2020 means a lot of things to a lot of people. I can’t think of a single other year in history that has such universal power and meaning to the name. The year our lives got put on hold and the word “delayed” lost just a touch of its sting!. I mean before 2020 delayed had to be top 5 on the list of words NOBODY wanted to hear in any situation. But 2020 was different with the sudden onset of a global pandemic having massive impact on everyones lives in so many different ways the word delayed started to seem far less disastrous. With so many people losing jobs, businesses, housing, vacation plans, TOILET PAPER and even friends and loved ones to this pandemic “Delayed” suddenly doesn’t seem that bad, at least delayed implies it is still coming, it will still be happening, delayed now almost conveys a sense of hope, its a term we have learned to live with. I guess that’s one thing we have all gained from this pandemic, we have learned to ADAPT. Boy if I could tell you just how much we at Royally Grown have learned to adapt, but then again I suppose that is a necessary trait when running a startup in the midst of a pandemic.
Running a business is difficult. Starting a business is arguably more difficult. Starting and running a business in the hemp industry with the ever-changing pool of laws and regulation varying widely state by state is even more difficult. Starting and running business in the hemp industry in the midst of the largest global pandemic of our lifetime has proven to be extremely difficult and were it not for our passion and belief in the power and life changing benefits of our products we may not be where we are at today. When we decided to shoot our shot at harnessing the power of our own crops into our own retail brand for the masses the overall energy amongst us was that of excitement. Crafting a brand crafting an image and picturing the countless lives we could enrich with our products that’s all very exciting. While the excitement has not faded at all we have been forced to face and accept the challenges that accompany such aspirations. When Royally Grown First started we had our beautiful farms in Southern Oregon, a humble warehouse and ambition. The path was clear transfer focus of farming for other companies to farming for our own company with the focus on providing higher quality products to the public. We saved every penny we earned for funding and trudged our way through the legalities involved in starting a company, we carefully chose a brand name that had meaning to us chose which products we believed to be most valuable to society, chose the flavors, etc… None of this was an easy feat. None of us could have imagined how long and difficult the process could be of simply designing the look and feel of a brand to properly convey the heart and passion behind our products. I really mean that none of us could have imagined HOW MANY WEEKS we would go back and forth often contradicting ourselves no we want blue no yellow no more holistic no less holistic no more flashy no no no less flashy it was a process to say the least, but that just speaks for the passion behind this company. The real struggles however came in with all the detail work.
Products are decided on and developed, LLC is formed, branding image complete, the rest should be easy peasy! Well packaging is necessary so lets order some. This is where delays come in and I guess in a world where the toilet paper isle at your local Costco is constantly blank it should be no surprise that seemingly all other goods we needed to obtain were also hard to come by. Packaging, some of our packaging for certain products has taken more than 6 months to be delivered, manufacturing delays, shipping delays quality control delays, Everything is a delay! The same goes for nearly everything involved in our products DELAYED. And while like I said from the covid pandemic we learned that delayed is not necessarily terrible news, it certainly is frustrating at times while trying to complete a project of any sort especially with ambitions as high as ours. On top of delays nearly every step of the way staffing became an issue finding workers, training workers, formulating protocols for workers, all of this apparently doesn’t just happen over night and does not come easy. I could go on for days about all the road blocks we have run into bringing our products to the market but our story is no different than millions of others and detracts from the moral of the story. The moral of the story is we are HERE NOW Royally Grown is officially established, our website is live, our products are packed and constantly being stocked on more shelves nation wide and our customers are obtaining the benefits we have longed to give them for so long now. We have grown into newer bigger and better headquarters and manufacturing spaces we have the best employees in the world and are on the verge of starting another season of the part we love best, farming. Getting our hands dirty planting and seeing the transformation of life take place in each and every one of our babies here in southern Oregon as they mature and prepare to provide more incredible products to our customers truly brings unspeakable joy to each of us. While we are busy getting ready for the long summer on the farms we wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every one of our awesome customers. Thank you for your support. Thank you for helping us defy the odds and making our small business a success even in these unprecedented times. We hope you continue to enjoy this ride with all of us in our lifelong mission and as always, Live Royally.
