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Articles by Brian MacIver
Velvet Cannabis's People-First Culture
Standing out from your peers to win any kind of award is an impressive feat, but doing so for four consecutive years is a sign that you’ve built something special. This is what the team at Velvet Cannabis, led by co-founder and CEO Farid Harrison, has achieved with Cannabis Business Times’ Best Cannabis Companies to Work For - Dispensary ranking.
Hiring for Culture
For Dragonfly Chief Growth Officer Narith Panh, a strong company culture blends policies, procedures, and benefits to create an environment where all team members can effectively work toward their common goal. “Every single day, people know that when we wake up, our job is to change somebody's life,” Panh tells Cannabis Business Times.
Fire Up The Cannabis Cuisine
Perusing the offerings at most Canadian cannabis dispensaries, consumers will more often than not find the same products: swaths of flower from different producers, a mix of gummy, cookie, and chocolate edibles (except in Quebec), vapes from the largest publicly traded licensed producers (LPs) and smaller craft producers, a dash of extracts sourced from both the major LPs and smaller provincial providers, a series of capsules, gel caps, and topicals, and let’s not forget the mini-fridge...
Who is Mel Frank?
© All Portraits by Vanessa Stump Mel Frank, photographed at his home. “Hi, Jim. We’re going to publish your article in two parts. What name do you want to use?” It’s 1971, and James Goodwin is standing in his New York City apartment–eyeing the Colombian Gold plants carpeting one of the bedroom floors–weighing the question from the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine.
CBE’s Post-Harvest Manufacturing List: Remediation
Producing clean cannabis products is crucial for any operation looking for long-term success. The ability to pass state-mandated product safety tests determines whether your products get to market or if your facility gets dinged with a failed test violation and a potential process audit from regulators.
Make Your Workplace Safer: 6 Tips
1. Document everything, and share it broadly. The first step to making any workplace safer is to have a plan for what can go wrong and how to react when those situations occur. OSHA requires all businesses to collect specific documentation and make it available in conspicuous areas that employees can access.
CBE’s Post-Harvest Manufacturing List: Automation
As operators in mature markets can attest, the cannabis green rush can only last so long. Once workflows are established, production is ramped, and the luster of a new product has waned in consumers’ eyes, cultivation companies need to be prepared to operate with tight margins. One way to keep operational costs under control is to automate processes like trimming and packaging.
Canapa: Perspectives from a 30-year-old manufacturing company
Nicholas Taraborelli, vice president at Paxiom, attended his first MJ Biz Conference seven years ago at the Rio Hotel and Casino. Walking the showroom floor like most other cannabis-curious business executives, he remembers the sense of enthusiasm imbued in the room, he tells Cannabis Business Executive. “I realized that there must have been something special here,” he says.
Verano COO Darren Weiss Talks About How the Company is Navigating a Tight Capital Market
In its Q1 2023 earnings report announced on May 10, multi-state operator Verano Holdings presented an image of a company that has been navigating difficult market conditions with intention. As it tightened its belt on selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses in Q1 2023 by nearly 16% after reducing headcount, decreasing earnouts, and lowering employee stock compensation expense in 2022, Verano reported a net loss of $9 million, up from a $214,000 loss in the same period of 2022.
That THC is Too D*** High: Perverted incentives create cannabis testing chaos across most markets.
The cannabis industry, like Major League Baseball during its 30-year steroid era, has a juicing problem. Reports of inflated THC figures on cannabis flower and pre-roll packaging are widespread across all mature markets, including in Canada.
7 Tax Tips Cannabis Cultivators Should Know
Tax season is a stressful period for any business, but often more so for cannabis operations. Reconciling annual income, expenses (both those related to the cost of goods sold (COGS) and indirect costs), and excise taxes to determine what you owe to state and federal collectors can be time-consuming and often involves many team members. Not only that, cannabis businesses are taxed on gross profit, not net revenue, increasing their tax burdens in an already onerous market landscape.
Schrödinger’s Lozenge: Is a lozenge an edible, or an extract? In Canada, the answer depends on if it’s a cannabis product.
In January 2023, Health Canada, the federal authority overseeing the sale of medical and adult-use cannabis in Canada, began issuing stop-sale letters to licensed producers manufacturing “edible extracts,” mostly lozenges and dissolvable gummies. These products, producers held, were classified as extracts rather than edibles because they were intended for sublingual absorption and their ingredients complied with statutory definitions.
Ziel: Organic-Friendly Radio Frequency Remediation for Cannabis
In the world of remediation by radiation, there are two schools of thought: ionizing radiation, and non-ionizing radiation. Both methods are common for food pasteurization, and the former has been studied for its applications in cannabis. Radio frequency (RF), a non-ionizing radiation technology, is where Arthur de Cordova, co-founder and CEO of RF remediation solutions provider Ziel, believes the regulatory landscape is shifting.
