What happens when you combine a fourth-generation family business, a century of engineering excellence, a 10,000-year-old medical plant, and an industry worth billions?
The answer: a precision standard for cannabis biomass milling, with optimized and proven methods from one of the world’s oldest and most respected laboratory mill manufacturers. By ensuring far greater product integrity and consistency than current analytical and processing methods, FRITSCH’s tools enable extractors and manufacturers to create increased yields and ROIs for their business while delivering higher-quality, premium products for the rapidly growing market of medical cannabis patients and consumers.
“We approach the cannabis industry with the same scientific precision we bring to every other industry we serve,” says Melissa J. Fauth, President & CEO, Fritsch U.S. “Our professional tools and instruments bring cannabis processing out of the greenhouse and onto the cutting edge of the modern laboratory and production suite. FRITSCH’s instruments achieve both qualitative and quantitative leaps forward by providing precision control and parameter fine-tuning for particle size control in plant processing pipelines. Here’s how this new vision of the industry’s future will change the way medical cannabis is processed, both in the US and around the globe.
"FRITSCH is one of the leading manufacturers of application-oriented laboratory instruments worldwide for particle sizing and sample preparation,” says Josh Crossney, CEO and founder of Cannabis Science Events. “They are a Founding Sponsor of the Cannabis Science Conference, and together we are partners with a shared vision to improve laboratory testing.”
“When I first started in this industry,” Crossney says, “cannabis QC and research labs did not fully understand the importance of milling nor homogeneous samples. Melissa Fauth and others at FRITSCH have worked tirelessly to educate these labs through presentations, exhibitions and even demonstrations at our Canna Boot Camps. Together we have advanced cannabis science and improved lab testing. “
For more than five years, beginning in North America, FRITSCH has collaborated with and provided precision cannabis milling equipment to companies throughout the world. Their PULVERISETTE line of cutting mills are specifically optimized for biomass processing, utilizing cutting chambers, knives, and airflow with specialized geometries, designed to mitigate heat and physical stress on plant samples while maintaining the chemical profile. Unlike conventional grinders and shredders, FRITSCH mills provide laboratory precision in particle size uniformity, making these systems ideal for high-quality commercial cannabis production.
“Our foundation and values come from a family business culture established through long term partnership,” says Fauth. “That enables us to deliver individually configured instruments and application support from a single source — while offering a personal guarantee of the quality of every product and service we provide to our partners and collaborators. “A true milling operation with precision cutting is far superior,” says Thomas Rosengren, director of extraction and production at Flower One Holdings. “It maximizes yields of the components we most care about targeting and preserves the integrity of the key actives — flavonoids, cannabinoids, and terpenes — which are located primarily in the trichomes. These chemical compounds give the plant its unique features and effects.”
Additionally, Thomas points out that historic grinding of biomass to reach fine particles is a common and unfortunate occurrence in the extraction process. It exerts mechanical forces that destroy and oxidize the most valuable portions of the plant. Grinding and shearing introduce degradation of the fragile trichomes, as well as rupture of the cellular structure, immediately diminishing the API’s availability in the finished product.
“The secondary challenge with these methods,” Thomas added, “is that byproducts and contaminants are created, setting the stage for increased extraction yield of these undesirable components – demanding additional refinement and cost burden to produce high-quality extracts.”
Thomas emphasizes the importance of choosing carefully when building an advanced manufacturing process. “Working with technology partners such as FRITSCH who optimize instruments focused on the experience for other highly regulated industries, has proven invaluable.” The level and diversity of technology, plus the sophistication of the Flower One’s flagship extraction facility in Nevada, has created a natural collaboration for advancing the development stages of process control and automation for milling. “Handling and demands of manufacturing, especially for processing thousands of pounds of sizeable meristem colas, provides the unique opportunity to institute new controls in the continual drive for process excellence,” Thomas explains. Melissa Fauth added, “In working with Flower One and understanding their needs for growth and operational control, we engaged with them to participate in our process expansion project for material handling, monitoring, and conveyance through our partnership with Sample Automation, LLC, and engineering specialist Andrew Winson.”
