Member Spotlight: Metrc
About Metrc
David Urbanowicz
Metrc, Metrc.com
David Urbanowicz is Vice President of External Affairs and Business Development for Metrc, which provides cannabis regulatory systems for 20 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.
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Tell us about your company
Metrc (pronounced “Metric”) is the leading provider of track-and-trace technology, which helps states regulate cannabis industry operations. We started in the early 1990s, initially looking at the ways technology could help extend the life and utility of fresh food, with the goal of helping to eliminate food waste.
The technology that was developed during those efforts came into use when the state of Colorado was getting ready to launch its legal cannabis industry and approached us for help developing a regulatory system to ensure the security and safety of the marketplace. We spent two years working with Colorado to create a system to track a variety of information that is transparent and can be easily accessed by state regulators. We’ve since expanded to 20 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.
What role does your company play in the cannabis industry? We are ultimately a regulatory system providing real-time information to state governments about their cannabis industries. For each state in which we operate, we have a centralized database of every single plant and product in the legal marketplace, as well as all the information related to it such as where it came from, where it’s going, who handled it along the way, results from independent testing labs, and other information critical to a well-regulated marketplace, including information on where it was ultimately sold and for how much.
Every business throughout the supply chain reports into the same database – the one we provide – and regulators can see that information in real time and act on it immediately, if necessary. Our goal is to help both regulators and businesses keep the market safe and secure, because seed-to-sale traceability helps ensure product and consumer safety.
David Urbanowicz, Metrc
David Urbanowicz is Vice President of External Affairs and Business Development for Metrc, which provides cannabis regulatory systems for 20 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.
What sort of information does Metrc track?
To be as useful as possible, the information we track has to be very granular: what seeds are used, how they grow, when a plant gets cut, etc. In the event of an issue, this allows the system to pinpoint the affected products that need to be pulled from the market, rather than issue a major blanket recall.
The system also has safeguards built in, so if a product fails tests at any step of the process, it cannot continue moving through the supply chain until the issue is addressed. So, businesses are in essence automatically compliant because the system won’t let them act on something if there is an issue.
Another huge focus for partner states that Metrc helps with is tax collection. Because the system tracks all sale information, state departments of revenue can look directly at that data and reconcile it with a business’ tax receipts.
What excites you about the cannabis industry?
Solving complex problems like this is exciting for a brand-new industry, with a huge learning curve. The cannabis industry is at the forefront of supply chain transparency, in large part because of systems like ours. Most industries – even other highly regulated ones – don’t have this level of real-time data and tracking, so it’s an innovative system with potential implications for other markets as well.
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