The California Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC) this week identified 29 separate companies that have been told to recall marijuana products after Sacramento-based Sequoia Analytical Labs’ said its former lab director falsified pesticide test results.
The BCC also released a list of 848 product batches that were tested by Sequoia after June 30 and may be subject to the recall.
The list of affected products are wide-ranging – including flower, pre-rolls, hash and various extracts – and could potentially affect up to 60 marijuana cultivators and product makers that had sent their products to Sequoia, many via distributors.
The companies that may be the hardest hit:
- BSeen Distribution, which had 208 product batches tested by Sequoia.
- Connected Management, another distributor that had 200 product batches tested by Sequoia.
Both companies are based in Sacramento.
Lauren Fraser at the Cannabis Distribution Association said that with so many product batches in question, the value of all of those goods could be in the ten-figure range, given that a single batch of flower can be up to 50 pounds.
“Easily tens of millions of dollars. Could be more,” Fraser said when asked to estimate the value of 848 product batches.
But what isn’t clear is how many of those products are being recalled and perhaps retested and then sent back to market, said Alex Traverso, spokesman for the BCC.
“It’s really tough to determine if the distributors that were impacted were able to get product back, and if they did get it back, what portion was retested or potentially destroyed,” Traverso said, noting that MJ lab certificates of analysis are confidential.
BSeen Distribution CEO Tom Fortunato said that all of the affected vendors that his company works with have been notified of the recall and have also already been approved by the BCC to get their products retested by other labs.
Now, he said, it’s a decision for those vendors as to whether they want to pay for additional testing to get those products back to retailers.
“We work with a lot of vendors here, both big box and artisan type. And this has been pretty painful for some of our smaller vendors,” Fortunato said, adding that the recall process is still ongoing.
