BeLeaf Medical Settles Into Adult-Use – Cannabis Business Executive

It has been six months since Missouri made the same transition many other states have undertaken to integrate adult-use cannabis sales into an existing medical cannabis marketplace, and from all accounts, the state is still in a honeymoon phase recording healthy sales of about $3 million of cannabis a day, over $121 million in June alone, and over $500 million in sales since the state went recreational. “If Missouri continues at the current pace, over $1 billion will be sold in the year 2023 alone,” reported KMBC News. In fact, the state hit $1 billion in total cannabis sales since medical sales began in 2020 only three months into adult-use sales.

The successful launch has of course benefited operators in the state, which currently has more than 200 dispensaries statewide. An application window for the first round of microbusiness licenses will be open from July 27 – August 10, 2023. Microbusinesses are “designed to allow marginalized or under-represented individuals to participate in the legal marijuana market,” per the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services. “In October, DHSS will issue, via random lottery drawing, six microbusiness licenses in each of the eight Missouri congressional districts, for a total of 48 microbusiness licenses. Of the six in each district, two will be microbusiness dispensaries, and four will be wholesale facilities.”

Cannabis Business Executive spoke recently with Jason Nelson, CEO of BeLeaf Medical, to get his take on how the rollout is progressing and his expectations for the future. BeLeaf is a vertical single-state operator with three production sites, two manufacturing facilities, and five Swade dispensaries in the St. Louis area. A ten-year veteran of the regulated commercial cannabis space, Nelson has helped two other companies integrate adult-use sales into an existing medical business: Green Solution, a cannabis producer/retailer in Denver, during the transition from a medical to recreational marketplace, and in 2016, newly licensed Illinois-based Cresco Labs, which Nelson helped expand into a ten-state market presence. He joined BeLeaf Medical about a year ago, just in time to help it make the same transition into adult-use sales.

“BeLeaf, as well as the medical operators in general, certainly saw that typical increase in customer traffic and wholesale product volumes and velocities right out of the gate,” he said of the rollout. ‘That’s been a very common trend. We did see a fairly sizable discrepancy between the resounding success we’ve had increasing our foot traffic here at my St. Louis Swade stores, for example, but then juxtapose that against an even more robust increase in foot traffic for the Kansas City operators.

“For those who operate on that side of the state,” he added, “one of the things that certainly has been in their favor is that you have cannabis deserts in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and some decent urban populations that are within a reasonable commute to cross over the Missouri border and be able to buy regulated adult-use cannabis products and relatively strong menus across the board. You also had a lot of operators and brands established in Missouri under the medical market that offer great variety to adult-use consumers. So, February was a relatively successful launch – the numbers themselves indicate as much – and what we’ve seen over the subsequent months is that while certain operators, like BeLeaf, continue to see month-over-month growth in both retail store sales and wholesale platform sales, the market itself has generally leveled off. The last two or three months have hovered around $120 to $130 million in total sales in the Missouri market. To me, that indicates that we have settled into at least an established run rate for 2023, and as an operator, I have to navigate this climate successfully and continue to increase BeLeaf’s success within the climate.”

Cannabis consumers have also benefited from the transition. “Adult-use consumers continue to see strong representations of good-better-best product variety in stores,” said Nelson. “You can certainly buy high-end, medium-priced, and lower-priced cannabis products across all iteration, whether it’s biomass flower, vape, concentrates, edibles, and truthfully, the medical patient population across the state has started to show decline over the last two to three months. While this trend is not uncommon, what we’re really proud of is that our medical patient sales at Swade have stayed relatively consistent through Q2.

“That was a strong initiative for us to say to the medical patients who helped us build this program that we certainly appreciate and understand that an adult-use market pivot like this can create a situation where it’s less convenient to be a patient, some products aren’t as consistently available as they prefer, and maybe some dispensaries have opted to increase prices due to increased demand, which we’ve withheld doing. I think those trends paint Missouri as a relatively successful case for when you normalize cannabis products, you have sufficient inventory, and you’re able to engage a purchasing population, you see a situation where new consumers, medical consumers, and operators have general success in an adult-use market.”

A key feature to achieving that symmetry is a balance between supply and demand and its ensuing impact on pricing stability and ensuing cycles. “The initial adult-use launch was fortunate to have plenty of latent inventory both on dispensary shelves and in wholesale vaults as well,” said Nelson. “There was more material in inventory than could be sold in a medical market, which also indicates how challenging it was to have that many operators in the medical market, and the benefit and success one can have when now you have a large population of adult-use consumers willing to buy those same products in roughly the same proportions as the medical patients did.

