Jak zoptymalizować wyświetlanie kategorii w Laravel 7?

Witam,
Robie projekt w Laravel 7 oraz z wykorzystaniem: https://packagist.org/packages/kalnoy/nestedset.
Mam skrypt który wyświetla mi dane dla jstree https://www.jstree.com

Mam następujący kod kategorii:

Schema::create('categories', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->string('category_name', 155);
            $table->string('description', 155)->nullable();
            $table->string('keywords', 155)->nullable();
            $table->longText('content')->nullable();
            $table->char('enable', 1)->default(0);
            $table->string('photo', 155)->nullable();
            $table->bigInteger('order')->default(0);
            $table->string('slug', 160)->nullable();
            NestedSet::columns($table);
            $table->engine = "InnoDB";
            $table->charset = 'utf8mb4';
            $table->collation = 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci';
        });



use App\Traits\ScopeActiveTrait;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Kalnoy\Nestedset\NodeTrait;
use Spatie\Sluggable\HasSlug;
use Spatie\Sluggable\SlugOptions;

class Category extends Model
{
    use ScopeActiveTrait;
    use NodeTrait;
    use HasSlug;

    /**
     * Get the options for generating the slug.
     */
    public function getSlugOptions() : SlugOptions
    {
        return SlugOptions::create()
            ->generateSlugsFrom('category_name')
            ->slugsShouldBeNoLongerThan(160)
            ->saveSlugsTo('slug');
    }

    protected $guarded = ['id'];
    protected $fillable = ['category_name', 'description', 'keywords', 'content', 'enable', 'photo', 'order', 'slug', '_lft', '_rgt', 'parent_id'];
    public $timestamps = false;

}        

Kategorii mam ok 170000 rekordów.

Generuje kod dla mojego jstree za pomocą:

    public function categoryTree(Category $category, SelectedProductCategory $selectedProductCategory, Request $request)
    {
        $tree = Cache::remember('categories', 31536000, function () use ($category) {
            return $category->active()->get();
        });

        $nodes = $this->generateJsTree($tree->toTree(), ($request->exists('id')) ? $selectedProductCategory->where('product_id', $request->input('id'))->orderBy('id', 'ASC')->get() : null);
        return $nodes;
    }

    private function generateJsTree($nodes, $selectedCategories): array
    {
        $categoryArray = array();
        $traverse = function ($categories, $prefix = '-') use (&$traverse, &$categoryArray, $selectedCategories) {
            foreach ($categories as $category) {
                $selected = false;
                if (!is_null($selectedCategories)) {
                    $selected = $selectedCategories->contains('category_id', $category->id) ? true : false;
                }

                $categoryArray[] = ['id' => $category->id, 'text' => $category->category_name, 'parent' => $category->parent_id ?? '#', 'state' => ['opened' => false, 'selected' => $selected]];
                $traverse($category->children, $prefix . '-');
            }
        };
        $traverse($nodes);
        return $categoryArray;
    }

(zakładam aktualizację cache raz na rok)

SelectedProductCategory = zaznaczone kategorie

class SelectedProductCategory extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['product_id', 'category_id'];
    protected $guarded = ['id'];
}

Schema::create('selected_product_categories', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->bigInteger('product_id')->unsigned()->default(0);
            $table->foreign('product_id')->references('id')->on('products')->onDelete('cascade');
            $table->bigInteger('category_id')->unsigned()->default(0);
            $table->foreign('category_id')->references('id')->on('categories')->onDelete('cascade');
            $table->timestamps();
});

Problem w tym że skrypt generuje się 2 minuty, zarówno na serwerze jak i na lokalnym komputerze :( Plik z cache zajmuje ok 300MB. Co dziwne zarówno jak mam plik z cache, jak i bez niego - skrypt zawsze długo się generuje.

W jaki sposób można to zoptymalizować?

Czemu nie użyjesz normalnej metody do generowania drzewka z tej paczki? Category::get()->toTree() ?