The number that means four different things
A yield figure without its basis is not a figure at all. The same extraction run can honestly be described as returning a few per cent or several tens of per cent, depending on what is being divided by what.
Four conventions circulate, all of them legitimate, and they are almost never stated. That is why yield comparisons between processes and between producers are so frequently meaningless.
This page sets out the four bases, explains what each measures, shows why they differ so widely, identifies which one is useful for which purpose, and explains why any of it matters to somebody buying a finished product.
⚠️ Scope. This page describes a process and what can be verified from documents. It does not describe what a product does to a person, gives no amounts, and does not replace a healthcare professional.
🔴 The four conventions
Mass of extract over mass of input
The simplest and the most commonly quoted. It divides what came out by what went in, both as raw weights.
Mass of extract over dry weight of input
The same calculation with the water removed from the input figure. On frozen material the difference is enormous.
Recovered compound over available compound
How much of what was there was actually captured. This is the efficiency measure and it is the most informative.
Saleable product over input
What the process produced that can be sold, after every refinement step. It is the commercial figure and the lowest of the four.
Why they diverge so widely
Water
Fresh frozen material is mostly water. A yield quoted against its full weight looks catastrophic and against dry weight looks ordinary.
Plant matter
The input includes stems, leaves and cellular material that was never going to be extracted. Dividing by all of it understates efficiency.
Refinement losses
Every step after extraction removes something. The figure at the end of the chain is much lower than the figure at the extraction vessel.
What follows
Two honest people describing the same run can quote figures differing by an order of magnitude. Neither is lying and neither is comparable.
The efficiency measure
What it asks
Of the compounds present in the input, what proportion ended up in the extract. It is the only figure that measures the process rather than the material.
Why it is the useful one
Because it isolates the process from the input quality. A high-content input flatters every other convention.
What it requires
An analysis of the input as well as of the output. That is two certificates rather than one, and most operations do not commission both.
How often it is quoted
Rarely, precisely because it requires the extra analysis. The figures that circulate are almost all mass ratios.
🔴 Why any of this reaches a buyer
Through price
Yield determines how much input a producer needs per unit of output, which is the largest component of their cost.
Through the comparison of routes
Solvent extraction recovers far more than mechanical separation. That difference is why the two occupy different price bands.
Through misleading claims
Figures quoted without a basis appear in marketing and in industry discussion. They shape expectations about what a product should cost.
What a buyer should do with them
Very little directly. It matters because it explains price structures rather than because it is a purchasing criterion.
Yields by route
Mechanical separation
The lowest by a wide margin. It recovers only the glands that detach, which is a fraction of what the plant carried.
Pressing
Low from flower, considerably higher from an already-separated fraction. The input dominates the figure.
Carbon dioxide extraction
Moderate. Selective conditions recover less than exhaustive ones, and the operator chooses.
Liquid solvent extraction
The highest. Ethanol and hydrocarbons recover most of what is available, which is their commercial advantage.
What limits each route
Mechanical separation
Physical detachment. Glands that stay attached are not recovered, and no amount of process adjustment changes that.
Pressing
Flow. What does not liquefy at the temperature used stays in the pad.
Supercritical extraction
Solubility under the conditions chosen. Raising pressure recovers more and reduces selectivity.
Liquid solvents
Contact and time. Longer contact recovers more and takes more of what was not wanted.
The trade against quality
The general shape
More aggressive recovery brings across more of everything. Yield and selectivity move in opposite directions on every route.
Where operators sit
Across the whole range, deliberately. A premium product is generally made at a lower yield than the same equipment could achieve.
What that costs
Input material, which is the largest cost. Producing at low yield means buying more material per unit sold.
Why premium products cost what they do
Partly this. The yield sacrificed for selectivity is a real and substantial cost.
Multiple passes
What they are
Repeated extraction of the same material, recovering progressively less each time.
What the later passes give
Lower quality material, carrying more of what the first pass left. It is a different product from the same input.
Whether they are combined
Sometimes. Combining raises the total yield and lowers the average quality.
What nothing records
Whether a product is a first pass or a blend. No document distinguishes them.
The input quality question
What high-content input does
Flatters every mass-based yield figure. More came out because more was there, not because the process was better.
