Company Innovation During COVID-19

Centuria Foods, Inc. was able to come out on top during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic because of its ability to adapt and act quickly to the new normal.

The company’s leadership quickly realized this virus was going to be a long term crisis that would result in short term revenue loss. Most clients were wanting to wait and see what was going to happen before moving forward with previously scheduled production. Centuria quickly identified this shifting trend and decided to help with the pandemic in any way it could.

“First thing we did was stay committed to our employees. We have an incredible team that we accrued over the years, it is that team combined with effectual leadership that makes our company what it is today,” Michael Brubeck, CEO of Centuria Foods, Inc. said.

A true testament to the team at Centuria is its ability to adapt quickly to market needs. The company quickly realized the need in the community for personal protective equipment and got FDA approval to use ethanol for the manufacturing of hand sanitizer. The hand sanitizer was given preference at no cost to essential businesses and workers through a contactless delivery.

“It forced our company to pivot from what we were comfortable doing, existing revenue channels that we’d spent the last decade developing, and do something entirely new, from ideation to distribution inside of 3 weeks,” said Michael.

Centuria was able to navigate its way through the pandemic without having to lay anyone off or cut down on anyone’s salaries. Employees who were able to be working from home were doing so weeks before the Governor mandated it. The company also immediately implemented unlimited sick time.

“We made sure there were no layoffs, no income adjustments, and every non-essential individual was immediately working from home as early as February,” Brubeck said.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic was nothing short of other crises he has had to deal with during his time in the CBD industry.

“This isn’t the first crisis I’ve been through during my 15 years in the cannabis space. This pandemic was no different than the Obama administration in 2011 doing a complete 180 on federal cannabis policy and impacting the lives of every employee that worked for affected companies,” Brubeck said.

Not only did Centuria avoid the wave of insolvencies that shuttered over 30% of CBD companies since March, Centuria added two key experts to their roster to help the company navigate its way through the pandemic. One key hire was another Ph.D. organic chemist to the Research and Development team to help expand its remediation services. Now, Centuria can entirely remove THC from CBD oils in volumes exceeding 1,000 liters per day.

Brubeck explained that having such a flexible and adaptable team was a key component to the company staying afloat at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The greatest asset we have is the recruitment and retainment of talented people on our staff from top to bottom, that everyone has adapted to fill in the gaps where they personally see they can add value. In doing so, it has actually allowed every member of the staff to step up and play a bigger role in the organization, resulting in a thriving company today,” Brubeck said.

The remediation of THC is a key component of product safety and many companies still lack the budget or expertise to do it. During the remediation process at Centuria, they are able to produce two different solutions: federally compliant, full-spectrum oils, and THC-free broad-spectrum oil. In the latest production runs, less than 1% of CBD has been lost during the process, which is a 15-22x improvement over competing technologies.

Certified USDA Organic products are also in increasingly high demand because they show traceability over the entire supply chain and eliminate places that can potentially introduce harmful adulterants. The company received organic certification under the National Organic Program of the USDA for its THC Remediation process earlier this year. At the moment, Centuria is the only company in North America that is able to offer this service at scale without identifiable losses in processing.

“We are confident that spending the last decade developing scalable technologies focused on certified-organic, THC free ingredients will serve the future of global cannabinoid markets,” Brubeck said.

Global Market Insights estimates¹ that the worldwide revenue from all CBD channels will exceed $89B, up from $2.8B in 2019. Brubeck foresees that almost all new revenue within the CBD industry will come from national retailers and brands in the US and abroad. The rate-limiting step within the global supply chain inside of the next 6 years will the removal of THC for regulatory compliance and liability protection in every country these products are sold.

Nevada Laboratories and Analytics, Inc. Centuria’s wholly-owned subsidiary is Oregon Tilth certified.

Centuria Foods, Inc.

4022 Technology Way

Carson City, Nevada 89706

Media Contact

Shelby Reilly-Alldred

+1: 833-213-4110

info@centuriafoods.com

About Centuria Foods

Centuria Foods, Inc. has been a North American leader in hemp ingredient manufacturing since 2014. As a vertically integrated company, Centuria offers client-tailored hemp ingredients out of an NSF-certified manufacturing facility. Centuria’s team of cannabis experts and research scientists a broad range of in-house services to some of the world’s leading hemp producers and consumer brands, including research and development, advisory, formulation, custom blending, logistics, graphic design, warehousing and fulfillment, and THC remediation. For more information visit https://centuriafoods.com/remediation

Centuria proudly maintains a cGMP Compliant and an FDA Registered facility in Carson City, Nevada.

Related Links

Centuria Website

SOURCE Centuria