Tag Archives: Focus Article

The Hemp Beverage Expo (HBE) heads into its second show this June in Austin, Texas, and the energy is full speed ahead — even with November 12th looming over the industry.

With policy updates shifting rapidly and operators scrambling to brainstorm contingency plans, getting in the room with businesses and advocates from across the beverage sector has never felt more urgent. The November 12th deadline is a genuine threat to the industry’s survival, and the show is positioning itself as the place where the people fighting for this category can share knowledge, compare notes, and figure out their next moves together.

Leaders from the Hemp Beverage Alliance, Coalition for Adult Beverage Alternatives, Beverage Wholesalers for Responsible Regulation, and Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America will all take the stage in Austin to discuss their latest efforts to shape policy and educate lawmakers.

The Data Is Building

Now that hemp beverages have been on the market for a few years and revenue is growing year over year, major enterprise market research firms are starting to dedicate real resources to tracking the sector. According to NielsenIQ’s April 2026 report “Buzz Worthy: The High Rise of THC Beverages,” THC drinks generated $239 million in sales over the past 52 weeks — a striking 135% year-over-year increase.

Market research companies MoreBetter and Vermont Information Processing (VIP) will be on hand to present insights into national and regional sales trends, consumer behavior, and emerging opportunities across the category. They’ll dig into questions such as: What outcomes do hemp beverage consumers report? At what THC level do adverse events become predictable? Do the data support regulatory THC caps? What cut-off protocols should on-premise operators follow? And how can brands legally market using clinical evidence? For anyone making data-driven strategic decisions in this space, this session alone is worth the trip.

Selling What Sells

Across grocery, liquor, convenience, and on-demand platforms, operators are expanding their hemp beverage selections as demand for the category grows. But selling effectively in each of those channels requires a completely different approach.

Art Mossollo, who helped build Cycling Frog into one of the top 10 hemp THC beverage brands, will lead a panel digging into exactly that. John Horton, Head of North America Public Policy at DoorDash, will discuss their strategy in the delivery channel. Thomas Winstanley, GM at edibles.com, will share how they are building an online marketplace for hemp products. And Blake Row, VP of SSCP Management — a restaurant group overseeing more than 600 locations nationwide — will walk through how hemp beverages are fitting into the on-premise channel, which many alcohol industry veterans consider the most effective launchpad for a new beverage brand.

The panel will cover what each channel is seeing in the market, how they are managing compliance and risk, and why consumer behavior will ultimately be the deciding factor in the category’s long-term trajectory.

What’s the Path to Retail?

There is no unified national distribution system for emerging beverage brands to follow. The infrastructure for THC is being built and negotiated on the fly.

Distributors from grocery, beer, and retail channels will join the “Distributing Through Uncertainty” panel to discuss how they are approaching hemp beverages while continuing to build portfolios, service accounts, and meet demand in spite of an uncertain regulatory environment. How are they evaluating risk? What are they hearing from retail partners? And what does it actually take to operate in a category that could change overnight? From route-to-market strategy and supplier selection to compliance and contingency planning, this session offers a candid look at how distributors are keeping the wheels turning—and positioning for whatever comes next.

You’re in Retail. Now What?

Landing on a shelf is just the beginning. Generating sales velocity is the real job, and every retail channel demands its own playbook.

Mary Eggers Beruth, CEO of Pharos Premium Infused Beverages, will lead the session “How to Win with Hemp Beverages at Retail,” joined by Laura Romero of Hire Dragon, a trade marketing firm; CJ Watson from TradeWorks, specialists in the convenience store channel; and Marissa Kinsey from Nowadays, who previously held a leadership role at BeatBox Beverages, a sales record breaking RTD brand in the alcohol industry.

The panel will break down what is actually working on the floor: merchandising strategies that drive visibility, simple ways to educate shoppers, and proven tactics like sampling and storytelling to introduce the category without overwhelming customers. They will provide plug-and-play ideas attendees can easily implement to build trial, loyalty, and long-term sell-through.

Know Your Supply Chain

Behind every successful THC beverage is a repeatable, predictable experience. Without that consistency, customers do not come back.