“We did focus on maintaining medical product prices at Swade so a medical purchaser was familiar and had relationships with product pricing and availability, and we put incentives in place to maintain their relationship with our Swade dispensaries and products,” he added. “But they certainly would have had some supply-chain volatility on specific strains or products that maybe they would have preferred to have access to. Those products were generally restocked within one to two weeks, but if you had a favorite strain that sold out quickly, you still had 15 to 20 other strains across a menu in Swade or any other retail dispensary. In my mind, that’s still a successful outcome. We saw a couple of weeks where certain manufactured products, such as distillate or other types of inventory, were in short supply during March and April, but that reconciled pretty quickly. And you have had some operators – storefronts as well as wholesalers – that have increased prices at varying degrees, but it’s something I’ve always been highly averse to. I just can’t ask a consumer to have that much of a price increase over what their alternatives are, regardless of the value. So, I think there’s always room for improvement, but with respect to both the medical patients and adult-use customer experience, I feel like I can rest easy that it’s been fairly consistent and successful outside of a few cases of supply chain volatility that happen anytime you go from a one to 2x sales volume up to a three to four or five to 10x sales volume.”

A Normalized Purchasing Pattern

With a population of roughly 6.2 million people, Missouri is the nation’s 18^th most-populous state. New Jersey, by comparison, is the 11^th most-populous state with approximately 9.2 million people. New Jersey, which transitioned to adult-use sales less than a year before Missouri, currently has around 30 adult-use dispensaries and 14 medical-only dispensaries open. Compared with Missouri’s 200 -plus stores, it may help explain Missouri’s even-keel when it comes to cannabis sales, which have seen some interesting trends as adult-use settles in.

“One of the key things we saw here in Missouri is what an actual normalized purchasing pattern looks like if you don’t have restrictions associated with inventory or access, and you have enough brick-and-mortar stores open to be able to have customers gain reasonable access to a full diverse menu,” said Nelson. “In that normalized relationship, we did see an increase in the percentage of edibles sold from a top-line dollar perspective right out of the gate. In certain markets where edibles are normally between 12 to 15 percent total market share, in February and March they were closer to 20 percent market share. I think that indicates that the predominant customer who comes into a dispensary is still buying flower 50 percent of the time, vapes or concentrates 30 percent of the time, and if they’re also buying some edibles as well, I think that is because none of those categories were excessively limited out of the gate.

“Of course, it’s not uncommon in other markets, as we’re seeing here, that flower maintains a strong market priority with respect to both purchasers, wholesale and retail,” he added. “As I mentioned, 50-plus percent of every dollar is still spent on raw flower, and as a consequence, we also have begun to see some compression in vape pricing in that vapes and edibles, as manufactured products, generally have a lower chance of developing product quality issues compared with raw flower. If you look at a menu in Missouri right now, you’ll see a strong representation of vapes across every different type of iteration, and likewise, we have over 30 functioning edibles brands here in Missouri.”

In fact, edibles are a relatively new SKU for BeLeaf. “When I came to BeLeaf, we were not producing an edibles line,” recalled Nelson. “At that time, I thought, ‘Listen, I’ve got plenty of competition with respect to edibles in the state of Missouri, but depending on how the adult use launch goes, I may want to leverage my capacity to produce some edibles.’ Then it’s about a focus on sector-leading SKUs, establishing the run-rate, understanding the velocity associated with it, and then backing those assumptions into how you perceive your competitors and what their activity is. So, we did successfully launch Since edibles over the course of the first part of the year, and we also entered into a social equity forward partnership on a gummy line with a great Chicago operator who is working to get themselves operational, and we had a great launch here in Missouri to help them become operational and get some revenue on the books.”

The deal with the Chicago operator, HT23, to bring its flagship Savour gummy to market, which was announced in June, is not BeLeaf’s only partnership. “One of the key changes with adult-use passage with respect to product allowances is the ability to now manufacture and sell infused prerolls,” added Nelson. “Previously, state laws under medical did not allow for an infused preroll iteration. Now having that opportunity, I’m fortunate to have gone through multiple iterations of R&D on infused pre rolls, and we’ve partnered with Revenant out of California, a group supporting veteran’s needs, advocating for veteran health care, and for NFL players health care as they transition to the next phases of their lives after their careers. That infused preroll just launched for us and it was wildly successful. If you have a winning brand and the product quality to match, you really do have a strong opportunity to move into a market and establish a winning SKU.” Launched in July, Sinse produces the “Heaterz” infused prerolls, which are sold under the Revenant brand.