What low-content input does
The reverse. A perfectly run process on poor material produces a poor-looking yield.
Why this confuses comparisons
Because yield figures quoted between operations reflect input quality as much as process efficiency.
What would separate them
The efficiency measure, requiring input and output analyses. It is the figure that would make comparisons meaningful and it is rarely available.
What happens to what is not recovered
In mechanical separation
It stays on the plant material, which goes to solvent extraction where the remainder is recovered.
In pressing
It stays in the pad, which goes the same way.
In solvent extraction
Very little remains. The spent material has limited further value.
Why the chain works this way
Because the processes are complementary. A low-yield premium process followed by a high-yield recovery process wastes nothing.
The frozen material complication
The arithmetic
Fresh frozen material is mostly water. A yield of a few per cent against its full weight corresponds to a much larger figure against dry weight.
Why figures still circulate that way
Because the wet weight is what was weighed. Converting requires a moisture measurement that is not always made.
The consequence
Yields from frozen input look poor next to yields from dried input, and the comparison is entirely an artefact of the basis.
What a careful figure states
The basis, and the moisture content where the input was frozen. Two additional pieces of information that make the number meaningful.
Refinement losses
Winterisation
Removes waxes, and some target material entrained with them. A real loss, generally modest.
Filtration
Material retained on the filter medium. Modest and cumulative across multiple filtrations.
Distillation
Fractions discarded as heads and tails. Substantial, and it is the price of purity.
Transfers
Material left in vessels and on surfaces at every step. Individually trivial and collectively real.
What the certificate has to do with it
Nothing directly
A certificate measures composition, not yield. Yield is a production figure and it appears on no consumer document.
The indirect link
The certificate on the input and the certificate on the output together permit the efficiency calculation. Both are rarely published.
What a buyer can infer
Nothing about yield from a product certificate. It is entirely a producer’s concern.
Why the subject appears here at all
Because yield claims circulate and shape expectations. Understanding what they mean stops them from misleading.
Yield claims in marketing
Where they appear
In equipment marketing principally, and in industry discussion. Rarely on consumer product listings.
What they usually omit
The basis, the input quality, and the number of passes. Three omissions that make any figure uninterpretable.
How to read one
Ask what was divided by what. If the answer is not immediate, the figure was not intended to be examined.
What a careful claim looks like
The figure, the basis, the input moisture content and the number of passes. Four items, and a claim that can be checked.
What high yield indicates
About the process
That it was run aggressively, or that the input was rich, or both. The figure alone does not distinguish.
About the product
Very little. A high-yield extract from rich material can be excellent, and a high-yield extract from aggressive processing frequently is not.
About the price
That the producer needed less input per unit sold, which lowers their cost. Whether that reaches the buyer depends on the market.
What actually indicates quality
The certificate, and the sensory assessment. Neither has anything to do with yield.
What low yield indicates
About the process
That it was run selectively, or that the route is inherently low-yielding, or that the input was poor.
About the product
Possibly a premium result from a deliberately restrained process. Possibly poor material. The figure does not say.
About the price
That more input was consumed per unit sold, which raises the cost. On premium products this is the principal cost driver.
The honest reading
Low yield is consistent with careful production and does not demonstrate it. As with every process claim, the certificate is what settles the product.
A worked comparison
The setup
Take one hundred grams of dried flower at ten per cent content by mass. That is ten grams of the target compound available in the material.
Mechanical separation
A collected fraction of a few grams, at high content. The mass yield is low and the efficiency figure depends on how much of the ten grams that fraction actually holds.
Solvent extraction
An extract of substantially greater mass, recovering the large majority of the available compound. The efficiency figure is high and the product requires refinement.
What the comparison shows
Two very different mass yields from the same input, both correct, describing processes with entirely different objectives.
Why equipment marketing quotes it
The audience
Producers choosing between systems, for whom yield translates directly into cost per unit of output. It is the most consequential specification.
What is usually claimed
A percentage against input mass, under favourable conditions, on material chosen for the demonstration.
What is usually omitted
The input content, the moisture basis, the number of passes, and what refinement followed.
How a producer evaluates it
By running their own material. Manufacturer figures orient a shortlist and settle nothing.