Cannabis POS and Payments Company POSaBIT Buys Hypur
POSaBIT, a Seattle-based cannabis point-of-sale (POS) and payments software company, this morning announced its acquisition of cannabis and crypto payments and compliance services company Hypur in a cash and equity transaction valued at up to US$7.5 million The acquisition positions POSaBIT as the only cannabis payments provider with redundant PIN debit processing through the addition of Hypur Pay, an ACH eCommerce and mobile payment solution.
Increased Costs, Decreased Revenue Squeezing Canada’s First Retailers from Market
Ahead of the fifth anniversary of Canada launching its adult-use cannabis program, the country’s market has dealt with growing pains similar to the ones seen in mature U.S. state markets. Overproduction has forced wholesale prices past many growers’ profitability points as excise taxes assumed a constant CAD$10/gram retail rate. Meanwhile, marketing challenges have artificially limited brands’ ability to distinguish themselves and their products from one another.
Inspired Cannabis: Canada’s Next Big Dispensary Chain?
On Robson Street in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, just a couple of city blocks away from a Tiffany & Co. jeweler, a Coach purse retailer, and one of Canada’s largest Lululemon stores, sits a dispensary with a brightly lit sign that spells out: Inspired Cannabis.
Root Sciences’ ‘Soup-to-Nuts’ Approach
Fadi Yashruti, CEO and co-founder of cannabis extraction and remediation equipment distributor Root Sciences, knows first-hand the challenges cannabis operators experience. That’s because, in addition to running an equipment distribution company, he also operates Suspended Brands, a cannabis cultivation and manufacturing business in Washington State.
Twister Technologies’ Jay Evans Talks About his Cannabis-First Approach
Jay Evans, CEO of cannabis post-harvest equipment manufacturer Keirton, has always been interested in cannabis. Like many, he grew his first plant in his teenage years more than 25 years ago and hasn’t left the space since, making connections across the spectrum of industry players. A native of British Columbia, Canada, a country whose early medical cannabis laws allowed for what essentially were large-scale home grows, he quickly saw a common pain point amongst his industry contacts: trimming.
VJ Scientific Aims to Bring 30+ Years of X-Ray Experience to Cannabis Remediation
Most individuals don’t know about VJ Group, but many have directly or indirectly interacted with its X-ray technologies at the doctor’s office or at a dental appointment, or via having their bags scanned at airports, or even by using technologies whose hardware components were inspected via X-ray scan.
Eteros: A Passion for Building
Aaron Mckellar has always loved working with his hands. When the founder and CEO of Canadian cannabis post-harvest equipment manufacturer Eteros Technologies Inc. graduated high school in Surrey, British Columbia, he immediately launched a business designing and fabricating boats for the Pacific coastal waters..
Canopy Growth: How We Got Here
On Feb. 9, 2022, Canadian cannabis titan Canopy Growth announced its latest round of layoffs and facility shutdowns, including its departure from its flagship facility at the former Hershey’s chocolate plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario. “The Canadian business transformation plan,” as CEO David Klein dubbed it in the company’s Q3 2023 earnings call (a period ending Dec.
Convectium: Cannabis Post-Harvest Equipment Manufacturer Navigates Murky Industry Waters
Founded by Danny Davis in 2014, Convectium has been supplying the cannabis industry with cartridge-filling systems since the release of its first design, the 710Shark, in 2015. The first iteration of the machine “was a mass-produced glue machine from the fifties and sixties,” Convectium CEO Mark Adams shared with Cannabis Business Executive in an interview.
POSaBIT Buys Suite of Platforms (Leaf Data Systems, MJ Platform and Ample Organics) from Embattled Akerna Corp.
POSaBIT, the cannabis point-of-sale (POS) and payments software company, this morning announced its planned acquisition of MJ Platform (MJ Freeway), Leaf Data Systems, and Ample Organics from embattled software company Akerna Corp. for US$4 million in an all-cash transaction. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2023.
Willow Industries’ Jill Ellsworth Kills Misconceptions about Cannabis Kill-Steps
Trying to bring food-grade safety standards to the budding regulated cannabis industry wasn’t easy for Jill Ellsworth, founder and CEO of cannabis kill-step solution provider Willow Industries.
lolo has NorCal Cannabis Co. Feeling Not-So-Low
NorCal Cannabis Co. might not be a nationally recognized name (yet), but California consumers are definitely buying their products. The company, officially launched in 2015, saw its lolo cannabis brand hit the top spot in units sold and second place in total flower sales by revenue in Headset’s 2022 rankings. This after only entering the analytics company’s rankings at #14 in August 2021. Year-over-year, lolo flower sales are up 100.6%, the company reports.