One of BeLeaf’s earliest product lines is called Amend, which it created shortly after receiving its THC-touching license. “BeLeaf was founded as a licensed CBD hemp company in 2016,” said Nelson. “At that time, they were producing these oils, and still maintain production, but CBD markets are very difficult to have success in any sense of the word. As BeLeaf had that operational experience and working relationship with the state of Missouri under the CBD hemp license, they applied for both retail and manufacturing plant-touching THC licenses and were awarded those.

“In the transition to launch BeLeaf’s THC products,” he continued, “you have Sinse cannabis, which is your adult-use and typical medical products. Amend was not for your typical legacy consumer – so, topicals, bombs, depositories – and we will be adding an RSO product to the Amend line that should roll out in Q3. And so, we have Sinse as our better SKU with respect to cannabis products. We have also launched Culture Collective (Cuco), which is an inclusive brand that leads with equitably price cannabis products and focuses a lot of its initiatives on supporting artisans, local community outreach, and all the good works in the world that cannabis is really positioned to do. The Cuco brand launch has been ongoing for us as well and has been very successful.”

The objective is to hit all price points. “BeLeaf is essentially positioned to produce a good-better-best SKU set and brand strategy,” explained Nelson. “One of the upsides of being generally over-leveraged on the front-end of high cost-of-capital build-out facilities is to have all this infrastructure that maybe doesn’t necessarily have as much ROI in a medical market, so we were well positioned to understand purchasing dynamics and the ways to tailor our brands to be able to speak to those specific consumers.”

Luckily, a major capex expenditure was not needed. “We were fortunate that we had expansion underway towards the end of last year,” said Nelson. “Generally, the assumption – because we had confidence that the adult-use measure would pass – was that the deployed capital was for finishing production canopy square footage, and my South Benton Park production site is now fully leveraged for its license capacity. We were able to launch that expansion in early February right before adult-use launched. From a crop-timing perspective, we are now starting to see that increased inventory coming into our network at a time when the summer purchasing patterns are well established and we can seize what we perceive is still strong appetite for usable flower, and likewise then for our concentrated products.”

That was the primary cap-ex deployment, but there were other expenditures. “I leveraged my previous experience with a large multistate operator in certain things, like automated flower packages, for example, and automated prerolls. Leaning into those proven sector-leading SKUs with responsible automation has really positioned us well to have a strong 2023 and stay well-positioned to navigate and transition that into years as we move down the road.”

The Missouri Breaks

As Missouri integrates new adult-use consumers into the flow of business, I wondered about the extent to which online ordering is being used. “Like in any adult-use market launch I’ve ever managed,” said Nelson, “you want to incentivize customers as much as humanly possible to put in an online order ahead of time. It really helps the back-of-house fulfillment components. I don’t have the exact statistic, but I believe 65-70 percent of consumers are putting in online orders in Missouri. However, you cannot do the financial transaction through an online order, so you fill your basket, commit to the order, add rewards points on behalf of Swade, those types of things. Once you show up to the dispensary, you can either pay cash or debit card at the point of sale, and those are quick in and quick out very efficient type of purchasing outcomes.

“You do still see people that will come in their first few times, wander around the store, and want to take a look at the shelves,” he added. “We also have ordering kiosks with a patient care or product care specialist close by to answer any questions. We’ve understood that with other adult-use market launches and retail models, sometimes that relationship feels a little cold and distant, and so trying to maintain that general balance has been successful for us. And we want to make sure that if you want to come in and talk with someone and or purchase a product in the moment and see what specials and promo promotions are on separate from what you can find through our e-commerce platform, that’s been successful for us.”

Home delivery is also allowed in Missouri, which adds another consumer base for retailers to target. “It also really looks like Kansas City is in a position to wildly outperform the St. Louis market with respect to delivery outcomes,” noted Nelson. “As a business leader, I want to understand those trends and be able to leverage them to say, ‘If I’m bringing delivery to the St. Louis market, how can we do that successfully? How can we do that in a way that really speaks to that last set of clientele that for whatever reason is not comfortable going into a dispensary or is busy and prefers to have their products delivered to their home and know what they want. It’s important to be able to offer all of those channels for consumers to be able to purchase from us.”

