Manufacturing Success: Jordan Carver of SoGanja

For Jordan Carver, cannabis manufacturing has never been about chasing the highest THC percentage or producing the most products possible. Instead, he believes success comes from preserving the integrity of the plant, respecting traditional techniques, and refusing to compromise quality.

That philosophy has shaped SoGanja since its earliest days.

Before Missouri’s regulated cannabis market existed, Carver was already immersed in cannabis, learning cultivation, extraction, and hashmaking through the traditional market. His curiosity eventually evolved into a career, first through Saint Louis University’s cannabis science and operations program, then by leading solventless production at a large Illinois cannabis facility before returning home to help launch SoGanja.

Five years later, the St. Louis-based company has grown into one of the industry’s most recognizable independent manufacturers, producing everything from live resin beverages and FECO to solventless concentrates, infused flower, and prerolls. Despite the company’s growth, Carver says the mission has remained remarkably simple.

“It has to be quality,” Carver said. “We don’t let anything go out that’s bad. If it’s bad, we’ll destroy it. I don’t care.”

Greenway recently sat down with Carver to discuss his journey into cannabis, SoGanja’s manufacturing philosophy, and why he believes craftsmanship still matters in an increasingly competitive industry.

How did you find your way into cannabis?

“I grew up around the plant,” Carver said. “My family was always doing their thing with it. I was born here in St. Louis and grew up here, so I’ve been around the plant and that side of things, the traditional market, for the better half of my whole life.

“In high school, I started playing around with it a little more, growing, washing, and extracting,” Carver said. “I got big into that and the plant science behind it.”

That passion eventually became personal after watching a family member reconsider everything she believed about cannabis.

“I had a grandma who used it and hated that we smoked weed and whatnot,” Carver said. “She ended up reverting to it once I taught her a few things when she had cancer.”

Wanting to better understand both the science and the business of cannabis, Carver enrolled in Saint Louis University’s cannabis program.

“I was in the first group that they offered the cannabis science and operations class to,” Carver continued. “I got to go through the very first run with them.”

From there, Carver found success in large-scale production.

“I was running a solventless lab over in Illinois. I was washing close to a million grams a month, about 2,500 pounds a month. It was a big facility. Rosin was definitely my thing and my background. I’ve always loved rosin.”

How did SoGanja come together?

When Missouri’s cannabis program was preparing to launch, Carver connected with Sarah and Greg, who were assembling the team that would become SoGanja.

“I met Sarah and Greg when they were getting ready to gear up in Kansas City,” Carver said. “We had a different license that we were going to run out there, and then a license back home in St. Louis became available.”

The team shifted its plans, purchased the St. Louis license, and began building the operation from scratch.

“I’ve been their lab director ever since and one of their partners in the company,” he said. “I’m super happy with how things have worked out between all of us. It’s a big risk that you take jumping in and trying to make these things work.”

Walk us through SoGanja’s manufacturing operation.

Although some companies specialize in a single extraction method, Carver says SoGanja intentionally built a manufacturing operation capable of producing a wide range of products using multiple processes.

“We do all four,” Carver explained. “We do BHO hydrocarbon extractions here for our live resin that goes in the drinks,” Carver said. “We don’t push a lot of concentrates because we use most of them in our drinks. We also do live resin prerolls, so we use that for our infusion. We do ethanol extractions for our FECO. We have a FECO line that we just dropped. We’re pretty proud of our FECO. It’s very light colored, not black or anything like that.”

Despite the variety of extraction methods used throughout the facility, Carver says solventless production remains where his passion lies.

“We do a lot of the solventless stuff,” Carver said. “We’re big on static sift, and Moroccan-style hash is what we’re trying to push, which is what we call our full melt.”

Carver acknowledges there has been considerable debate surrounding the term piatella, particularly as the product has gained popularity in the legal cannabis market.

Rather than contribute to the confusion, SoGanja chose a different approach.

“People are a little here or there with the term piatella, whether they know it or whether they don’t,” Carver said. “It’s kind of controversial, so we went with the full melt term.”

“When the normal person thinks of piatella, they think of bubble hash and live-washed product,” Carver continued. “If you look up piatella and the true definition from a thousand years ago, it’s Moroccan-style hand-sift hash that’s cured out. That’s how it becomes that piatella form.”

For Carver, products like full melt suffer from a lack of education to consumers.

“You’ve got to get the education of the product out there,” he said. “With hash and the full melt that we do, the high is so clean. It’s a cleaner high, and you’re way more able to work off a hit of some full melt than you would be a hit of some rosin.”

What makes SoGanja’s products different?

Carver says the company’s philosophy was established before the first product ever reached dispensary shelves.