Building an infused beverage is more complex than most people realize, and the stakes for getting it wrong are high. Retailers, wholesalers, and CPG buyers need to know how to identify products that are GMP-certified, operationally sound, and capable of delivering a reliable experience every time.

Kim Rael Sanchez, co-founder of the emulsion lab, Azuca, will moderate the panel “Know Your Supply Chain,” with Aaron Owens from Teja Tonics, Alexa Wilson from Omega Equipment, and Vanessa Snyder from SC Labs. Together, they will walk through the supply chain realities behind product manufacturing and ingredient sourcing to quality assurance, compliance, and scalability. Attendees will learn how to evaluate brand partners more intelligently and reduce downstream risk.

Navigating the Legal Landscape

The patchwork of state laws governing hemp-derived THC beverages is unlike anything most beverage professionals have dealt with before, and the rules look different depending on whether you are a brand, a distributor, a retailer, or a platform.

The legal community is working in overdrive to help operators navigate the chaos and stay compliant as legal frameworks evolve.

One legal panel at HBE brings together a mix of voices: a brand operator navigating real growth decisions, a legal expert interpreting the regulatory landscape, and an actual regulator helping shape the policy conversation.

Shawn Hauser, Partner at Vicente, will moderate a discussion with Thomas Graham, Executive Director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; Angus Rittenburg, Co-Founder and CEO of Wynk; and Andrea Steel, Principal at The Banks Law Firm. Together, they will dig into how companies are making strategic decisions right now, where the biggest compliance risks exist, and what businesses should be doing today to stay adaptable no matter which way the regulatory winds blow.

The second session is an open Ask Me Anything with some of the sharpest lawyers working in the THC beverage space. Michelle Bodian, Strategic Advisor at the Hemp Beverage Alliance, will moderate, with Shauna Barnes of Barnes Beverage Group, Jim Ickes, Partner at Frantz Ward, and Alyssa Samuel, Senior Counsel at Husch Blackwell, fielding questions from the floor. Come with your most pressing legal questions — or, as the organizers put it, come with a bag of popcorn. Either way, you will leave with answers.

The Hemp Beverage Expo is bringing leaders together at a moment when the industry genuinely needs it. The regulatory clock is ticking, consumer demand is escalating, and the infrastructure is being built on the fly. Austin is the place to be this June.

May 28, 2026

What the Wholesale Numbers Tell Us About Where Cannabis Markets Are Headed

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LeafLink’s Wholesale Cannabis Pricing Guide, drawing on over 400,000 SKUs and billions of dollars in transaction data across 18 U.S. markets throughout 2025, paints a picture of the wholesale cannabis pricing continuing its downward march as markets mature and supply expands — with each market and product category telling a slightly different story.

The Big Picture

Wholesale markets continued to mature in 2025, with many categories experiencing ongoing price compression as supply increased and operators prioritized value. Edibles and ingestibles were a notable exception, with pricing remaining effectively flat year-over-year.

Category by Category

Cartridges experienced the steepest decline, with average prices falling approximately 12% year-over-year, landing at a national average of $13.86 per gram. Pre-Rolls followed closely, dropping more than 10% to $4.66 per gram, while Concentrates fell 7.5% to $9.25 per gram, and Flower posted moderate decreases.

Within cartridges, 510-thread cartridges — the largest segment by order volume — declined 12% to $12.52 per gram, while disposable cartridges fell 15% to $14.15 per gram. Together, 510-thread and disposable formats accounted for approximately 91% of total category orders.

For concentrates, the picture was more nuanced. Value-oriented formats saw sharp price declines — Distillate fell 20%, Cured Resin dropped 21%, and Live Resin declined 17% — while premium solventless products held firm. Live Rosin prices actually increased 31%, reinforcing its position as a premium product.

In the pre-roll segment, infused pre-rolls — the dominant segment by GMV at over $484 million — fell 16% year-over-year to $5.36 per gram, while non-infused pre-rolls remained relatively stable with only a 0.4% decline.

Edibles and ingestibles bucked the trend. Gummies dominated the category with stable pricing at $0.06 per milligram, while beverages rose 1.7% to an average of $0.14 per unit, and snacks saw the largest increase at 21%, though from a small base.

