practices, the company takes great pride in its sourcing of both cannabis and chocolate. “We have a supplier out of Chicago who supplies all our chocolate,” said Scarpello. “There is one guy who owns 60 percent of the chocolate in the world, and we’re under that branch. We have a very particular chocolate that we use. It has a recipe that is internal and a part of our [intellectual property].
“When it comes to cannabis, I grow my own in Colorado, so that’s a part of our internal business,” he continued. “When I go to Las Vegas, I have a partner there. He grows his own and he has his own supply chain, but I can pull my license from any deal if Josh or I look at it and say the quality isn’t there.”
Consistency also is an important component of quality. “I have internal controls that keep my medicine within 10 percent,” said Scarpello. “Ninety percent is my cap of variance, meaning if I say it’s 100mg, it will be between 91mg and 109mg. The government of Colorado currently says it should be 15 percent, but we were able to maintain our level of consistency from day one.”
One could look at that level of consistency as a building block for incredibles and a direct result of the owners’ background in food. “We know how to make things homogeneous,” said Scarpello. “It was 100-percent rare [in this industry]. Nobody did it and nobody dictated it until four years later when the state went [recreational use], which changed everything and got the attention of everyone.”
Scarpello’s intense and tall, mind and body always in motion, thinking ahead, planning for the unexpected, exactly how he seems to like it.
“Bob and I built the car on the highway. That’s who we are,” he explained. “One of my partners once said to me, “Why do you run this company with a shotgun approach?’ We’re not going by the book because there is no book. We’re writing it, so sometimes we take a left turn and sometimes a right turn. When you shoot with a rifle it’s more precise than with a shotgun.”
“I’m a conservative Christian, the guy going to church, so I must hate marijuana, right?” he said. “Not me, because I realize this is a gift from God when you use it properly. Genesis 1:11 says every food-bearing seed, every plant was from God and that it was good, so if you believe in the Bible it was good. It wasn’t Satan’s thing.”
The Making of Incredible Wellness
The newest line for the company is incredible Wellness, which features an opening salvo of “holistic medicinal cannabis” products that include eucalyptus- and lavender-scented bath salts, tinctures and vapes, and suppositories, each of which is available in regular- or high-CBD versions for both the medical and recreational markets. The Wellness line’s design is more medicinal-looking than the company’s other lines and would not be out of place in a drug store or doctor’s office.
“In Colorado, the Wellness line can only be sold in dispensaries, but yes, it is appropriate for doctors’ offices and clinics,” said Eschino. In Colorado, the same kitchen can make products for both the medicinal and adut-use markets only if it has licenses for each. CBD-only products must be made in another location, however. “We’ve got another kitchen in Colorado that makes CBD products, edibles, and tinctures, and those products are at chiropractors’ offices and head shops,” added Eschino. “We’re talking to doctors’ offices, but they really can’t do it and most of them don’t. We don’t want to sell online, and we don’t want to ship out of state, so everything is sourced and sold locally in Colorado.”
Eschino and his co-owners believe the Wellness line will be a large part of the company’s future. Upcoming products include Wellness tablets, pain sticks, lotions, bath fizz, mouth spray, and a topical patch. In truth, however, the line is neither a new idea nor a new project for incredibles, but something that has been in development from the beginning.
“The Wellness line is Derek’s baby,” said Eschino. “He uses those products to save his own life.”
And other people’s lives, according to Cumings. “It’s new, but the [Wellness] line has some of longest product testing of any because I was making salves and creams, bath balms, and sugar-free products for my first patients,” he said. “I was the first one using topically fifteen years ago.”
The sense of being first permeates the company’s ethos. “Some of those nuances that we have known about from the beginning have been a sharp learning curve for other people,” Cumings said.
That goes not only for their production processes, but also for the way they look at everything. “Within the industry, we’ve put together coalitions that include us, Wana Brands, Dixie Elixirs, Edipure, and Cheba Chews, all in one room,” said Scarpello. “We were the ones that came up with the idea that you should not have edibles in Colorado that look like a person, animal, or fruit. We were leading the charge. We labeled and marked each portion three years before it was required.”
