New York Cannabis business will need to implement costly seed-to-sale tracking system in two months
New York Cannabis Licensees Face Challenges in Implementing Seed-to-Sale Tracking Systems.
New York’s legal cannabis operators have about two months to stand up seed-to-sale tracking systems, but regulators haven’t provided much clarity or instruction, some licensees have told NY Cannabis Insider.
In late-2022, the Office of Cannabis Management selected BioTrack as the state’s seed-to-sale software. Last week, cultivators, processors and retailers received emails from the OCM telling licensees they must implement either BioTrack’s software or a different seed-to-sale tracking system that can integrate with BioTrack.
But the process of setting up and implementing such a system is expensive and time consuming, said Joann Kudrewicz, CEO of cultivation company Ravens View Genetics and chair of the Cannabis Association of New York’s Cultivation Committee. Not to mention the fact that New York regulators have yet to launch the state-specific tracking software into which licensees are required to integrate their tracking data.
“It’s not an easy lift, it requires time and resources,” said Kudrewicz, whose company has been using a generic version of BioTrack for about a year and a half.
Regulators entered into a five-year contract with BioTrack for just under $1.2 million in December of 2022. BioTrack, owned by Pennsylvania software company Forian Inc., provides seed-to-sale software tracking for 10 states, including New York, Forian CEO Dan Barton told NY Cannabis Insider early last year.
The OCM told NY Cannabis Insider that they’d told adult-use and medical cannabis licensees that they would have to implement inventory tracking and/or point-of-sale systems that interface with the state’s BioTrack system via an automated program interface (API).
OCM officials emailed licensees last week, notifying them that regulators planned on launching the BioTrack API – which will allow them to input data into the system – on March 1. Licensees then have until April 29 to purchase software that can integrate with the state’s BioTrack system.
“BioTrack has communicated to OCM that they expect the API to be available in March of 2024,” an OCM spokesperson told NY Cannabis Insider last week. “Once OCM makes that API available to licensees, they have 60 days to procure an inventory tracking system that is capable of working with BioTrack.”
Before New York contracted with BioTrack, Kudrewicz predicted regulators would select this company as the state’s seed-to-sale software vendor, and implemented the system into her own company’s operations. But she sure how similar the New York-specific API will be to the version she’s been using.
“I don’t know how much ahead of the curve I even am,” Kudrewicz said.
Under the system, cannabis business licensees at all levels – from cultivation to retail – will have to input data about the products they’re growing, buying and selling, which all goes into a unified data tracking system.
If a cultivation facility buys 1,000 seeds, workers there have to enter that into the BioTrack system, and the bag of seeds will receive a 16-digit identifier.
If that facility plants 200 seeds from the bag, each of those 200 seeds have to be entered in, and receive their own 16-digit tag. From there, a new identification code is created each time the product is broken down (i.e. the total harvest from one plant would get a code, but if it’s broken down into 16 separate ounces, each one-ounce portion would receive its own unique code).
The system creates a chain of custody that enables regulators to track the source of compliance or quality issues.
Brittany Carbone, co-founder of cultivation/processing company Tricolla Farms, said her company decided against buying the BioTrack software – which Kudrewicz said costs over $500 per month – and instead opted for seed-to-sale software by Flourish, which can integrate with BioTrack’s software.
Between filling orders with retailers in operation, talking to dispensaries that are getting ready to open, and planning for the next grow season, there’s little time to spare for cultivators and processors right now, Carbone said. But she and other staff had to spend hours on the phone with Flourish’s customer service to figure out how to set it up correctly.
“It’s been a very long process of getting everything transferred from our spreadsheets into the platform,” Carbone said. “It’s not very straightforward, where you just input the data – it’s not as simple of a process as I would have liked.”
It will probably cost around $20,000 per year to remain compliant with the tracking system, and that’s after the headache of integrating with the New York-specific version of BioTrack once regulators release it, Carbone said. She added that much of the data required is redundant for processors, because they are required to pass Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) audits, which require a lot of the same information as the seed-to-sale system.
But despite the logistical challenges, Carbone said, it shouldn’t come as a shock to any licensee that they have to stand up a seed-to-sale tracking system that interfaces with the state’s.
“We all knew this was coming,” Carbone said. “A lot of people have already implemented some version of these systems, it’s not a surprise to anyone.”
Retailers will have to sync their point-of-sale systems with New York’s BioTrack system, but Korey Rowe, owner of DOSHA Farms dispensary in Oneonta, said he hasn’t been able to do that yet.
Like all dispensaries licensed under the state’s Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary program, DOSHA Farms uses a Dutchie POS system. When Rowe reached out to Dutchie to figure out how he could integrate the store’s POS system with BioTrack, they told him it wasn’t possible, since the state hadn’t yet launched the New York-specific API.
Rowe also received the OCM email notifying licensees that they have to integrate with the BioTrack system within 60 days of launch, but for now he’s taking a wait-and-see approach. And while he plans on doing whatever is necessary to get in compliance with BioTrack as soon as he’s able, Rowe expressed frustration with the strict tracking of weed products, when the state doesn’t appear to monitor alcohol nearly as closely.
“There’s no BioTrack for beer; there’s no seed-to-sale for where the hop comes from all the way to where the person drinks it, and then crashes their car into somebody,” Rowe said. “It’s just another double standard for cannabis in New York.”