Beverages: A Format to Watch

The report includes a dedicated spotlight on cannabis beverages, which continue to attract growing attention despite remaining a smaller overall segment. Average beverage pricing rose 1.7% to $0.14 per unit, with most transactions falling within a relatively narrow band of $0.06 to $0.25 per unit. Michigan led all markets in beverage GMV at nearly $7.7 million, followed by Colorado at $6.5 million and Arizona at $6.3 million. Pricing varied considerably by market, with Maryland averaging $0.36 per unit at the high end and Washington at just $0.03 per unit at the low end — a spread that reflects significant differences in market maturity, regulatory structure, and competitive density.

Market Divergence: Premium vs. Value

One of the report’s clearest themes is the growing pricing gap between emerging and mature markets. New York remains the most premium-priced wholesale market in the network, reflecting the state’s relatively new adult-use rollout and constrained legal supply environment, with a pricing score of 1.8 out of 18. At the other end, Oklahoma ranks as the most value-driven market with a score of 17.2, driven by persistent oversupply stemming from its highly saturated licensing structure.

Other notable market highlights:

Alaska ranks as the second-highest-priced market, with geographic isolation and limited cross-border competition supporting elevated wholesale prices.
Michigan is one of the most value-driven markets nationwide, and its newly implemented 24% wholesale tax could add further pressure on operators.
California, despite being the largest market by active buyer count at 1,588, prices slightly below the national midpoint, with illicit market competition, widespread local retail opt-outs, and high tax burdens contributing to downward pricing pressure.

What It Means for Operators

The U.S. cannabis wholesale landscape in 2025 reflects an industry no longer defined by early expansion alone, but by refinement, competition, and operational discipline. Many cannabis businesses continue to operate against familiar industry headwinds, including margin compression, regulatory complexity, and ongoing competition from the illicit market.

May 26, 2026

The Post-280E Opportunity: Turning Cannabis Risk Into an Asset

By Patrick Johnston

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The April 2026 Department of Justice rescheduling order landed with the weight of a decade of advocacy behind it. For an industry that has watched every other legal sector deduct its rent, payroll, and marketing costs while cannabis operators paid taxes on money they never made, the optimism is more than justified. It is earned. The uncertainty, however, is just as real.

A Quick Reminder of Current Law

Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits businesses trafficking in Schedule I or II controlled substances from deducting ordinary business expenses. Operators may deduct the cost of goods sold under §471 and nothing else. The result is effective federal tax rates of 60 to 80 percent, and in some cases well beyond, on businesses that are licensed, regulated, and paying state taxes like any other industry. Among the largest publicly traded multi-state operators, contested 280E tax liability now exceeds $1.7 billion collectively.

Why Rescheduling Moves the Needle

The statutory logic is clean. As cannabis tax attorneys have broadly noted, a completed Schedule III reclassification could eliminate 280E by its own terms, potentially improving operator profitability overnight, in some cases dramatically.

What the April Order Actually Does

Here is where the headline optimism requires a reality check. The April 23 order covers two categories: FDA-approved cannabis products and cannabis produced by operators holding a state-issued medical license. That is it (at least for now).

Important: The April 2026 order does not broadly reschedule cannabis. Adult-use recreational operators remain in Schedule I pending completion of a formal DEA rulemaking hearing scheduled for June 29–July 15, 2026. Even for qualifying medical operators, the IRS has issued no formal guidance and is actively litigating 280E challenges in Tax Court. A final, legally durable rule covering all operators awaits the hearing, a post-hearing final rule, a likely 90-day waiting period, and near-certain legal challenges from opponents.

What Rescheduling Doesn’t Fix

280E relief is not federal legalization. Banking access remains a legislative problem. The SAFER Banking Act is still stalled. Interstate commerce restrictions stay in place. Securities law complications for publicly traded cannabis companies don’t evaporate with a scheduling change. And state/federal conflicts don’t resolve automatically under Schedule III. The infrastructure problems that have defined this industry’s capital markets for a decade largely remain intact, unfortunately.