The relationship between yield and content
Why they are confused
Both are expressed as percentages and both appear in discussions of extraction. They measure entirely different things.
What content measures
The proportion of a compound in a material. It is a property of the material.
What yield measures
The proportion of input mass that emerged as product. It is a property of the process applied.
The consequence of confusing them
Figures get compared that have no relationship. It is one of the more common misunderstandings in technical discussion of this subject.
What a producer optimises for
Not maximum yield
Beyond a point, additional recovery brings across material that lowers the value of everything already collected.
The actual objective
Value recovered per unit of input, which combines yield with the price the resulting quality commands.
Why that changes by market
An operation selling into premium retail optimises differently from one supplying bulk transformation. Both are rational.
What follows for a buyer
The yield behind a product reflects the market it was made for. It is an indirect signal about positioning.
Where yield figures mislead most
Between routes
Comparing a mechanical yield with a solvent yield as though they measured the same achievement. They measure different objectives.
Between inputs
Comparing a yield from rich material with one from poor material. The figure reflects the input more than the process.
Between conventions
Comparing a wet-weight figure with a dry-weight one. The gap can be a factor of several.
Between stages
Comparing an extraction-vessel figure with a finished-product one. Refinement losses sit between them.
The one figure that would be comparable
What it is
Extraction efficiency: recovered target compound as a proportion of available target compound.
Why it works
It divides out the input quality and the moisture, leaving a measure of the process alone.
What it costs to produce
Two analyses instead of one. It is a modest additional expense and it is almost never incurred.
Why it is not standard
Because nobody requires it and because the resulting figures would make processes directly comparable in a way that suits no one selling equipment.
What this means for reading claims
The rule
A yield figure without a stated basis conveys nothing. It is not a weak signal; it is no signal.
The question
What was divided by what. If the answer does not arrive immediately, the figure was decorative.
What a careful source provides
The figure, the basis, the input content and moisture, and the number of passes. Four items alongside the number.
How often that appears
Rarely, and its presence is itself informative about how carefully the rest of the account was assembled.
The cost side of the calculation
What input costs
For most operations it is the single largest cost line. Everything else — labour, energy, equipment depreciation — is smaller.
Why yield dominates the economics
Because it determines how much of that largest cost is consumed per unit sold. A change of a few points moves the cost per unit materially.
The counterweight
Quality, which determines the selling price. An operation running at a lower yield for a better product is trading one against the other deliberately.
Where the balance sits
Differently for every operation, according to what its market pays for. There is no universally correct answer and both extremes are commercially viable.
Yield across a season
Why it varies
Input material varies. A grower’s own crop differs between batches, and purchased material differs between suppliers.
What operations track
Yield per batch alongside input analysis, so that a poor result can be attributed to the material or to the process. It is ordinary production monitoring.
What it detects
Process drift. A yield falling across successive batches on comparable material indicates something is degrading in the equipment or the technique.
Why this matters to a buyer
Not at all directly, and it is one indicator of whether an operation is run on data or on habit. That distinction shows up elsewhere.
The figure nobody publishes
Input content
What the material contained before extraction. It is measured routinely by any operation buying material and it is never disclosed downstream.
Why it would be informative
Because it would let a buyer see what the process received, and therefore what it achieved. Without it, the output figure stands alone.
Whether it could be published
Easily. The analysis exists, and publishing it alongside the output certificate would cost nothing.
Why it is not
No requirement, no demand, and no commercial advantage in making a process transparent. It is the same pattern as everywhere else in this subject.
What high-yield processing does to a product
The mechanism
Recovering more means recovering less selectively. Compounds that a restrained process would leave behind come across.
What comes with it
Chlorophyll, waxes, plant cellular material, and anything else soluble under the conditions applied.
What that requires
More refinement afterwards, each step of which costs aromatic compounds and adds handling.
The net position
A high-yield route followed by heavy refinement can produce a purer final product than a low-yield route with none. Yield alone predicts neither.
Why the subject is worth understanding at all
The honest position
A buyer never sees a yield figure on a product and never needs one. It is a production concern from beginning to end.
Why it appears here regardless
Because yield determines the cost structure of every route, and those cost structures are what produce the price bands a buyer chooses between. The number is invisible and its consequences are not.