CBE’s Tech Stack List: Integrated Point-of-Sale Payments Solutions
An entire industry within the cannabis space has developed to solve one of the market’s most persistent problems: payments. Indeed, gone are the days of dispensaries only being able to take cash for their wares, as retailers can now offer several options to their customers that reduce the burden of handling (too much) cash.
CBE’s Tech Stack Consideration List: Compliance
Compliance is the name of the cannabis industry game. Being unable to operate a business under strict regulatory scrutiny can result in fines, license suspensions, or, in the worst cases, license revocations. Choosing the right cannabis compliance software can lighten the load for operators by streamlining SOPs, organizing compliance documents, collating and vulgarizing state and local regulations, integrating directly with state compliance systems, and more.
CBE’s Tech Stack Consideration List: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Anybody who has worked in cannabis sales can tell you the first thing about the business is managing relationships. Beyond a financial transaction, a dispensary’s relationship with its customers is built on trust, practicality, and good service. The same can be said of that business’s relationship with its software providers.
CBE’s Tech Stack Consideration List: Ecommerce
Building a strong digital presence can bolster sales for any business, but can be especially impactful in the cannabis retail industry given its customers’ youthful demographics. Millennial consumers and Generation Z enthusiasts grew up in and came of age during the digital era, and businesses failing at keeping up with the times could see themselves turning away a significant portion of the market.
CBE’s Tech Stack List: Point-of-Sale Systems
A point-of-sale (POS) system is arguably the most important part of any dispensary’s technology stack. Being able to take payments from customers and efficiently manage orders and inventory are the main operations for retailers, after all. With most major retail service providers still skirting the cannabis industry, an in-house market has grown to answer the particular needs that dispensaries have.
Outfield: Gamifying Wholesale Cannabis CRM
Building a good technology company boils down to solving a real-world problem thoughtfully and effectively. It’s also easier to identify and solve those problems when you have first-hand experience with them. That’s how Austin Rolling, CEO of customer relations management (CRM) and field sales mobile app Outfield, came up with the idea for his Houston-based company in 2015.
From Tablelist to Cannabis eCommerce Platform: Dispense Marches On
Although the cannabis industry’s pace can cause time to fly by in dog years, Kyla Sirni, the co-founder and CEO of Dispense, a cannabis eCommerce platform launched in 2020, is used to the bustle. She and her co-founder had worked in hospitality for seven years operating Tablelist, a ticketing, reservations, and guest management software company. That is, until the COVID-19 pandemic leveled the industry. “We were operating in 50 cities worldwide,” Sirni tells Cannabis Business Executive.
Fyllo: Connecting a Cannabis Flywheel
A consumer data marketplace. An advertising and promotions platform. A compliance tool. A regulatory database. This is not a checklist of software and digital technologies that cannabis companies should consider, but rather an abbreviated form of what Fyllo (pronounced FEE–low) offers.
ProCanna: Answering Cannabis’s Compliance and SOP Tracking Needs
Dede Perkins became a regulated cannabis industry veteran without intending to. The co-founder and CEO of cannabis compliance and auditing software company ProCanna had a successful freelance writing practice when she was contacted by a Massachusetts group applying for one of the state’s medical cannabis licenses in 2013.
POSaBIT: From Bitcoin Payments to Cannabis Financial Institution
Ryan Hamlin’s cannabis origin story is not an uncommon one. The founder and CEO of cannabis debit payment and point-of-sale (POS) platform POSaBIT (pronounced PAUSE-ah-bit) found himself at a barbecue in Washington state in late 2014, chatting with a friend about the business opportunity that cannabis presented.
Treez: Laying the Groundwork for the Future of Retail Cannabis FINtech
Ahead of this week’s Marijuana Business Conference in Las Vegas, cannabis POS software company Treez is getting ready to bring its version of the future of retail cannabis FINtech to market with a series of product innovations.
Jane Technologies: Digitizing the Cannabis Retail Experience
One of the books that most influenced Socrates Rosenfeld, CEO of cannabis e-commerce platform Jane Technologies, is “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek. In the book, Sinek splits the different games that humans play into two categories: finite, and infinite. For a long time, Rosenfeld says, business has been treated like sports where the rules dictate there be a clear winner and clear loser after the match has been played.