The Angles Worth Watching

Three questions are already moving through the industry. Will 280E relief trigger a wave of M&A activity as operators flush with new after-tax capital become acquirers? Will multi-state operators restructure entities to maximize exposure to state medical programs and capture Phase 1 relief ahead of a final rule? And will expansion plans such as new markets, facilities, and verticals that were shelved under 280E’s punishing math come back to life?

The answers are coming, but so is the litigation.

What You Can Do Now

As of April 22, 2026, state-licensed medical cannabis businesses are no longer subject to Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code. Because the order also encourages the Treasury Department to consider retroactive 280E tax relief for prior years, a window is now open for opportunities to amend returns and file protective claims. Businesses should evaluate immediately with legal and tax counsel rather than waiting for formal guidance. The window to apply through the DEA Diversion portal for expedited DEA registration review closes on June 26, 2026. While DEA registration may not be required to obtain tax relief, it could provide important operational advantages, including the ability to transport and transact medical cannabis between DEA-registered facilities across state lines and participate more directly in medical research activities.

The Bottom Line

For operators navigating this still-unsettled landscape, 280E relief could be transformative. What hasn’t changed is the underlying risk environment: product recall exposure, business interruption vulnerability, and the coverage gaps that commercial cannabis insurance routinely leaves unaddressed. Operators who have long lacked the capital to address that exposure structurally may find, for the first time, that they have it. A captive insurance company allows an operator to turn that capital into owned, purpose-built coverage, thereby converting risk from a cost center into a financial asset.

The 280E thaw is real. In consultation with trusted counsel, applicable operators should consider the registration deadline of June 26, 2026. Plan accordingly, but verify before you act.

May 22, 2026

Pre-Roll Packaging in 2026

By Julie Kuepers

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Pre-rolls generated $4 billion in sales in 2025 and are projected to grow faster than any other top cannabis category, at a 10% compound annual growth rate, according to BDSA retail tracking data. Infused formats now account for 43% of the segment, and the category has grown by 271% since 2020.

That kind of volume puts a lot of pressure on operators to get the details right. And one detail that gets underestimated more than almost any other is the tube.

The tube you choose for your pre-rolls isn’t just a container. It’s a compliance asset, a brand signal, and a margin lever all at once. In a category this competitive, getting it wrong costs you more than you might expect.

The compliance picture has gotten more complicated

Child-resistant packaging has always been a baseline requirement for cannabis pre-rolls, but the specific standards those containers need to meet have shifted significantly in 2026.

Several states — including Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, and Missouri — have tightened child-resistant packaging requirements, moving toward stricter standards and full CPSC senior-friendly testing beyond the baseline 16 CFR 1700.20 poison prevention standard. Ohio banned slide-lock tubes for pre-roll compliance after March 1, 2026, requiring permanent child-resistant caps on all pre-roll tubes. Exit bags in New York, Minnesota, and New Jersey now need full child-resistant certification — printed warnings and resealable closures no longer satisfy the requirement.

This means that packaging that passed compliance audits a year ago may not pass today. Operators who haven’t audited their tube selection against current state-specific requirements are carrying an unknown risk.

Packaging failures can trigger product recalls estimated at $25,000 to $250,000 per SKU and put licenses at risk. The regulatory landscape for pre-roll tubes isn’t a one-time box to check. It’s an ongoing operational responsibility.

Multi-state operators face the steepest challenge here. What’s compliant in Colorado may not satisfy requirements in New York or Minnesota. Working with a packaging supplier that tracks state-by-state regulatory changes and can document compliance certifications for each SKU is an efficient way to run your business. It’s also how you protect it.

The tube is doing more selling than operators realize

Beyond compliance, the tube directly drives purchase decisions at the dispensary counter. Research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that cannabis consumers make rapid quality judgments based on packaging presentation, and that packaging cues directly influence intent to purchase. In a dispensary case, where products are often at eye level, and customers compare options side by side, tube presentation matters.

The specific signals your tube sends depend on the format and material. A matte black rigid tube reads as premium. A clear tube lets the product speak for itself, which works well for infused products with visual appeal. A glossy white finish signals clean and clinical. A kraft-style paper tube communicates sustainability and craft. None of these is universally right. All of them communicate something, and that something either reinforces or undermines the price point you’re trying to hold.

