Living the Dream: Steve Lopez

We’ve really been focusing on safety and customer service in this time. Although we had no way to predict what is happening now, our emphasis on safety certainly helped prepare us. While a lot of companies had to take the time and resources to adjust their operating procedures and packaging protocols, we were ready.

In recent years we upgraded our packaging to minimize any human contact with our product and because of this preparedness, we were able to continue focusing on our retail experience, while also adding new safety measures inside each of our dispensaries. We’ve dedicated time and resources to customer service so that our customers would not only feel safe but would continue to have the best experience in the industry. As a matter of principle, we aim to treat our customers like family, and in this climate, we have seen a lot of growth through positive word of mouth, alone.

Fortunately, we have had no layoffs, and we continue to add to our team to keep up with the increased demand. We have heard from many patrons who had previously shopped at competitors’ dispensaries, which may have even been closer to where they live, but when COVID-19 hit, they switched to The Green Solution because our emphasis on safety resonated with them.

We are very lucky that our sales have remained strong. Early on, we saw that demand would lead to shortages, and we took steps to ensure that we would keep our shelves stocked. We have seen a large increase in edibles, which we attribute to new people trying cannabis, as well as people shifting away from smoking. We recently launched a new NectarBee sour gummy line, which has been a big hit.

Ensuring safety for our team and our customers meant new health and safety procedures at our grows, production facilities and our dispensaries. In addition to immediately enacting new safety protocols, we have continued to adjust our operations based on state mandates. At the same time, we were working at every level to meet an unprecedented growth in demand. There are no words for us to express how grateful we are for our incredible team. Wherever there was a need, they jumped into action to make The Green Solution shine. We also feel a stronger connection to our communities, and we have worked closely with the government agencies in Colorado to mitigate the spread of this virus.

We have implemented many new safety measures, such as working from home when possible, temperature checks at all of our facilities, additional personal protection equipment requirements and quarantining employees who may have been exposed to the virus. We have deep cleaned all our facilities where there was a suspected exposure, in addition to our increased cleaning standards. With more than 700 employees, we are happy to report that we have not had a positive test among our workforce.

This upcoming harvest season will be the largest outdoor harvest in our company’s 10-year history. We have 150 acres in Southern Colorado to harvest, so in addition to our large full-time team, we will be bringing on additional labor for the harvest. We also want to do it safely, so this will be unlike any harvest we’ve ever had in terms of distancing guidelines and other safety measures.