FRITSCH’s and Sample Automation’s work with Thomas are focused on Flower One’s desire to achieve continuous improvement on quality production and workflow automation, thereby reducing or eliminating specific touchpoints, the potential for degradation, or loss of yields. To that end, the Flower One team has enjoyed the process of prototype testing, system upgrades, and modifications to handle this coveted feedstock morphology.
FRITSCH continues to manufacture precision milling systems and particle analyzers for a wide range of industries, including food, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, industrial materials, and nanotechnology — along with aerospace, energy, 3D printing, and high-tech additives where particles size is of critical importance.
FRITSCH’s laboratory instruments have helped transform industry perception where quality analysis and production have increased focus on evolving regulatory oversight. FRITSCH Mills, optimized to meet the challenges of cannabis’ physical properties, deliver consistent, reproducible and homogeneous particle size using a range of good laboratory practice (GLP) and good manufacturing practice (GMP) principles — precisely the same principles utilized in the design of commercial equipment for leading pharmaceutical and industrial companies where SOP oriented operation is required.
This revolutionary line of mills and analyzers bring an unprecedented degree of control and precision to the cannabis processing industry. In sharp contrast to traditional tools like trimmers, blenders, and sifting screens, FRITSCH’s milling and sizing systems were engineered for professional laboratory and specialty process applications. These instruments deliver the same standards and level of accuracy, consistency, and product integrity as leading pharmaceutical manufacturing pipelines, where process repeatability and product uniformity are paramount.
FRITSCH’s precision milling processes yield pharmaceutical-grade material for premium extracts, pre-rolls, and homogenized isolates. The company’s high-throughput mills enable processors to increase the turnover rate of each mill in the processing line, while simultaneously fitting more plant material into the extractor column. Furthermore, the instruments’ stainless-steel surfaces are designed to minimize heat and stickiness while remaining easy to clean between each batch.
These performance enhancements combine to deliver significant time savings and operational cost reduction — ensuring greater batch consistency, as well as batch-to-batch reproducibility. At the same time, FRITSCH’s instruments help improve extraction yield and quality, regardless of whether the processor chooses to grind plant material coarsely or finely.
All these benefits make the consistency of the final product easy to validate. This tight degree of control helps collectives optimize the efficiency of each extraction, and maximize the caliber of every product that emerges from their processing pipelines.
Because FRITSCH milling products are continuous milling systems — as opposed to closed-batch systems like blenders or wire trimmers — they exert no heat load on cannabis material, effectively preserving all cannabinoids and terpenes. These findings come from Dr. Markus Roggen’s laboratory, Complex Biotech Discovery Ventures, Ltd. — an independent research laboratory focused on cannabis process optimization. Roggen’s research has shown that milling dried cannabis in preparation for extraction does not lead to cannabinoid degradation or terpene loss when using the FRITSCH Universal Cutting Mill PULVERISETTE 19.
FRITSCH laboratory mills deliver average grinding speeds of 0.5-2 kg on average, of dried flowers per minute — though individual performance may vary based on moisture content, nature of starting material, feeding method, and desired final particle size. This represents a significant improvement over the limited throughput of traditional cannabis milling methods, both in terms of instrument turnover time and in terms of capacity per batch. In crucial moments between batches, all FRITSCH devices are designed to be easy to clean, saving valuable reconfiguration time. All product cutting surfaces are composed of stainless steel, which prevents plant matter from sticking. Additionally, cutting chambers open up completely to allow easy access to all areas, enabling full sweep-outs to be completed in a matter of seconds. “The particle size and shape of the raw material has an important effect on cannabis extraction efficiency,” Roggen says. “This fact is commonly overlooked by the industry. Our research has shown that small and consistent particle size increases the extraction speed and precision in supercritical CO2 instruments. Additionally, those small particles also packed denser into the extractor column, giving a larger load capacity for each run. With other common milling techniques, we were not able to match those efficiencies.”