The one useful takeaway
Mechanical separation is expensive because it recovers little. Solvent extract is cheap because it recovers most. That single relationship explains most of the pricing in this category.
What it does not explain
Which product is better for any purpose. That question is settled by the certificate and by the senses, and yield has nothing to say about it.
The comparison that actually helps a buyer
Not yield but price per milligram
The producer’s yield determines their cost. What reaches a buyer is a price, and the division that makes prices comparable across formats is the one worth doing.
Why it subsumes the question
A low-yield process shows up as a higher price per milligram. The buyer sees the consequence directly without needing the production figure that caused it.
A short glossary
Dry weight equivalent
An input figure with the water removed, allowing frozen and dried material to be compared on a common basis.
Extraction efficiency
The proportion of available target compound actually recovered, requiring analysis of both input and output.
Spent material
The plant matter remaining after extraction, with whatever the process did not recover.
Multiple passes
Repeated extraction of the same material, each recovering less and carrying more of what earlier passes left.
Heads and tails
The fractions discarded at the beginning and end of a distillation, containing compounds outside the target range.
The five checks that apply to any product
The batch certificate
Request it with the number printed on the packaging. A general document for the product line does not cover this batch, and those differences are exactly what it should record.
Total THC
Delta-9-THC plus THCA multiplied by 0.877, because THCA becomes THC under heat and the limit applies to the sum, not to either value alone.
Price per milligram
A division, not an opinion. The only figure that makes two products comparable, whatever the format, process and pack size.
The claims
Without an authorisation number in the EU Register these are assertions, not data — and for cannabidiol that register contains no authorised entry to this day.
The seller’s details
Company name, address and contact. Without them there is also no counterparty to turn to if something turns out to be wrong.
How this connects to the rest
With the routes
Each has a characteristic yield range, and those ranges are the main reason the routes occupy different price bands.
With fresh frozen input
The water content makes yields from frozen material look far worse than they are. It is the commonest source of confusion.
With price
Yield is the largest single input into a producer’s cost per unit. It reaches the buyer through the price and nowhere else.
With quality claims
Low yield is consistent with selective processing and does not establish it. The certificate does the establishing.
What this is for in practice
When you see a yield figure
Ask what the basis was. Without it the number carries no information.
When comparing routes
Expect mechanical separation to be lowest and liquid solvents highest. That ordering is stable and it explains the price bands.
When a premium is justified by low yield
It is a real cost and it is not a quality demonstration. Both statements hold.
When buying
Ignore yield entirely. It is a production figure and the certificate is what concerns the product.
Frequently asked questions
Why do yield figures vary so much? Because four different conventions circulate and the basis is almost never stated. The same run can honestly be quoted at wildly different percentages.
What is the most useful measure? Extraction efficiency: the proportion of available compound recovered. It isolates the process from the input quality.
Why is it rarely quoted? Because it requires analysis of the input as well as the output, and most operations commission only one.
Why do frozen input yields look so low? Because most of the input weight is water. Quoted against dry weight equivalent the figure is ordinary.
Which route yields most? Liquid solvents, followed by supercritical extraction, then pressing, with mechanical separation lowest.
Does high yield mean better quality? No. It indicates aggressive processing or rich input. Neither establishes anything about the product.
Does low yield mean better quality? It is consistent with selective processing and does not demonstrate it. The certificate settles the product.
What happens to what is not recovered? It generally goes to a higher-yielding process. The routes are complementary and little is wasted.
Does yield appear on a certificate? No. A certificate measures composition. Yield is a production figure and appears on no consumer document.
Should a buyer care about it? Only in that it explains price structures. It is not a purchasing criterion.
What we check and what we do not
We check what can be checked from documents: official registers, declared contents, certificates of analysis, arithmetic. We test no products, rank nothing, and assert no effects.
Yield is the figure most often quoted and least often defined in this sector. Four conventions, all honest, differing by an order of magnitude, and a habit of stating the number without the basis. It is a reliable source of confusion.
For a buyer it matters in one way only: it explains why mechanical separation costs what it does and why liquid-solvent extract costs what it does. Beyond that it is a production concern, and the certificate is what describes the product.