As American farmers exponentially increase the acreage dedicated to hemp, many are turning to toll processing companies, such as Wisconsin-based Sunny Skies CBD, to refine their crops into extracts such as isolate or distillate.
Rather than collecting a fee for the processing, Sunny Skies splits the refined product with the farmer. Sunny Skies keeps 60% of the finished product and the customer receives 40%. CEO Ben Rippley says it’s a way for farmers to increase the value of their material, while also increasing the number of channels in which to sell CBD.
“For some growers, processing their hemp to distillate and formulated into tinctures was their plan from the beginning,” Sunny Skies CEO Ben Rippley says. “Others have struggled to find a buyer for their biomass and turn to toll processing as a Plan B. Those growers are relieved to find a processor that is not charging a fee for extraction, distillation and tincture formulation, as most are cash-poor after investing in their harvest.”
Rippley says the company has seen biomass with a wide range of CBD percentages, from a low of about 6% to the company’s own Hawaiian Haze, which tested out at 21% CBD.
— Greg James and Garrett Rudolph