Multi-packs have become a dominant format in the pre-roll category, with bundled SKUs now making up a substantial share of what’s on dispensary shelves and creating packaging implications. A five-pack in a flimsy or mismatched outer container undercuts the bundle’s perceived value. The tube configuration, whether individual tubes in a box, a doob tube multi-pack, or a rigid canister format, needs to match the positioning of the product inside it.

Cone-style pre-fills are one format worth evaluating here. They’ve grown alongside the infused segment, and pre-roll cones now come in tube configurations that support both premium single-unit presentation and efficient multi-pack formats.

Where tube choice hits your margin

Pre-rolls are one of the most margin-sensitive products in cannabis. Tube cost per unit compounds quickly at scale. An operator moving 50,000 units a month sees the difference between a $0.08 and a $0.15 tube as a $42,000 annual delta. That’s before accounting for the cost of compliance failures, returns, or rework from tubes that don’t meet current state standards.

There are a few places where operators consistently leave money on the table or take on unnecessary cost:

Over-specifying for the price point. A premium rigid tube on a $6 pre-roll creates a mismatch that doesn’t actually move the needle on purchase intent. Match the packaging investment to the product tier.
Under-specifying for the multi-pack. The inverse problem. A budget tube on a $28 five-pack signals that the outer packaging doesn’t match the product quality inside, and that gap registers with buyers.
Ordering without compliance documentation. A lower unit cost doesn’t account for the cost of a recall or a compliance failure. If your supplier can’t produce ASTM or CPSC certification documentation on request, the savings aren’t real.
Not negotiating at volume. Pre-roll is a volume category. Operators who haven’t renegotiated tube pricing based on current run sizes are likely overpaying. Minimum order quantities and per-unit pricing should be revisited as your volume grows.

What to look for in a pre-roll tube partner

Given everything above, the evaluation criteria for a pre-roll tube supplier should go beyond unit cost and lead time. A few things worth pressure-testing:

Compliance currency. Does your supplier actively track state-by-state regulatory changes? Can they confirm which of their products meet current state-specific CR standards, and in which states? Can they provide documentation on request?
Format breadth. As the pre-roll category continues to evolve, with infused products, multi-packs, and cone formats all growing, you want a supplier who can grow with your SKU mix, not one who locks you into a single format.
Sample availability. Tube selection is a tactile decision. The fit, the cap engagement, the weight in hand, how the child-resistant closure performs with real hands — these things matter and they can’t be evaluated from a spec sheet. A supplier who makes sampling easy is a supplier who’s confident in their product.
Minimum order flexibility. Newer SKUs and limited runs need packaging flexibility. A supplier who requires high minimums on every order creates friction that works against innovation.

The tube you put around your pre-roll signals quality to buyers, helps you navigate a compliance environment that has gotten meaningfully stricter in 2026, and contributes to margin outcomes at scale.

May 20, 2026

Dispensaries Are Winning on Google and Disappearing on ChatGPT

By Darren Tarbat

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SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index analyzed more than 350,000 business locations across 2,751 brands and found a gap every dispensary operator should take seriously. ChatGPT recommends 1.2% of those locations. Perplexity recommends 7.4%. Gemini reaches 11%.

Google’s local 3-pack surfaces 35.9% of the same locations. That is not a small gap. It is a different search reality, and it runs on different inputs than the local SEO game cannabis operators have spent years learning.

SOCi’s CMO described the shift clearly: AI is “reducing choice,” not replacing search. Instead of giving users a page of results, AI gives them a short list. Brands that do not clear the confidence threshold do not rank lower. They disappear from the answer entirely.

For a category that cannot run paid advertising at scale, that is a serious problem. The SOCi study covered retail, food, healthcare, and other industries broadly. Cannabis was not benchmarked separately in the public report, but the structural dynamics apply with particular force to dispensaries.

The Infrastructure Gap

The local SEO playbook cannabis operators built over the last decade was the right playbook for the environment it was built in. Strong Google Business Profile. Consistent Leafly and Weedmaps presence. Solid review volume. NAP consistency across the platforms that mattered.

