Union Electric has partnered with leading greenhouse growers to provide premium cannabis at affordable prices.
Ever wonder where to get the best buds without breaking the bank? Since Union Electric started The Flower Express, it’s never been easier to get more for less—and their newest partnership with Natura Life + Science has taken things to another level by making these stellar strains available at a dispensary near you.
While it’s paramount we point out their low prices, it’s never really been about the capital, it’s always been about quality
Natura is nothing if not unique. Be it the way it came to be, its honed-in, state-of-the-art processes or the products it puts out, this company has kicked off a new California collab lab that’s ready to move the whole cannabis community forward.
Their CEO, Ori Bytton, has a dream that’s driven the project, and to this day it’s the main tenet they adhere to: To help fulfill the dreams of others through cannabis. Before he realized that Natura was the answer to many of the industry’s issues, he was going about helping those looking to get their footing in the cannabis space a different way.
He started purchasing warehouse properties across Sacramento in 2016, and spent time getting them up to code and making them compliant before selling them to those looking to bring their cannabis creations to life. But instead of seeing these companies take off and take over, they went under one by one, and he started to notice a trend.
If there’s one thing you’ll hear from anyone with enough experience in the industry, it’s that you can't go it alone. When you think about the amount of regulation and compliance between cultivating, packaging, and tracking for all of the different products, and then put on top of that the marketing and sales of such highly-regulated manufactured goods, you’ll quickly see that it’s simply too much for any one company to take on.
There are a lot of brands, both big and small, with huge potential that can't get the operational needs of their business off the ground, or sustain them in a way that’ll allow them to be successful long term. In fact, many already successful brands that are staples at dispensaries across the state are realizing they can equally use Natura’s help as they start to scale.
“A sort of, “If you build it, they will come,” Mecca of marijuana that’s putting out premium product and eschewing all of the accolades.”
This realization of the ever-growing need to help brands “stay in their lane” while a crew of industry vets handle the operational side of things led Ori to create Natura. A sort of, “If you build it, they will come,” Mecca of marijuana that’s putting out premium product and eschewing all of the accolades. Natura’s behind-the-scenes mentality provides brands the ability to shed all of the cumbersome aspects of taking their products from seed to sale, be it a gummy or gram of flower, and allow them to concentrate on what they know best. Which is what products work for their brand, how to market them, which dispensaries they should be in, etc., all the while knowing their products will meet their standards and be delivered on time again and again.
Ori knew that in order to reinvent the game, he had to do something revolutionary. It’s almost unheard of to have a facility with the functionality of theirs, but to know that it was created with the sole purpose of helping others launch in the space is truly a new, and welcomed, concept. By allowing brands like Union Electric to realize their dreams and excel in everything they set out to do, they ensure that everyone along the way benefits. Be it a company killing it with Natura’s support or consumers getting the best possible product, the whole community is better thanks to their mission. Which is why it’s crucial that brands like Union Electric continue to leverage Natura and bring top-shelf flower to consumers at a price that’s damn near unheard of, that is without buying enough bulk to smoke out your whole block.
But all of this isn't to say Natura was fully realized and ready to go from day one. As Josh, their VP of Business Development, Seth, VP of Sales and anyone on site will tell you, they’re a startup through and through, and they’re dealing with the same hiccups as anyone else. But when they have to put out fires, they’re doing so with the equivalent of a team of firefighters that’s seen it all, not a brigade that’s just getting going.
And while they at times present themselves as ducks on a pond, what you see when you enter their property is a site as pristine and placid as a Bob Ross painting. Their feet are surely churning below the surface, but you’d never know it. Their team of seasoned vets just make rolling with the punches less painful. And while everyone excels in their own areas, be it their cultivation team or the on-site construction crew that’s helped build everything from their greenhouses to their pneumatic Dutch pallet systems, it’s taken time for everyone to gel.
To ensure everyone got in the groove as quickly as possible, Ori and the rest of the executive team have been in the trenches everyday keeping everything running smoothly. Just as importantly, they’re looking at how things can be improved. They believed in their abilities so much they filled their greenhouses with clones before their trim room was even completed, and they didn’t miss a beat when it came time to harvest. They wear many hats so budding brands don’t have to, and companies like Union Electric take care of everything else to ensure all you have to think about is whether you want to smoke their primo product out of a bowl, bong or blunt.
The fruits of all of this labor? To move away from the product and put it in numbers, what they’ve done in the amount of time they have seems otherworldly. Their in-house crew has put up 17 total greenhouses, with fifteen designated to flowering and two to veg, 104 tables in each and 42 plants per table. Meaning at any given time they have around 70k plants growing in state-of-the-art, hybrid-indoor environments.
