By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
Deep Roots Harvest recently celebrated the sixth anniversary of operations in the City of Mesquite. Opening its doors on Oct. 22, 2016, the local facility was the company’s first location. Since that time, Deep Roots has become one of Mesquite’s fastest growing businesses.
“Just this year, we have hit over a million sales in Mesquite since we have opened,” said Deep Roots COO Jon Marshall in an interview with The Progress. “So that is pretty exciting for us.”
Located on the west side of Mesquite, the Deep Roots store has quickly become a favorite of locals as well as tourists traveling through the area. Today, the Mesquite location is one of six total Deep Roots Harvest cannabis dispensaries, including three Las Vegas locations as well as dispensaries in Reno and West Wendover.
In addition to sales, the Mesquite property also includes cultivation and production facilities. That makes it something of a flagship for the company and a landmark in the industry. In Mesquite, the company takes the product from initial cultivation of plants, through various phases of production all the way to world-class final products on the retail sales floor – all on the same campus.
The company has built its grow facility into a major operation, said Marshall. “We started off six years ago with a pretty modest cultivation facility with six grow rooms,” he said. “And we have been chugging along since then. We started with about 300 plants per room. And now we are closer to 750 plants per room. So we are putting a lot more biomass in each room, feeding them a lot more strategically and trying to maximize yields. We are seeing a monumental uptick in cannabis that is coming out of that facility.”
There is plenty of room for growth. The company is undergoing a $3 million cultivation upgrade to the grow facility this year. This includes new energy efficient LED lighting, new HVAC systems, irrigation and crop steering equipment.
“We are just doing some things to help improve efficiency and overall production,” Marshall said.
The company has also put a lot of focus on development of interesting and innovative products at the Mesquite site as well.
“We are a very ‘do-it-yourself’ oriented organization,” Marshall said. “We have some great talent in our production facility that like to try new things and like to experiment and we are very supportive of that.”
Marshall said that the company started with an edible taffee product called Cheeba Chews that began in just one flavor: chocolate. Since then, the company has developed nine different flavors. In addition, the company makes a popular gummy product, vape cards, hard candies, resins and more.
“We have probably quadrupled the amount of products that we are making on site,” Marshall said.
“When we first opened, it was maybe 10 percent of the stuff we sold was Deep Roots stuff. Now we are getting closer to 60 percent of the product on our shelves is stuff we also make.”
Because of that, the company has become known for its products. “Our products have a good loyal following,” Marshall said. “People love them and they come back because they expect the consistency in the quality and they’ve come to know the brands.”
The company is expecting some new products to be coming out in the coming months. These include a new topical creme, an infused pre-roll, a flower brand and a newly developed gummy.
All of that, has translated into a significant workforce in Mesquite. The company employs about 120 people at its Mesquite facility alone. And Deep Roots has a corporate culture that makes it an attractive place for many people to work.
“People generally enjoy working for us,” Marshall said. “We have good benefits. We have very competitive pay. And we offer a ton of training so that if people want to move out of state or in to Las Vegas they have quite a bit of opportunity open to them in the industry.”
Finally, the company is pleased and proud to be a part of the Mesquite community.
“We are so very grateful for the warm reception we have received from the community in Mesquite, and across the state,” said Marshall. “We hope that indicates we are doing something right, and we plan to continue working hard to create the most comfortable dispensary experience possible, as well as providing the type of cannabis products consumers want to sample and come back for again and again.”
Mesquite Mayor Al Litman agreed that Deep Roots has brought tremendous benefit to the city.
“It has been a sizeable tax revenue source almost from day one for the city,” Litman said. “That is something that we have counted on for a long time. And they have come through on a steady basis for us.”
Litman added that the company and its employees have also been “excellent citizens.”
“Outside of the tax revenues, the company has contributed thousands of dollars in community efforts,” Litman said. “And they are kind of quiet about it. They just write checks. So they have helped out with a lot of charities and so forth, funded a lot of programs.”
“They’ve never been a problem of any kind,” Litman added. “I have never seen a downside at all. They are just a good, wholesome, clean and legal business in the city.”
