The pre-rolled cone is about as simple as a product gets. They are not much more than rolled paper and a bit of glue.
While they aren’t as complicated as an electronic cannabis product like a disposable vape, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of nuance to understand about how custom pre-rolled cones are made, tested and distributed throughout the country. And while they may seem generally similar, not all cones are created equal.
If you are looking to purchase custom-pre-rolled cones wholesale, you will want to understand these nuances so that you can avoid losing money and customers on low-quality products and avoid supply chain issues and suppliers that don’t properly test their products.
To get a better idea of what separates high-quality pre-rolled cones from the rest, take a look at this guide to the nuances that make these products more complicated than they seem.
Understanding Your Pre-rolled Cones
As a business owner, one of your primary concerns is sourcing your pre-rolled cones from a supplier that offers both quality products and great prices. While you should keep that in mind when seeking a pre-rolled cone supplier, there is a lot more to these products that can make them worth your precious time and hard-earned money.
Take a look at some of the key elements that go beyond price point — from raw materials and testing to how the final product gets to your doorstep.
Tracing the Process
When you are looking for high-quality, trustworthy products to offer your customers, you want to be able to track their production back to their foundational elements.
While the foundational elements of a pre-rolled cone are simple, a lot can go on in the course of the product’s creation that can cause significant problems for you and your business, including unsafe products and compliance issues.
For this reason, you want to work with a supplier that can trace the entire process of cone production from the raw material used to create them to the product you are offering your customers.
With the fractured nature of the cannabis industry and the wide range of laws and regulations from state to state, you might be surprised to find that many suppliers are not capable of this.
All paper from Hara pre-rolled cones is sourced from OCB, a rolling paper company that has been in operation for over 100 years and offers production specification sheets that trace the creation of its products in their entirety.
OCB’s production facilities are qualified for both ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 and are good manufacturing practice (GMP) certified.
Testing Limits by State
One of the more complicated issues that arise when sourcing pre-rolled cones is that regulations vary widely from state to state. One state may be far more lax than another when it comes to pre-rolled cone testing limits, which can either restrict your supplier options or open them up considerably.
Another question to ask yourself as a business owner is just because your state has looser regulations on pre-rolled cone testing, does that mean you should offer products that might be considered dangerous by another state’s standards?
This is a complex topic that can’t be fully covered in this guide, but taking in the basics can go a long way toward helping you choose the right supplier.
What Does Pre-Rolled Cone Testing Look For?
Regulations around pre-rolled cones largely involve levels of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and arsenic, which can be present in the product.
Acceptable levels of these compounds can vary from state to state, and they are subject to change in any state at any time. This can make sourcing your pre-rolled cones a complicated and confusing process.
Knowing what your state regulations have to say about the content of your pre-rolled cones is crucial, but things can be made a bit simpler if you source your products from a supplier that holds its pre-rolled cones to the highest standards.
You want your supplier to test not only for heavy metals but also pesticides, residual solvents and mycotoxins as well.
Supply Chain Constraints
In the past several years, worldwide supply chain issues have caused shortages or disruptions in just about every industry. There is always a chance that supply chains can run into issues, but the reduced production, spiking demands and surging prices have caused issues that are still being felt.
Combining those issues with already tricky testing restrictions has made for some disruption along the pre-rolled cone supply chain.
Not many suppliers can source their products with the necessary testing restrictions, and with fluctuating costs on the raw materials used in pre-rolled cones, this can lead to some unpleasant price points and product shortages for many business owners.
These issues shouldn’t persuade you to opt for low-quality, potentially unsafe products. That’s a short-term solution that can be detrimental to your business in the long term. You still want to source your pre-rolled cones from reputable suppliers with compliant products that can be traced back to their raw materials.
Source Location and Timelines
The location you are sourcing your products from and the timelines of delivery for those products will always be a major consideration when choosing a supplier, but these things can make or break or business.
The world political climate is fraught, with war and heightened tensions across multiple continents impacting the daily lives of both consumers and businesses in myriad ways. From the perspective of a business owner, one of the most significant of those impacts comes from supply chain disruptions.
For instance, attacks on tankers and cargo ships in the Red Sea in recent weeks have impacted shipping in ways that some experts consider more significant than the impact of supply chain shortages and disruptions.
If you want to ensure that your business does not fall victim to these supply chain disruptions, you need to know where your products are sourced from so that you can plan and buy what you need to withstand any temporary obstacles.
Bringing It All Together
After tackling this guide, it is probably evident how much more complicated the seemingly simple pre-rolled cone is in terms of production, compliance and distribution.
In reality, the global nature of the industry today has made it so that nearly every product you offer your customers has a long and complex story behind it, and that story is crucial for you to know as a business owner.
If you want to continue offering your customers safe, high-quality, compliant products, make sure you can trace the production of your pre-rolled cones down to the fibers they are composed of.
This knowledge will help you stay on top of the shifting regulations regarding these products and be fully aware of both the micro and macro aspects of the supply chain that brings them to your doorstep.