Providing a hard-earned path to regulated cannabis marketplaces in California and beyond, Originals Family Farms welcomes the 75x award-winning legacy brand Nameless Genetics to their ever expanding, self-funded, vertically integrated operation. This match made in the grassroots of the California cannabis culture will pair the legendary genetic breeding and selection skills of the team at Nameless Genetics with the family-founded Originals empire of cultivation, manufacturing, and retail excellence spanning not only statewide in California, but from coast to coast as well.
The early 2000’s were a special time in the history of Cali cannabis culture and the impact that it would have worldwide as Prop215/SB420 finally began to take root and the medical cannabis scene flourished. It was during this time that two self-built brands humbly began their own separate journeys to where weed is at today.
In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Originals co-founder Brandon Melendez and his family quietly developed a genetic library of what would prove to be some od the best OG cuts in LA. While at the time they never claimed to be the best growers in the game, the demand for their products was always high and their way of doing business earned them a great reputation throughout SoCal in the years that followed.
If you were in San Diego around this time, you probably noticed as Originals took over the hottest blocks across the city rocking retail spots fueled by their own upscaled grow ops. By 2011-12, they had built out a 15,000 square foot warehouse and were running 250 lights – ballsy as hell for the time, but they were just getting started.
Brandon, along with his brother Michael and their partner Patrick Stad (Cure Co.), with input from their team built almost entirely of friends and family, developed a very detailed and rigid SOP that he refers to as the OG Regiment. This repeatable formula for success allowed Originals to go from 15,000 sq.ft. to 35,000 sq.ft. to multiple massive warehouses to the point where on the eve of Prop64 passing in 2016, the company had 100,000 square feet of warehouse space outfitted for and dedicated to cannabis cultivation and processing and 15 medical dispensaries operating in the state.
Of course, they were warned by many that such an expansion could put them on the radar for law enforcement, and of course they suffered the financial and mental costs of multiple raids by local, state, and/or federal officers and agencies forcing Brandon and his family to ask the hard questions that so many of us have faced, like, “Do we really want to do this? Can we do this?” But, they persevered and officially launched the Originals brand in 2016, working with Joshua Shelton from Green Street to develop the brands identity and breathe life into Brandon’s vision for the companies future.
Around this same time, Nameless Genetics was racking up awards and trophies from High Times Cannabis Cups, Chalice, and more, and was similarly facing mounting pressure from law enforcement to the point of questioning it all. But their story also goes deeper, back to the San Fernando Valley in the early 2000’s where a couple of terp-hunting buddies were dabbling in breeding and cultivation originally looking, as so many of us were, to simply just grow great weed for their own consumption.
In 2009 the get to be named “Nameless” crew of friends Jeff Malinovitz and Clyde Story took one of their latest creations to a shop in Studio City where the budtender proclaimed that there were no words to sufficiently describe the pristine quality of the nugs which he then dubbed as Nameless OG.
The staff at Wellness Earth Energy Dispensary (W.E.E.D.) saw the potential in the cultivar and gobbled it all up for their top shelf, bestowing their own name on it, calling it Wellness OG.
In 2013, the same crew brought the same shop an even frostier, tastier, stonier variety of OG that was then named Mega Wellness OG. This strain would go on to dominate the streets of SoCal for years before it became a perennial award winner in both flower and concentrate forms.
Having taken on the brand title of Nameless Genetics, the Nameless crew team out of the SFV was officially growing their own cultivars for the growing cannabis industry, and so when they heard their brand name announced as winners for first time at the 2015 High Times Cannabis Cup in L.A. Jeff looked at his partner Clyde and said, “We better trademark this brand immediately!” Sure enough, demand went through the roof along with the prices they could get for their products.
The following year was when Prop64 passed but, like so many other skilled cultivators at the time, Nameless Genetics could not overcome the skyhigh barriers of entry into the taxed and regulated market.
They never stopped growing, though. Keeping prized genetics alive through personal grows and running the upstairs cultivation at the Lemonnade spot in Van Nuys kept Jeff and Clyde busy until the right opportunity came along. There were plenty of the wrong people that wanted to work with them, own them, use them, but it wasn’t until Josh bridged the gap between them and the Originals family that they knew they were home. Jeff and Josh had developed a strong relationship years eariler, having worked together in pursuit of a license in HI, and later Nameless had their very first office space in the Green Street building.
West coast weed culture is woven with these stories of struggles and success.
“The machine that Originals has built represents my lifelong dream,” says Malinovitz. “We have always said that we do it for the terps and we look forward to bringing back that ‘oh my god!’ reaction when a customer opens a jar of Nameless Genetics.”
Originals Family Farms And Nameless Genetics Partnership Takes Root
Originals Family Farms is, by our estimation, the largest privately owned multistate operator in the U.S. They have never entertained or received outside investment, instead relying on the street culture that raised them to know that if you grow the best weed possible, the rest will come.
Today, Originals Family Farms has over a HALF A MILLION square feet of cultivation space in Los Angeles alone. They have 12 dispensaries in operation and they plan to expand into four or possibly five states by the end of this calendar year. They do all of this without shiny pitch decks or shinier mylar bags. Just bomb weed. If you are smoking any sort of heavy OG or lipsmacking Gelato strains these days in California, chances are high that Originals harvested it.
See, lots of brands that have risen and fallen since 2016 thought they had it all figured out. They had the clever weedy-but-not-too-weedy name, the weedy-but-not-too-weedy logo, the apparel, the booths at all the events, they had it all… except for a source for good weed. There isn’t a marketing budget big enough to make mids anything other than mids and that has been a hard lesson for a lot of brands to learn.
With 10,000 lights on right now, Originals has dedicated a significant portion of that canopy space to allow Jeff and Clyde at Nameless to do what they do best. Nameless Genetics will be bringing back some heavy hitting nostalgic flavors which can be found in their own iconic NG branded packaging. If it says Originals on the bag, Originals grew it. If it says Nameless Genetics on the bag, Nameless Genetics grew it. In fact, you can already find some high grade Nameless Genetics flower and vape carts on select store shelves now.
As they expand their offerings we are sure to see collabs with other industry powerhouses including, of course, with their partners at Originals. Nameless Genetics won a case full of trophies and cups with their concentrates back in the day so we expect to see that option making waves soon, too.
The fact is, every single strain that Nameless Genetics has ever released has gone on to win an award of some sort. That is a testament to their “10/10 or nothing” approach to what they call “intentional breeding” focusing on flavor and effects and is what makes their partnership with Originals so potent.
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Both of these brands took their own path to this game-changing merger. These are the kind of folks you’d really like to sit and sesh with, now working together to build a better industry by growing better weed. This is a cause for celebration for anyone who cares about cannabis culture preservation because as Brandon from Originals so aptly put it, “If we don’t take these chances and risks, the wrong people will.”
If you are as excited about this new partnership as we are, be sure to stop by and see both brands together at Hall of Flowers this week and demand that your local dispensary adds some Nameless Genetics products to their top shelf today.
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