As mentioned, an interesting dynamic to Missouri is the geographic discrepancy between the east and west sides of the state due to the cannabis-status of neighboring states. “If I was solely a retailer in St. Louis,” said Nelson, “I might be much more open to trying to acquire into Kansas City retail, because there’s no way around the fact that Kansas purchasers, Nebraska purchasers, and Iowa purchasers literally have no hope of legislation in the coming future to be able to offer them a regulated accessible product.”

Do Iowa residents need to drive all the way down to Kansas City to find legal cannabis, or are there also dispensaries in the northern hinterlands? “There are remote dispensaries that do amazing numbers up in those neck of the woods,” confirmed Nelson. “There are 210 to 215 dispensaries in Missouri now, and a good chunk of those are urban-located either on the St. Louis side or the Kansas City side. On the Kansas City side, you have things like a large university in Kansas University, or even at Kansas State University. It’s a bit of a clip to get over to Kansas City, but as far as the purchasing population and a consumer base that’s motivated to actually give you some cannabis tourism, that’s been a much more robust relationship than us

“But we certainly enjoyed cannabis tourism on the St. Louis side from Illinois,” he added. “We understand our pricing and our taxing structure is a little more favorable. At the same time, we have the same general quality products that are available on the Illinois side, and new cannabis access just wasn’t that exciting in our side of the state compared to the Kansas City side, and we continue to see that trend. The question becomes, how durable is that market on the west side of the state in Kansas City. I have a direct line of sight on that because as a wholesaler, I’m selling my products in that Kansas City market and have very strong relationships with dispensaries on that side of the state, even though I don’t own or operate any currently.”

The wholesale side of the business is very important to the company, Nelson added. “Coming into Q3-Q4, BeLeaf had taken a very strong initiative in building robust wholesale partnerships,” he said. “Those are personal relationships between us as a producer and retail locations that are buying our products. Prior to adult-use, we were selling in upwards of 90 percent of all stores in Missouri. We had to be very aggressive with respect to our product quality and positioning ourselves as a premier operator, because we generally had more products and inventory than we had consumers to buy it. What has changed in adult-use is that now raw flower that BeLeaf is producing under our Sinse or Cuco brands have essentially instant demand. As soon as I have the product available past testing and packaging, I can sell that to either my own Swade dispensaries, or more notably, I can sell that over to the west side, or to those more remote dispensaries that are doing amazing retail numbers.

“And that has allowed us to refine the number of wholesale clients that we have,” he added. “I was in 90 percent of all stores previously, and that percentage has decreased because my existing partners basically gobble up any material I’ve got as quickly as I can produce it. While there are some advantages there, we’re thankful that we have that expansion material coming online. We want to be able to satisfy any and every dispensary clientele that we have and continue to work with them and maintain those relationships. That’s not necessarily the most common outcome. You see a lot of firms producing cannabis that want to sell 80-90 percent in their own dispensary, and there’s some advantages to that. But we generally tend to position ourselves to be more of an equitable player in the sandbox, so to speak, by not only leverage our wholesale products out into the market, but by welcoming wholesale brands into the Swade dispensaries so that the customer really does have that strong relationship with variety and price access.”

I asked Nelson if the company was still on track to realize projected 2023 revenue of $60 million-plus. “That number is still attainable for us,” replied Nelson. “We certainly keep focused on it. But having gone through this so many times before with an adult-use launch, the assumption is not that this party will never end, prices will never come down, and volatilities will never occur. So, we stay focused on the process, and we set our goals and outcomes from the company’s perspective as any company has to do. And so far, so good.”

That seemed to beg the question, how will Missouri fare against other cannabis markets? “Compared to other states and other markets,” said Nelson, “Missouri was one of the few that was able to launch an adult-use program without restrictions on either purchasing quantities or inventory. And notably, in a place like Illinois, you also still have a relatively small number of brick-and-mortar retail environments compared to your purchasing population. Any one of those elements can affect business fundamentals. If a majority of operator competitors raise their prices 30 to 35 percent, that can easily disenfranchise a purchasing population over time, especially in a state like Illinois, where you see statistics that for every recreational cannabis purchase in a dispensary, there’s an equivalent illicit market purchase, because wholesale prices are not low and because of the taxing structure that they have in place. And the truth is that any operator in any market has to be able to weather whatever tax structure they’re presented with and still have a successful conversation that keeps customers engaged. I had a very resounding launch with respect to adult-use in Missouri, but then how do I maintain that?

