Meet our Processor, SunGold Botanicals

In The Lab With SunGold Botanicals

Many of the reasons why we work with SunGold Botanicals you’ll notice when you first step foot in the lab. Rather, before you even walk in, as you take in the serene farm land that surrounds it. There’s nothing industrial about the simple distillation system within; through the window, you can see the neighbor’s horses grazing nearby. The lab has a farm as well, all operated with care by owners Isaac Daniel and Josh Gulliver. It’s located in Philomath, Oregon, a rural part of the Corvallis area, a region with deep, proud agricultural roots, home to one of the first certified organic vegetable farms in the country.

Josh is the farmer, focusing on their 7.5-acre, certified biodynamic and organic farm, and Isaac is the maker, working in the lab to render their harvest of plants and herbs like arnica, echinacea, lavender, and hemp—both theirs and from farms like ours—into high-grade oils. The two-man show takes pride in a patient, hands-on approach to ensure the highest possible quality and the most organic, biodynamic processes.

Like all great weed-related origins stories, the founding of SunGold involves a Phish concert. Isaac visited Colorado for a show in 2018, at which point he and Josh worked together at Gathering Together Farm. Josh worked in the field, and Isaac managed a value-added goods program for the garden, making sauerkraut, kimchi, and salsa. During that visit, a friend working in hemp suggested Isaac do what he was doing with salsa for the farm, with hemp for himself. They saw the writing on the wall—the post-Farm Bill hemp cultivation wave was building steam, and there was a growing need for businesses that could process the raw material. There wasn’t yet a single organic-certified processor at this time in Oregon. They decided to go for it, opening SunGold in January 2019.

Josh and Isaac are intentional about every part of their operation, from the people and hemp they choose work with and the supply chain behind every gram of every ingredient that moves through the lab, to the way they process plants and herbs into oils and other products.

The Process

• Once our hemp crop has been harvested and cured, we bring the flower up from the farm to the lab.

• First, Isaac sorts through every pound, dividing it into several fine mesh bags and then drops them into freezing cold organic alcohol. Truly, really cold: -121 degrees Fahrenheit. Everything stays under -40 degrees throughout this process.

• This disrupts the cell walls in the plant material, releasing the good stuff (cannabinoids, terpenes, etc.). Isaac likes to let it sit overnight to really get all the fats and waxes. Then those bags are spun in a centrifuge to pull out the alcohol.

• The following day, he runs the goods through a superfine filter with holes just one micron wide, removing any last spore of pathogens that could grow bacteria or mold.

• Then comes the distillation step. The material goes into a rotary evaporator, a.k.a. rotovap, to remove every last bit of the alcohol. What’s left is a dense concentrate rich in all the cannabinoids, all the terpenes, and other phytonutrients like chlorophyll.

• It gets decarboxylated on a hot plate (activating those compounds so they can be felt as an edible or topically), and voila — full spectrum extract.

• After a round of tests of potency and purity, Isaac combines the extract with Organic MCT Oil to make our tinctures or with the other organic herbal extracts and oils to make our Body and Lip Balms. It’s tested once more before being packaged up and shipped out to fellow Gatherers.

What Makes SunGold Different

Although this sounds scientific (it is), Isaac at work is more like watching an experienced chef in the kitchen. His eye knows when it’s time to move to the next step, and he knows every inch of this lab that he built by hand. It’s all second nature for him. And yet, after all these years, and all these batches, he’s just an enthusiastic when a fresh drop of flower arrives.

On the average day, SunGold processes 30-60 pounds. A large scale, industrial lab can process one thousand pounds in a day. That volume forces lab techs to streamline their steps, adding in more automatic processes and removing hands-on moments. Typically more intense solvents are used to more quickly strip the plant material of the cannabinoids, sacrificing precious phytonutrients for the sake of speed.

Josh and Isaac don’t want to get any bigger for those reasons. This boutique scale is what allows them to put artisan levels of attention into every batch. Rather than a growth mindset, it’s about long-term sustainability—economically, socially, and environmentally. It's about continuing to run things the way they want to, with the same hands on every step of the process, for many years to come. That’s why we can’t imagine bringing our flower anywhere else.

Learn more about SunGold Botanicals.