Adam Temple, CEO of Evolved Extract Solutions – Interview Series

Due to the extensive laws and prohibitions surrounding interstate cannabis commerce and product transfers, scaling while maintaining consistent product quality is increasingly difficult for brands expanding into new markets. While this hasn’t stopped popular brands from achieving cross-country expansions, interstate commerce restrictions force them to find creative ways to protect their product quality and reputation.

To overcome these regulatory hurdles, brands operating across different state markets—often on opposite coasts—rely on standardized, reliable extraction and curing technology to replicate the quality that earned them recognition in the first place. For concentrate producers and extractors in particular, standardizing extraction equipment and protocols is a highly effective strategy.

To take a closer look at extraction machinery and the importance of standardizing manufacturing and processing operations across state lines, MyCannabis.com spoke with Adam Temple, CEO of Evolved Extraction Solutions.

What subjects of business administration and management did you study at Kwantlen Polytechnic University? How did your studies provide you with a more in-depth understanding of entrepreneurship?

My favorite subjects at Kwantlen Polytechnic University were marketing, organizational behavior and statistics. Marketing is difficult to learn purely in a classroom because it is such an applied discipline; theory matters, but execution is what produces results. Statistics has been especially valuable because it trained me to think in probabilities when evaluating the future and making decisions. Accounting and business law also gave me essential foundations. An entrepreneur needs to understand the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow in order to build a scalable company, and many small-business owners struggle there. I am grateful to have that financial literacy, although I would make a terrible accountant.

How did your weightlifting injury introduce you to the possibilities of medical cannabis? How did cannabis-based products help you more than pharmaceuticals could?

After my weightlifting injury, I initially took opioid painkillers, but I quickly recognized that they were a risky path for me. I found their euphoric effects too enjoyable and did not trust myself with the potential for dependency. Cannabis was already familiar to me, and an edible could take the edge off the pain without presenting the same personal risk profile. That experience gave me a direct appreciation for cannabis as a pain-management option and made its medical potential feel tangible rather than theoretical.

When did you begin working with cannabis brands in Canada? What professional and entrepreneurial opportunities did you envision in the cannabis industry?

I began working with cannabis brands soon after Justin Trudeau announced that legalization was coming to Canada. From 2017 through 2019, during the height of the green rush, I helped launch Flyte, one of Canada’s first major national vape brands. It began as a legacy-market brand and was transitioned into the fully regulated market under the Cannabis Act. The industry was expanding quickly, consumer demand was clear and almost every part of the new supply chain still needed to be built. That created an extraordinary opportunity for entrepreneurs who were willing to learn quickly, solve practical problems and operate through constant regulatory change.

What exactly inspired you and your co-founder Matthew Erickson to create Evolved Extraction Solutions? What gaps in service and widespread issues in cannabis extract production did you hope to solve with Evolved?

At the time, I was growing cannabis and producing concentrates for the local medical dispensary market in Vancouver. There was no practical, commercially available extraction equipment capable of producing the quantities consumers demanded, so I began building my own extractors in a small workshop from off-the-shelf components. Sourcing every part individually was time-consuming, so I started purchasing components in bulk and created a parts depot. When people in my network learned what I was doing, they began asking me to build systems for them. I recruited my longtime friend Matthew Erickson, and we whiteboarded the Evolved concept on his university campus. Our initial idea was a one-stop shop that would supply the components and practical guidance needed to build an extraction facility. A small trade-show launch generated customers and orders within days, confirming that the market needed a more dependable, accessible and service-oriented equipment partner.

What were the machines and technology that Evolved first started out with and the machinery that it was inspired by? How did Evolved take those inspirations and advance the same type of machinery you were designing?

Evolved began as a parts business. In the early days, we supplied components and practical guidance to help clients build extractors based on open-source designs. Our first commercial-grade extraction platform designed fully in-house was EV-MASS, a modular ethanol extraction system that can scale from a starter system for a small laboratory to processing multiple tons of biomass per week. We continue to iterate on and improve the platform, and new EV-MASS systems are installed each year in newly built facilities and emerging markets. The next major step was the Genome line of hydrocarbon extraction products, with the Genome Crystallizer at the center of that platform. Today, Evolved offers complete proprietary extraction platforms, cutting-edge crystallization and solvent-recovery technologies, and a new business model centered on upgrading our customer’s existing hardware. This upgrade model is increasingly relevant because most North American operators already have facilities and equipment in place but need to modernize their production systems.