That work was real. It translated to real traffic. What it did not build was the infrastructure AI recommendation systems actually pull from. Each major platform pulls from somewhere different.

Platform	Main Local Data Input	What That Means for Dispensaries
ChatGPT	Foursquare place data	Unclaimed or thin Foursquare listings can hurt visibility
Gemini	Google Maps	Strong Google Business Profile matters most here
Perplexity	Open web and citations	Directory, press, review, and editorial signals matter more
Google Local 3-Pack	Google local search ecosystem	Traditional local SEO still matters

ChatGPT Looks Beyond Google

ChatGPT does not primarily draw from Google Maps for local recommendations. According to multiple independent industry analyses, somewhere between 60% and 70% of ChatGPT’s local business results come from Foursquare’s place database.

Most dispensary operators have either ignored Foursquare or forgotten it exists. That is understandable. Foursquare ended its consumer-facing city guide app in December 2024 and its web version in early 2025, making it easy to dismiss.

But its enterprise place data feeds directly into OpenAI’s local recommendation layer. A dispensary with a thin, unclaimed, or outdated Foursquare listing is effectively invisible to ChatGPT’s local search, regardless of its Google presence.

Gemini Rewards Google Maps Accuracy

Gemini behaves differently. Because it grounds local answers directly in Google Maps, a dispensary with a complete, accurate, and well-maintained Google Business Profile is better positioned there than anywhere else in the AI ecosystem.

The SOCi LVI found business profile information was 100% accurate on Gemini versus 68% accurate on ChatGPT and Perplexity. That gap reflects the underlying data architecture.

Perplexity Needs Open-Web Proof

Perplexity is different again. It crawls the open web and assembles answers from citation-rich sources. For local queries, that means review aggregators, directory platforms, local press mentions, and community discussions matter.

A dispensary that exists only in cannabis-specific directories gives Perplexity almost nothing to work with when a consumer searches across the open web.

Three platforms. Three data architectures. Three different sets of inputs. Most dispensaries have optimized for one of them.

Why Multi-Location Groups Have It Worse

The SOCi data surfaced a problem that hits MSOs and multi-location dispensary groups harder than single-location operators: strong traditional local search performance does not predict AI visibility.

In the retail category, only 45% of brands leading in Google’s local results also appeared in AI recommendations. More than half of the brands winning on Google were invisible in AI-generated answers for the same queries.

AI Systems Need Entity Confidence

The structural reason is entity confidence. AI systems are not only ranking pages. They are evaluating how much confidence they have in a business, its locations, its reputation, and its consistency across the web.

Locations recommended by ChatGPT in the SOCi study averaged 4.3 stars. Locations with inconsistent data across directories, low review engagement, or fragmented brand identity often failed that confidence threshold.

Fragmentation Compounds Across Locations

For a dispensary group operating 10, 20, or 50 locations, entity fragmentation is the default state unless someone has deliberately fixed it.

That fragmentation can look like:

Slightly different business name formats across platforms
Locations claimed on Google but not on Foursquare
Inconsistent profiles across Weedmaps, Leafly, Yelp, Apple Maps, and Bing Places
Strong location-level reviews but little brand-level editorial coverage
Store pages that are not clearly connected to one parent brand

To an AI assembling a recommendation, that reads as a collection of loosely connected storefronts, not a credible multi-location operator.

The Fix Starts With an Audit

I have worked with multi-location cannabis clients where the entity signals were fragmented enough that AI systems could not aggregate them into a coherent brand picture.

The fix is not technically complicated. But it does require auditing every surface the brand appears on, not just the two platforms the marketing team checks every week.

What Moves the Needle

The 2026 LVI identifies three factors that consistently determine AI local visibility: data accuracy and consistency across the full citation network, review volume and quality, and third-party editorial presence.

None of those are driven only by Google Business Profile optimization.

Data Accuracy Across the Full Citation Network

Data accuracy matters more than operators expect. When AI systems encounter conflicting information about a business, they often omit it from recommendations rather than risk surfacing incorrect details.