Each fully-contained greenhouse operates under positive-pressure with 300 LEDs per 10k sq ft and fully automated temperature and watering controls. To our knowledge, no other operation has that many lights per square foot. Best of all, while their plants benefit from every aspect of an indoor grow, they’re also kissed by the sun to maximize everything from terpene profile and THC percentage to nose and bag appeal, ensuring you get the full expression of each strain every single time. And things can stop there if brands wish to just buy flower, but they have the capacity on site to make everything from gluten free and vegan edibles to solventless concentrates.
And while it isn’t yet completed, they’re also creating a Hall of Flowers style showroom for the brands they represent to be able to showcase their products in a high-grade home away from home. They can bring buyers in, show them their product line, and then walk them through the manufacturing process of those products, all on the same site. Any potential or existing brand partner can walk the length of their mezzanine, peering into room after room from above as the skilled and passionate team members take their product from seed to finished product, be it bud, chocolate bars or bubble hash. It’s like you’re living a “How It’s Made” episode in real time, and you can’t help but feel like a kid in a candy store you never thought would exist.
It’s the opposite of white labeling, and the future that couldn’t come soon enough. Whether they’re watching their Head Chef create their cannabis-infused confections or being captivated by volatile concentrate extraction, minds will be blown, and everything is shown. All of these extra steps provide merit, trust and reputation brands really need, and have a hard time establishing on their own. It’s amazing to think they pulled off creating even one of these sites, but this is their first of many, and they only plan to get bigger, better, bolder, and eventually, global.
“Natura offers brands the ability to take whatever they can think up to market.”
But this isn't to say that they want to make cookie-cutter products in a rinse-and-repeat fashion that’ll make all of California's products seem uniform and dull. Natura offers brands the ability to take whatever they can think up to market. Be it edibles with varying cannabinoid ratios and trippy packaging unique to the brand, hash-infused pre-rolls or various forms of concentrates, they can do it all, and do it right, entirely on site.
Seems too good to be true? How can they pull all of this off you might be wondering? It all circles back to their dedicated team of industry heavyweights, and the countless years of collective experience between them. Their leadership team has done everything from stand up and run Eaze depots to create the first iteration of diamond concentrates, and their other crews have added over 200 members in the past six months, with plans to add 200 more over the same period of time. It might be obvious that an operation like this couldn’t happen without such a team, but it also took a glaring need from the industry.
They currently have around 20 brand partners with more on the way, and they haven’t had to seek out a single one. From leading brands to those looking to put out their first product, they’re careful with choosing clientele to ensure they’re complementing instead of cannibalizing each other.
This is why Union Electric fits into their system perfectly, and why Natura believes in them as much as they do Natura. They cater to both experienced and inexperienced cannabis users, giving the average person who has never purchased cannabis before, or even walked into a dispensary, the same top-tier product that someone with all of the connections in the world can get. And if that isn’t a collaboration worth celebrating and getting behind, we don’t know what is.
It would be one thing for Natura to simply create a functioning platform to launch brands, but the fact that they spared no expense and took out all of the stops to make it top of the line is something to behold. Beyond that, getting the best expression out of every plant is one thing (and it aint easy), but to put a key emphasis on freshness on top of it means there isn’t another brand of their size doing what they can do. No matter how you run your grow operation, be it indoor, outdoor or a hybrid greenhouse, flower is only fresh for so long.
When people buy a bag or a jar, they’re looking at the date of harvest and date of packaging, and it’s unfortunate how long many products sit on the shelf at dispensaries. Or even worse, how long it takes some to even get there.
Natura gives brands like Union Electric a window of 24-36 days from harvest to pick up their product, ensuring it’s as fresh as possible so the strain retains its true representation when it reaches consumers. When you buy a product past its prime, you’re consuming something that isn’t indicative of the experience you should be having, but with anything you get from Union Electric and Natura, you’ll never encounter that issue.
“Union Electric and Natura have helped pave the way to easily-attainable high grade every single day. ”
It’s like drinking flat soda your whole life, and then someone hands you a crisp, cool liter of Mexican Coke and your head explodes. That’s the type of product you should expect from Natura, and the type of experience Union Electric promises to deliver time after time. Check in regularly to stay on top of the newest strains, and you’ll quickly see why this is the type of cannabis collaboration we should all be supporting.
Getting great weed doesn't require a boutique experience with red ropes, bespoke budtenders and increasingly confusing terminology. Back in the day, you got that one magical bag a year that stood out in the illicit market, and now you're often made to feel that you have to pay a ton for the privilege, but those days are over. Union Electric and Natura have helped pave the way to easily-attainable high grade every single day.
This article was created in partnership with Union Electric. Photos by Skyler Greene.