Dutchie: A 3-Billion-Dollar Cannabis E-Comm Giant
Dutchie certainly has made headlines with its rapid growth over the last few years. An e-commerce platform focused on facilitating dispensary operations and transactions, Dutchie enables more than $14 billion in sales annually across 5,500 dispensaries in the U.S. and Canada en route to an October 2021 valuation of $3.75 billion.
BLAZE: Cannabis Operators Building Software for Cannabis Operators
When Chris Violas, founder and CEO of cannabis seed-to-sale software company BLAZE, ran a cannabis delivery service under California’s Prop 215 system from 2011 to 2014, he saw firsthand the issues with which these businesses had to contend. Inventory management, driver dispatch, payments, ID checks… The logistics could be maddening.
springbig: From Yogurt and Pizza Digital Punch to Cannabis CRM Platform
When cannabis customer relationship management (CRM) software company springbig went public this past June, CEO Jeffrey Harris noted in a press release how the move would help “accelerate our growth strategy as a newly public company.” Accelerating an already rapidly growing business may sound like a tall task, as Harris and his team already have grown company revenues from just over $1 million in 2018 to $24 million in 2021. But Harris has built a successful CRM company before.
Simplifya: Tracking 18 Million Lines of Regulations, And Counting
18 million lines of cannabis regulations. That’s what Marion Mariathasan, CEO of cannabis compliance software provider Simplifya, estimates his company currently tracks across 28 state markets. Launched in 2016, Simplifya is one of the cannabis industry’s leading compliance software companies.
Are Water Conflicts Rising to the Surface?
The Western and Southwestern U.S. has been in a “megadrought,” a drought period spanning 20 years or more, since 2000. Using tree ring analysis, researchers from UCLA, Columbia University and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Study determined that the period of 2000-2021 was the driest the Western part of the continent has been since the year 800.
FlowHub: A Streamlined Experience for Large (and Small) Retail Operations
After discovering how CBD could help him get off of prescription SSRIs, Kyle Sherman, founder and CEO of cannabis POS software company FlowHub, moved with his family from California to Colorado in 2013. While California was still the medical cannabis hub, Colorado was about to legalize adult-use storefronts, an opportunity Sherman didn’t want to miss.
CEO & Founder Gary Cohen Delivers Cova's Point-of-(Compliant)-Sale Software Secret Sauce
By Brian MacIver When Gary Cohen, founder and CEO of cannabis industry point-of-sale (POS) software company Cova, was working for another large POS company operating in the retail cellphone market, he never dreamed he would one day be making the jump into the cannabis industry. But with his former company claiming a whopping 85% of the U.S. market share in its space, the growth opportunities were getting scarcer.
Canadian UFC Fighter, Medical Cannabis Activist Elias Theodorou Passes Away Age 34
Canadian MMA fighter and medical cannabis patient Elias Theodorou, the first professional athlete to obtain and compete with a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for medical cannabis in North America, passed away on September 11 from Stage 4 colon cancer. He was 34. Theodorou obtained his TUE in January 2020 after a four-year fight to prove how opioids and other prescription painkillers negatively impacted his martial arts training.
CBD Opportunities for C-Stores
Convenience store operators across the U.S. increasingly are stocking cannabidiol (CBD) products on their shelves. These businesses are tapping into this market to boost revenues and attract canna-curious customers — an effective strategy in the short and medium term as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to drag its feet on any meaningful regulatory updates.
Where Does Your Crop Go?
© Data Courtesy of Brightfield Group. Americans are purchasing CBD products more than ever. According to Brightfield Group's Evergi consumer data platform, which presents survey data on the general U.S. population’s health and wellness behaviors, 14% of Americans have purchased CBD in the past three months. This proliferation of CBD consumers, and of increasing CBD use among existing consumers, is in part driven by the growing availability of CBD products.
US Cannabis Market Opportunities
Brands looking to capitalize on future market growth need to look at how consumers are behaving today. By Brian MacIver Needless to say, the American cannabis market is booming (although inflationary forces may have something to say about that as consumer wallets get tighter).
Live Resins: Part of a Balanced Cannabis Menu
Live resins separate themselves from other concentrated cannabis products by their higher terpene contents. These products offer consumers an experience closer to smoking flower compared to distillates, which have been stripped of most of their natural terpenes and aromatic compounds during the drying, curing, and/or extraction process—although they often are reinfused with flavor to improve user experience.
Unrivaled Brands Looks to Build Off Its First Harvest’s Success
Texas hemp companies are fighting back against the state’s recent ban on delta-8 THC. The ban stems back to a statement made by Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) in late October clarifying that delta-8 is a Schedule I controlled substance and is illegal under H.B.1325—legislation signed into law by Gov. Gregg Abbott in 2019 to legalize the cultivation of hemp in Texas, Hemp Grower previously reported.
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