“I do think there is peril associated with it over time,” he continued, “and by extension, you unfortunately see a lot of the MSOs become overextended. There’s no way around it if you’re shuttering assets and going through these types of layoffs. We could easily make a similar mistake here if I was overly confident or bullish about things. ‘Hey, this market can grow to $2 billion, $4 billion, $7 billion, $8 billion by 2028. We’ve all looked at those projections as they modify over time. So, I do credit Missouri and I believe that of all the markets I’ve seen, we are in the best position to maintain that normalized consumption. And then, I can offset that with starting to welcome in new consumers who are not currently as robustly engaged with cannabis, the 60-year-old-plus type of consumer who historically has not been nearly as engaged as a younger demographic. There is room for growth there, and thankfully we have resources to be able to deploy against those initiatives, whereas in other states, if your operators are underwater, struggling and admittedly not paying their federal taxes, that’s a very difficult environment for them to be able to respond to the market dynamics appropriately.”

Nelson added as a caveat that he is not down on MSOs per se. “I was a huge part of building one, and we’re all consistently beholden to the challenge,” he said. “We’re all passionate about cannabis, and we all understand the value that cannabis can bring to lives, whether you’re currently an engaged purchaser, whether you’re curious about it, or whether you really had no notion or interest in cannabis.”

But the trajectory for BeLeaf Medical nevertheless seems more restrained or disciplined than that of the normal MSO. “It has an element of conservatism with respect to our fiscal deployments,” agreed Nelson. “There have been successful models with respect to brand partnerships, where you can proliferate your business units, spread your brand out, and do some things tactically that don’t entail planting a flag and acquiring a bunch of licenses.

“Conversely,” he added, “we do consider mergers and acquisitions not only in the state of Missouri but in other markets as well. And they run the gamut. New York has an enormous purchasing population, and you know that there’s room for firms to have success in the market. You can have that big conversation in any market currently. There are operators having success and are cash flow positive in any market. In Oklahoma and California, those operators do exist. Now granted, they’re the minority, and what that tells me is that a large component that MSOs are struggling with is the cultural competency and underground understanding of what each of those markets requires to not only maintain strong engagement with existing purchasers, but then really tapping into and being able to have a conversation with a consumer who is not pro-cannabis, maybe ambivalent, or possibly even anti-cannabis, and say, ‘Listen, at a low dose at a reasonable use rate, you can consider either lifestyle benefits or increased sleep benefits through relaxation and stress abatement, the common things that we know manifest themselves from cannabis consumption.

“The last piece is meeting them where they are and having a conversation about their concerns,” he continued. “The predominating thing that will mitigate those concerns is as we continue to see legitimate research that is accountable to both science and true data, and isn’t industry funded, or is funded in a way that gives the autonomy to the institutions that are conducting the research. Once you have that information in hand with the research – whether it’s in two, three, or five years –you have more of a breadth and depth of what are the upside potential benefits of use, and what are the risks. Once we can have that conversation, I believe we’re in a better position to sell into those markets of different consumers than the ones currently engaged.”

Still, the arguments against expansion now carry weight. “We just went through this in Missouri,” explained Nelson. “Any time you have established cannabis operations, and typically those established cannabis operations are with the medical market, and you make that transition into a partially or fully normalized adult-use market, the early mover, early innovator advantage is there. There’s no way around it, and you will have to employ a lot of capital to compete.”

Could product brands lead the way? “I do see our Sinse or Cuco brands in other states,” said Nelson. “That’s a goal for us, without shortchanging the true commitment we’ve made to BeLeaf in Missouri. Likewise, all the employees that have been supporting the brands are still our predominate priority. But when you look at unregulated populations, or lesser regulated populations that are not consuming, New York still checks that box, as does Texas. But anybody who understands both of those markets will tell you, ‘Don’t plan on burning cash for less than three to five years, five to seven years.’”

So, hope for the best and plan for the worst? “You have to,” replied Nelson, “and any type of nascent constraint can come in to implicate your business fundamentals. Your sustainability is still subject to this nascent industry. We’ve made great progress in a lot of ways, but in fairness to anybody who’s in cannabis now, no one would have guessed the amount of contraction among the larger operators over the last 24 months. That would have been very tough to predict, and to that end, the only benefit I take from those outcomes is making sure that I don’t repeat them.”

