Meet Big Tree Grading, the service bringing quality verification to Tamerlane Trading
By Allison Cohn
As a broker, Tamerlane CEO Jhavid Mohseni spent his time “out on the road, connecting buyers and suppliers.” His job was to personally quality verify the client’s material, in addition to connecting them with compatible business partners based on an intimate understanding of their needs, wants, specs and parameters. “I’d vouch for the material as a broker,” he says, “but, because I was also the one selling it, it seemed like a conflict of interest.”
THIRD PARTY QUALITY VERIFICATION
Mohseni quickly learned that quality verified material was not only desirable, but necessary in completing successful transactions. Quality verification eliminated problems before they even had an opportunity to arise. Tamerlane clients saw return rates drop by over 90% when dealing with quality verified product. It became obvious that Tamerlane needed to establish barriers so that the brokerage and the marketplace side of the industry remained separate from the quality verification element.
Mohseni founded Big Tree to address that need for a trusted, third party to conduct quality verification, and thus brought about the partnership between Tamerlane and Big Tree Grading.
“It’s really important to be a third party system, not within Tamerlane. The broker will always give you a grade of what they think of your product, but they’re also the person trying to sell it, so they’re not always necessarily impartial. Big Tree provides Tamerlane with that third party opinion. Big Tree is not incentivized by the product, so we provide a more fair assessment,” according to Big Tree CEO, Eric Cozens.
While Tamerlane is Big Tree’s largest client right now, Big Tree strives to implement grading in any and all cannabis supply chains interested. “We will come in with a common language, use it together and start tracking cannabis in the same way across the board,” says Cozens.
STANDARDS AND A COMMON LANGUAGE
Big Tree uses standards set in place by the ICHS Fair Market Certification (FMC), a thorough analyzation process that involves product classification, sampling, quantitative and qualitative inspection and analysis, quality verification and data collection. Big Tree sends their ICHS certified graders to perform on-site visual inspections of material in order to issue the product with a Fair Market Certificate of Grade.
The benefit of Big Tree’s grading system can be as simple as “increased efficiencies and decreased returns,” says Cozens.
Mohseni agrees, and adds, “The grading system increases efficiency, decreases returns by 90% and benefits buyers and suppliers by providing radical transparency that creates a high quality transaction. When buyers and suppliers know the quality and value of the product, it radically up levels how bulk cannabis is traded.”
By implementing this grading system, both Big Tree and Tamerlane are able to provide their clients with total transparency that stems from sharing a common language with which to quality verify their product, therefore standardizing cannabis and being able to accurately appraise its value according to market feedback. The quantitative and qualitative attributes that the grading process considers include details such as environment, process, product and lab/testing data; and quality attributes such as aroma, color, structure and trichomes, respectively. In acknowledging these specific features and providing cannabis with a tangible score or grade, both suppliers and buyers can confidently enter into a business transaction knowing they’re getting a fair price.
For Tamerlane, being able to offer third party quality verification is a unique selling point and adds infinite value for their clients. With quality verification comes standardization, allowing Tamerlane to more effectively meet the specifications of their clients.
HOW BIG TREE GRADING QUALITY VERIFICATION SERVICES BENEFIT TAMERLANE CUSTOMERS:
- Price transparency.
- Independent, 3rd party verification of product specifications and quality.
- 90% reduction in returns because product is matched to the buyer requirements more accurately.
- Suppliers understand their material on aspects such as market price, potential defects, product type and access to best practices that allow them to either save money or maximize profitability.
- Buyers and suppliers save time, energy and money otherwise spent managing a team and/or conducting individualized in-person assessments for every transaction.
- Creates trust and transparency between sellers and buyers, ensuring long term relationships, more consistent sales, larger orders and a solid foundation for healthy business transactions.
- Scales business for both suppliers and buyers by lubricating the supply chain with high fidelity transactions, leading to bigger, more consistent deals.
Before Big Tree implemented their grading system to standardize the language used to describe cannabis, there were many slang terms and descriptors being passed down by generations of growers. Big Tree wanted to level the playing field and utilize a language everyone can agree upon. With the help of Big Tree, Tamerlane is now able to “accurately and transparently let a buyer and/or supplier know exactly what the product is and the Fair Market price” for said product, according to Mohseni. Being able to provide buyers with info regarding the cannabis’ environment, process and product helps Tamerlane, as a broker, to give customers a more narrow range of a Fair Market price.
Mohseni compares buying quality verified cannabis to buying a house. You would never just take the word of the seller without having a trusted third party professional come out and take a look at the place. You want to be as well informed as possible regarding the product that you’re buying, knowing about all of the details and features before completing the transaction. Big Tree basically plays the role of that home inspector. Since they aren’t directly involved in the business transaction — but they’re most knowledgeable about the product being sold — you can trust them to disclose all of the information regarding the quality of said product. That third party will objectively tell you whether or not that product meets your needs and wants, and whether the price you’re paying is considered fair for the quality of the good.
Allison Cohn loves gold spray paint and nonsense. She also has a very difficult time sitting still and keeping quiet. She can often be found dancing like a fool when she isn’t hiding out in her mountain lair or gallivanting around the globe.