Phat Panda is Washington's number one cannabis producer, a Spokane Valley operation that has topped the state's sales charts for seven straight years. It grows and makes flower, concentrates, vapes, edibles, and pre-rolls across a family of twelve brands, all running out of the Grow Op Farms cultivation company, and it sells both direct and on dispensary shelves across the state.
The company started small in 2014, founded by Robert and Katrina McKinley with a plain goal: grow the highest-quality cannabis they could and keep the price within reach. What began as a thirty-person crew is now a team of more than 850, and the McKinley operation has grown into one of the largest Tier 3 producers in the state, cultivating at scale out of a facility that runs past 60,000 square feet.
Phat Panda keeps nearly everything in-house. It is a vertically integrated grower, handling cultivation, processing, and distribution under one roof rather than farming those steps out. That control is what lets the company move real volume across categories without the quality sliding, the pitch it sums up as craft at scale.
Traceability and compliance run through a seed-to-sale system tied to state tracking in every market it touches. The founders' original bet, that smarter growing technology could make high-grade cannabis affordable, still drives the operation.
The catalog runs wide. Flower anchors the lineup, joined by pre-rolls, vapes, edibles, and a deep concentrate program under the Dabstract label, which turns out live resin, rosin, and distillate from fresh-frozen single-source runs. Spring drops like Pineapple Mintz and Blueberry Pancakes rotate through the menu. The wider family folds in brands like Snickle Fritz, Eluzion, Firecracker pre-rolls, and Hot Shotz beverages, so everyday-priced eighths sit next to top-shelf single-strain jars.
The trophy case backs up the sales rank. Phat Panda has held the number one producer spot in Washington from 2019 through 2025, and its brands have pulled hardware from the DOPE Cup and the High Times Cannabis Cup: first-place vape pens, top infused pre-rolls, most potent flower, and placements spanning solventless hash to distillate. Reader-voted lists like the Inlander's Best of the Northwest have named it the region's best cannabis brand.
Growth has pushed the company past state lines. What was once a Washington-only grower now operates across three states, with California and Massachusetts feeding the same Panda family of brands. The founders have landed on national lists too, from Green Entrepreneur's cannabis leaders to the High Times roster of most influential people in the industry, and Katrina McKinley, now chief operating officer, has been named among the industry's women to watch.
The Phat Panda story is a grower's story that scaled without losing the plot. For shoppers, that means a name you can count on finding across the shelf, from a gram of everyday flower to a top-shelf live resin cart, backed by a decade of wins and a producer that still puts the plant first. Across a dozen labels and three states, the through-line stays the same grow-first standard that got the company to the top.