Future BeLeaf

The adoption of adult-use sales in Missouri has certainty been a portentous development for BeLeaf and others. “We are profitable, and that was the instant transition from medical to adult-use,” stated Nelson. “Everybody knows that federal taxing circumstances are difficult, but if you understand any of these operators that are still stuck with very high cost of interest rates, the network that BeLeaf has – with five retail, three production, two manufacturing and a transportation lab – to deploy against that requires a very high cost of capital, and the capital environment has been exacerbated by things like the Silicon Valley Bank failure and other volatility associated with the financial market.

“Our bellwether for that is that we continue to have these conversations about business refinements, interest rate mitigation, those types of thing,” he added. “And as wildly successful as BeLeaf is and the Missouri market is in general, the money still has a strong bearish element about it, whether it’s private equity, or it’s traditional banking that we may have had access to. But even as one of the better cases of business fundamentals and success in Missouri, we do not have comfortable access to capex to be able to deploy. It’s there but depending on what it is you’re selling, it’s the changing elements that dictate how successfully you can operate a retail environment.”

BeLeaf employs about 245 employees, said Nelson, and adds people as needed. “With the last expansion I wrapped up, we hired roughly 20 to 30 people,” he added. “Now that that’s done, I do have additional license capacity, and I can consider deploying some capital into expanding my production canopy further. Part of that big picture budget is whether it is sustainable. What type of staffing am I going to need to add to my total headcount, and my payroll associated with cost of doing business? We look at those things, and it’s been a generally strong relationship with adding wholesale production site facility employees, and with more customer engagement, there has been an increase in retail headcount as well.”

Currently, he added, none of the Swade stores are unionized. “I came out of what you would certainly consider a strong union environment in Chicago,” he explained. “One of the things that taught me as an operator is that you need to take the responsibility as a corporation to maintain and utilize union-style representations for your employees without the need to have that third-party managing it unless you’re not doing it right. I capitulate that there are cannabis operators out there, some of them large, that really do need to unionize because they struggle with being able to communicate directly with their employees and properly incentivize upward mobility. And likewise, compensation increases as you grow the business over time, and ownership can change within a company. It’s still so highly volatile and variable, and a lot of times cannabis leaders are basically very new to what they’re doing. And so, while I support unions and any site’s ability to vote to unionize, and it shouldn’t be busted up, it also should not be some of the things that you see some bigger operators being charged with doing whether those are legitimate charges or not.

“A point of pride for us with respect to dialogue – as well as one of the places where I have not cut or held back resources – is in the HR function and our ability to contextualize what’s happening for the company on upward mobility. For every position I’m going to place externally, I’m opening it up for internal interviews, and if we have an internal candidate that fits the bill and meets that need, that’s the best case for everybody. At the same time, you have to bring in external leadership at all levels – entry level and otherwise – and being able to welcome them in efficiently and effectively also takes a lot of experience in the space, because it’s not a normal activity for some leader or resource coming from CPG, or Pharma, or any of these other ancillary businesses. They have value to bring, but if your HR is not fully contextualized or engaged with your staff, meeting them where they are, it’s just going to be a less than ideal situation.”

His balanced approach notwithstanding, Nelson has a lot to build on with BeLeaf in a state that has thus far gotten it about right. “St. Louis is very Swade-forward because I want to get in people’s consciousness that if you like Sinse flower, Swade is an extension of that,” he said of BeLeaf’s marketing strategy. “Conversely, on the west side of the state, I’m not going to talk about Swade at all. I’m going to be talking predominantly about Sinse and Cuco, because those are the wholesale brands that I don’t necessarily think I can get someone who lives near Kansas City to drive over to St. Louis for, even if I’ve got a great promotion on.

“As a legacy consumer brand, ” he added, “Cuco is both equitable and representative of all walks of life, but at a very affordable price, whereas Sinse is a very strong, elevated product in what I consider a better pricing structure. It’s not luxury pricing – I’m not selling Sinse for $50 an eighth with tax on top of that, and we have an artisanal brand in Swade Selects – but our predominant focus is on Sinse and Cuco. For the legacy consumer, no matter what iteration they want, I want to have a product at a quality price relationship so that they’re going to come back and see me time and again.”