Glass House Brands expects the July 10, 2019 deadline. The ICE raids They expect that the performance of the third quarter will be affected by the closure of two cannabis farms in Southern California, but the plan is to make the company stronger over the long term.
Kyle Kazan is the co-founder and chairman of Glass House. He told investors in a phone conference on Wednesday, August 13, that the process of onboarding and training new contractors and getting them up to capacity would “take time”. This, he said, will have an impact on Glass House’s results during the third quarter.
Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed search warrants at Glass House grow sites in Carpinteria and Camarillo in Santa Barbara County and Ventura County. The result was the arrest of federal agents. Arresting 361 People Taking 14 children migrants into custody. Unemployment caused one worker to die. He was employed by an independent contractor.
A report on Aug. The latest company news Nine Glass House employees were arrested or detained, and the remaining 350 were employees of contractors, or unrelated to the company. (Protestors, bystanders, etc.). Glass House, after the raids terminated their relationship with two contractors for farm labor, hired new contractors and changed its labor practices in order to improve compliance.
Kazan informed investors that Glass House, due to its reduced workforce, has scaled down new plantings in the last few weeks “more substantially”.
He said that “in the short term we will push some of the biomass processing to the fourth quarter.” The most labor intensive activity of our farm is processing, and delaying it allows us to use our reduced workforce while ramping back up to production. The delay in processing will mean that our wholesale sales team will have less biomass available for sale in the third quarter, resulting in a significant reduction in revenues and profits.
A total of $59.9 Million was reported by the company for the second-quarter revenue in 2025, and $42.1 Million came from their wholesale biomass business. This accounted to 70%. However, Glass House executives expect third-quarter 2025 revenue to be between $35 million and $38 million—roughly $25 million to $30 million below where the company was tracking before the ICE raids.
Glass House’s Chief Financial Officer Mark Vendetti informed investors that due to reduced labor the company expects to produce 95,000-100,000 pounds of biomass in the third quarter. This is less than 40 percent of the usual production.
As the company ramps up its staffing levels, the executives anticipate that the fourth-quarter production will double and the revenues will rebound to a level close to last quarter’s result of $53 millions.
“Vendetti explained that Vendetti expects the Q3 average selling price to fall between $178 and 183 per pound. That’s down from last year when it was $229, but production costs will still be about $160. Vendetti said that the high cost is due to low production and inefficient labor of hiring a brand new workforce. As production grows and as our workforce gets more experience, we expect the cost of production in the fourth quarter to be around $110/pound.
Glass House produced 231,000 pounds at $91 a pound during the second quarter, while paying labor contractors an average of $18.60 for each hour. The company’s has Six million square feet Six greenhouses located on a 165 acre farm in Southern California, which total 5.5 Million square feet.
Vendetti says that Vendetti expects its gross margin for the second half to be between 30 and 35 percent, after being 53% during the first quarter. Glass House expects 2025 revenues to fall by approximately 15% compared with what had been previously predicted.
The company has also slowed down some of the components in its expansion plan, such as its retrofitted greenhouse no. 2 retrofit. Glass House has also delayed the construction of greenhouse number 2. The retrofit is specifically for its expansion of hemp.
Kazan stated that Glass House is still committed to the use of hemp, referring to it as “a fantastic opportunity for California’s agricultural industry and cannabis growers burdened with low prices and high taxes to switch to selling hemp through interstate commerce.”
According to the CEO, the company will use its experiences of reduced production and a smaller labor force in the third-quarter to increase automation and improve operations for greater efficiency and future growth. Â
Graham Farrar is the co-founder of Glass House, its president, and a board director. He believes that Glass House will “come through this stronger” than when it started.
He said, “We have always looked at efficiency and automation from the very beginning.” We’ve always been very long-term oriented. This has accelerated our efforts and expanded the scope of what we do. … over time, we’ll lower our costs quicker.”
To help ensure the company doesn’t fall victim to—or at least minimizes the impacts of—future ICE raids, Glass House hired compliance consultants, including Julie Myers Wood, the former director of ICE and assistant secretary of Homeland Security, to assist with employee eligibility from contractors. Glass House also has enhanced controls for age-gating and E-verification of all farm and employee labor.
Farrar stated that he would not wish any of the effects from the ICE raids to anyone else and said the general impact is not cannabis specific, but agricultural.
He added, “If the world of agriculture changes in this way, I prefer to have the advantage as the first mover and not be last at the summit.” “We made decisions that allowed us to become bulletproof in the future, and not worry about anything else.”
Kazan explained that after the changes were made, Kazan’s company was now focused on resuming full operations.
He said, “Like any obstacle that we have faced in the past 10 years we will persist and become more resilient.” It is the grit we have developed together as a company, and not anything else that makes us stand out in the cannabis business.