No pun intended, but what are some notable ways that Evolved’s machines have evolved over the years of operation? From an engineering and design standpoint, what all went into creating, strengthening, and evolving machines like the Genome Crystallizer?

We have always favored a modular approach because extraction facilities need scalability,

redundancy and the flexibility to adopt new technology. A modular production line lets a customer add or improve individual pieces of equipment over time instead of replacing an entire system. The biggest evolution has been our ability to iterate rapidly at the Genome Technology Center. Our federally licensed cannabis-extraction R&D lab sits directly beside our fabrication facility, so we can make a part, test it under real processing conditions and revise it within hours. That tight feedback loop accelerates development and helps us continuously improve the technologies surrounding the Genome Crystallizer. The Crystallizer itself was the largest turning point in Evolved’s history: it was our first truly transformative product and changed how operators could approach extraction and product manufacturing. We support the technology with open education through YouTube, customer demonstrations, training and occasional seminars at the Technology Center.

When it comes to the consulting services that Evolved offers, what are the most common extraction-related issues that your clients face? What are usually the most effective solutions to those frequent problems?

We begin every consulting engagement by identifying the operational problem the customer is trying to solve. A frequent issue is the solvent-recovery bottleneck in legacy extraction systems, including many ETS and Precision machines. Those platforms were excellent products for their era, but reliance on solvent-recovery pumps can place a hard limit on throughput. In suitable systems, we can redesign the workflow, repurpose the pump and introduce passive recovery at a relatively low cost, often doubling or even tripling production capacity. The other major needs are facility layout, new-build design and phased capital planning. Because our equipment is  modular, we can help clients develop a two- or three-phase upgrade plan that aligns CapEx, production targets and facility layout instead of making isolated equipment purchases.

How do Evolved’s extraction methods and technology ensure that extraction yield and quality are consistent across different state markets? With so many cannabis brands from one coast expanding into another, how does Evolved’s machinery guarantee consistency throughout those various state markets?

Yield and consistency require two related but distinct strategies. Yield is heavily influenced by solvent-recovery speed: faster recovery allows an operator to use more solvent more quickly and extract more cannabinoids. That must be paired with precise temperature control so the process does not collect undesirable compounds that inflate yield while reducing quality. Consistency comes from standardizing the ingredients and the production method. We help customers integrate crystallization so the extraction process repeatedly produces two core ingredients: high-terpene extract and THCA isolate. Those ingredients can then be formulated into a broad range of products in a just-in-time manufacturing environment. Because THCA isolate is highly repeatable, brands can reproduce formulations much more reliably as they expand across facilities and markets.

What are some notable ways that Evolved has to change their operations and/or machinery when working with either US-based companies or elsewhere outside of Canada? Are there certain state or province-level regulations that make cannabis extraction more expensive or time-consuming in some places over others?

The engineering fundamentals are similar in Canada and the United States because both markets rely on ASME pressure-vessel principles. The compliance path, however, differs by jurisdiction. In Canada, pressure vessels generally require individual registration through the Canadian Registration Number system. In the United States, compliance often involves additional third-party engineering review and inspection, with requirements varying by state and local authority. We work with specialist partners, including 3P Certz and PSI inspectors, to validate that both new systems and modules added to existing equipment meet the applicable codes. That integration work can add time and cost, but it is also an important Evolved capability because retrofitting compliant technology into a customer’s existing hardware is a challenge many suppliers cannot easily solve.

What do you predict the next few years holding for both Evolved Extract Solutions and the Canadian cannabis market as a whole? Do you think extracts will become a more popular product format?

Canada will remain Evolved’s home market, but it will likely represent a smaller share of our business as we expand internationally. Over the next two to three years, Canadian licensed producers have a strong opportunity to win share in growing medical markets across Europe, Asia and Oceania. Canada combines production expertise, compressed pricing and a legal export pathway without immediate competition from large U.S. multistate operators. I also expect consolidation to continue across North America, including the possibility that larger U.S. operators acquire smaller Canadian producers to gain access to both Canada and emerging export markets.

On the product side, the bigger trend is not extracts alone but infused products broadly. High-terpene extract and THCA isolate can become ingredients in vapes, edibles, concentrates and fast-growing formats such as infused pre-rolls. Infused products could eventually represent 70% to 80% of demand, while premium flower will retain a loyal audience. The industry’s largest growth driver, however, will be new legal markets opening in the United States and abroad rather than format shifts within existing markets.

Thank you for joining us, Adam! For more information on Evolved, please visit its website.