“When we first started, I didn’t want to do a distillate drink,” Carver said. “We all agreed that distillate is a money maker that companies use because it’s a cheap way to produce things.”

Instead, SoGanja built its products around live resin and full-spectrum extracts.

“We’ve been that live aspect, that full-spectrum aspect the whole time because of the holistic side of it,” Carver said.

That philosophy extends well beyond formulation; Carver and the crew at SoGanja are seriously committed to craftsmanship.

“It has to be quality,” Carver said. “We don’t let anything go out that’s bad. If it’s bad, we’ll destroy it.”

How do you select biomass and cultivars?

Before biomass is ever purchased, Carver personally visits cultivation facilities to evaluate both the material and the environment where it was grown.

“I go to these grows, and we see this biomass and everything before it is even decided to put on an invoice and sent to us,” Carver said. “Nothing is just bought for mass production to make mass vapes or whatever. It has never been our approach.”

   

Ultimately, he says the company’s goal is preserving as much of the cannabis plant as possible.

“We want people to experience the plant fully and not just one cannabinoid,” Carver said. “There are so many beautiful things about this plant, like the entourage effect and the terpenes.”

For Carver, sourcing starts long before extraction begins.

“Quality is everything,” he said.

That evaluation goes beyond appearance.

“Quality can speak on so many different levels when it comes to cannabis,” Carver said. “It can be the bag appeal. It can be quality control. It can be what you see in the grow, what you feel, the humidity, the environment. There’s so much that plays a part.”

Sometimes the decision happens almost immediately after walking through the door.

“If I walk into a grow that’s super hot, and you get that one funky smell for a second, you’re like, ‘Man, I don’t want anything in this room,'” Carver said.

“Now you’re making me question whether I want anything at all.”

He said SoGanja continues to partner with cultivators that consistently produce high-quality flower while refusing to compromise standards simply to increase production.

“We’re looking for those terps, and we’re looking for the quality of the grow,” Carver said.

“We don’t want to work with bad grows. I’ll shut something down just as fast as I’ll pick it up. It will not come to this lab being bad.”

“We don’t care about potency.”

“I would infuse flower and not care if it came back at 15 percent, but if my terps are 2 to 3 percent, I’ll sell it all day,” Carver continued. “We genuinely do not care about potency at all whatsoever.”

He admits that philosophy sometimes creates challenges with consumers who expect infused products to produce the highest THC percentages available.

“It’s kind of a hard sell,” Carver said. “People are like, ‘It’s infused. It should be 9,000 percent THC.’ We’re trying to show that craft side of it.”

SoGanja has become known for its beverages. Why are sodas so successful?

Carver says the idea was simple.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said.

Rather than creating unfamiliar flavor combinations, SoGanja looked to the drinks consumers already enjoy.

“If you went to the grocery store to buy a drink, you’re going to get Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Mountain Dew, root beer, or Sprite,” Carver said. “You have a classic slew of things.”

That philosophy has helped the company develop a lineup that includes root beer, grape, orange cream, and an upcoming cherry cola.

“We’re using real maraschino cherry flavoring,” Carver said. “We don’t use nonsense in our drinks. We use real organic fruit powders and aged vanilla, and we let our drinks brew.”

The company’s root beer has become its flagship product, earning High Times’ Best Edible award in 2024.

“We don’t put trash in our drinks,” Carver said. “We put the full spectrum in our drinks. We don’t even make one-gram units of rosin, so the boutique, primo, top-tier rosin that we make is going in that drink.”

While awards are meaningful, Carver says customer stories remain the most rewarding part of the job.

“One of our owners was wearing a SoGanja shirt at a dispensary, and a lady tapped him on the shoulder,” Carver said. “She started crying and said she’d been drinking our sodas for a year to get off pharmaceutical pills.

“Things like that just keep you going.”

What’s next for SoGanja?

The company’s next chapter includes cultivation.

“We have a giant facility that we’re building out,” Carver said. “We’re doing super boutique, small rooms.”

The facility will incorporate tissue culture from the beginning while focusing on preserving heirloom genetics.

“We have groups that have seeds from the ’70s,” Carver said. “These old Acapulco Gold and Colombian Haze genetics, these old landraces, we’re putting through tissue culture.”

For Carver, the goal isn’t producing the strongest flower in the state. It’s recreating an experience.

“I want to present something to Greg and Sarah where they smell it, and it takes them right back to the ’70s,” Carver said.

“That is the goal.”

What advice would you leave for someone interested in cannabis manufacturing?

“I think there are so many cool things about this industry that it’s about finding something that relates to you,” Carver said.

“Whether it’s sales, manufacturing, growing, consulting, or anything else, find what relates to you and what really drives you.

“Be passionate and find something relatable. That’s the biggest thing.”