How Berry Green Management Increased Sales by Over 50% after Switching to Canix

Case Study: How Berry Green Management Increased Sales by Over 50% after Switching to Canix

with Andrew Herfi, Facility Procurement Manager for Michigan

Overview

Berry Green Management is one of the nation’s premier Cannabis operators, with facilities across 4 states, and more on the way. Launching in Michigan in 2020,  they began with a modest product range, initially offering a line of 20 cartridges. Over time, the company expanded its offering to include concentrates, gummies, pre-rolls, flower, and many other innovative products, like medicated popcorn and cotton clouds. 

Berry Green produces top brands, such as MKX, a top 5 brand in terms of sales (source: Headset) and the company's MKX 200mg gummies have become one of Michigan's top-selling items. Over time, MKX has had to evolve its tools and workflows to keep up with rapid scale and increasing consumer demand. 

Specifically, upgrading their ERP system from Distru to Canix has helped to streamline operations and achieve significant improvements in production and order fulfillment. In the first year using Canix, MKX increased quarterly sales order volume by 47% and quarterly revenue by 53%, adding tens of millions in incremental new revenue to their business.

MKX Challenges and Canix Solutions

Operational Efficiency: 

Before implementing Canix, MKX averaged 3-4 day turnaround times on orders, mainly due to time-consuming, error-prone manual processes, negatively impacting overall efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Canix provided MKX with a comprehensive solution for managing cannabis operations, improving workflows across the business, including: 

1. Efficient Inventory Management: Canix automated the process of managing inventory, including splitting packages and managing non-cannabis inventory levels, significantly reducing manual input and errors.
2. Enhanced Compliance Management: Canix allows MKX to reduce their reliance on Metrc, improving workflows and reducing timeouts related to volume. Canix also provides advanced compliance reporting to ensure that MKX can quickly respond to regulatory inquiries and audits.
3. Efficient Data Compilation: Canix automated the process of compiling data from across teams, providing detailed dashboards for inventory, production runs, and sales, facilitating better communication and executive decision-making.
4. Platform and Support Consistency: With other platforms, there were infrastructure issues related to volume, including slow syncing and occasional system crashes. Combined with slow support response times, this led to delays in order fulfillment and ultimately, lost revenue. 

After switching to Canix, MKX reduced the average order processing time from 3-4 days to 1 day.

Return on Investment

MKX was able to directly attribute time and cost savings after switching to Canix, enabling increases in throughput and sales order volume, and playing a role in the company’s ongoing success. Here are a few specific examples: 

Order Fulfillment: The automated tag-splitting process saved 10-15 seconds per tag. For a 400-box order, this translates to approximately 67-100 minutes for every order on tag splitting alone. MKX handles hundreds of orders every month, translating to hundreds of hours saved monthly just on order fulfillment. 

Reporting Efficiency: The time spent compiling manual reports before was hard to calculate. Setting up spreadsheets, calling individuals, and manually entering data took various people hours every time that reports needed to be updated. 

Consistency at Scale: Along with the above workflow efficiencies, faster load times, accurate syncing, and reliable 100% platform uptime helped MKX to keep up with ever-increasing demand, leading to ~50% increases in orders and revenue since implementing Canix. 

Executive Visibility: 

MKX’s leadership team relies on a sophisticated set of information to make critical business decisions, such as identifying areas for improvement and cost-saving opportunities. 

Detailed inventory reports, production runs, and sales enable executives to make informed decisions quickly, and the ability to see detailed cost breakdowns allows leadership to adjust production strategies to increase profitability.

In the past, executives had to collect spreadsheets from different departments to then manually compile cost breakdowns and sales figures. The comprehensive reporting tools provided by Canix allow MKX executives to monitor and optimize every aspect of their operations in real time.   

ERP System Limitations: 

Before Canix, MKX used systems like Distru and another wholesale-focused platform, all of which had limitations:

One of these systems faced ongoing issues, frequent crashes, and slow response times from their support team, leading to significant delays in order fulfillment, which resulted in significant lost revenue for MKX. 

“I was told by Distru's Support that the estimated time was four hours or something absurd. I'm working on an order right now. It needs to go out the same day and I'm being told I have to wait hours to do this. So now this whole order is on hold, I have to push it to another day's pickup, and now I’ve got an angry customer.

The next system we tried was an improvement because wholesale activity was already there. There were some benefits from consolidation, but they also had problems. Long load times due to high volume, along with order manifesting issues, resulted in neglected accounts and delayed orders.

“Ultimately the reason we scrapped both tools was that they couldn’t keep up with us.”

Support

MKX transitioned to Canix to overcome the limitations of other systems, and to find a team more committed to making them successful. MKX communicated its operational issues and the Canix implementation team dove right it, fully understanding MKX's operations and adapting the platform to meet MKX's requirements. Canix visited MKX facilities to observe their processes firsthand, resulting in a collaborative approach that led to ongoing improvements and a forged strong partnership. 

“Canix continuously adapts and communicates effectively, ensuring timely communication and product updates. Unlike our previous providers, Canix’s support is always super responsive and the dedication to our success has been exceptional. They did make a change to their support model, doing away with the concept of having a dedicated customer success manager; we were initially skeptical about this. So far this has resulted in far better service, ensuring that every interaction is intentional, and somehow I talk to them even more often now.” 

Looking Forward

To date, improvements in order processing, inventory management, and reporting have positioned MKX for success in competitive markets, but they aren’t stopping there. As of this post, MKX utilizes roughly 75% of Canix’s manufacturing functionality, leaving additional room for improvement as they continue to improve workflows across the business. As we write this, MKX is implementing Canix’s new ‘scanning to sales orders’ functionality, which is expected to save an additional hour per order versus current workflows, or hundreds of hours every month.  

MKX plans to maintain its position as a leading cannabis operator by continuing to scale, increasing revenue and continuing to enhance their systems and processes. As they explore new markets and enhance product offerings, Canix will be there to support them with scalable workflows and robust business intelligence. 

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