A dispensary that has been at the same address for five years but still carries an old address in a few aggregator databases may be quietly failing a confidence test on every AI recommendation query in its market.

That means NAP consistency needs to extend beyond Google, Weedmaps, and Leafly. Operators need to check Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Foursquare, major aggregators, local directories, dispensary directories, map databases, and any legacy listings still floating around the web.

Review Response Behavior

Review engagement is directional, not just volumetric. The SOCi research found that brands with review response rates below 5% were effectively invisible in AI recommendations, even when overall review volume was adequate.

That matters because review response behavior functions as a business health signal, separate from star rating. A location with decent reviews but no owner responses can look inactive. A location with consistent responses looks maintained, monitored, and operationally alive.

This is a correctable problem, but many multi-location cannabis operators have not assigned clear ownership to it.

Third-Party Editorial Presence

Third-party editorial presence is where cannabis operators are most consistently underinvested. A dispensary mentioned in a local news article, covered by a trade publication, cited in a city guide, or referenced in a credible editorial context carries external validation.

That kind of validation gives AI systems more to work with than a Weedmaps-only footprint. Whitespark’s 2026 Local Ranking Factors report flagged third-party mentions and local press as rising signals in AI-driven local discovery.

For cannabis operators that have spent years locked out of mainstream advertising, earned editorial coverage is more accessible and more strategically valuable than many marketing teams realize.

The Window Is Open and Narrowing

Whitespark’s Q2 2026 data found AI Overviews appearing in 68% of local searches overall and in 97% of hybrid intent queries. Those hybrid intent queries matter.

They include searches like “best dispensary in [city]” and “where to get [product] near me.” That is the highest-intent discovery moment in the category.

Fewer than 5% of local businesses in any category are actively optimizing for AI recommendations. In cannabis, that number is almost certainly lower.

The path forward is sequential:

Claim and complete every Foursquare listing.
Audit NAP consistency across the full citation network.
Check Weedmaps, Leafly, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and major data aggregators.
Build review response cadence into location-level operations.
Connect individual store pages to a clear parent brand entity.
Pursue trade press, local editorial coverage, and credible third-party mentions.
Treat AI visibility as an infrastructure problem, not a content gimmick.

Cannabis operators have been locked out of many of the channels other retail categories use to build discovery. AI local search is not locked.

Any operator willing to build the right infrastructure can compete. Right now, almost none of them are.

May 15, 2026

5 Air Quality Mistakes That Are Costing Cannabis Growers

By Nikki Sasher, m.s, m.b.a

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Cannabis cultivation is, at its core, a controlled environment business, and air quality remains one of the most consistently underestimated variables in the operation. Contaminated batches, worker health complaints, and odor violations affecting neighboring communities can all be traced back to air-handling decisions made early in facility design or overlooked during scale-up. Mandatory testing gets attention, but prevention rarely does. The following five mistakes are showing up more and more across licensed facilities today, and each one carries the potential for high costs, both in revenue and to the brand.

Calling MERV 8 Filters Good Enough

Traditional MERV 8, the same ones that you might install in your home HVAC system, captures larger dust particles but allows bacteria, mold spores, and fine particulates to pass through freely. MERV 13, by comparison, which is qualified for hospitals, data centers, and schools, captures particles down to 0.3 microns, including the bacterial range that MERV 8 consistently misses.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and ASHRAE aligned on MERV 13 as the baseline standard for critical air-quality environments, a threshold that cannabis cultivation facilities clearly meet given their biological sensitivity. Most modern HVAC systems are engineered to handle MERV 13 without significant airflow or performance penalties. The upgrade cost is modest, but a single failed batch from microbial contamination is not.

Filtering Recirculated Air While Ignoring Outside Intake

Some facilities invest heavily in floor-level filtration units while pulling unfiltered air directly from outdoors. Outside air carries pollen, particulates, and mold spores that enter the grow space before any filtration occurs. A complete air quality system addresses both recirculated and intake air, treating them as equally vulnerable pathways. This gap is especially consequential in high-humidity regions or during peak pollen seasons, when outdoor bioaerosol loads spike and unfiltered intake air becomes a direct source of contamination.

Operating in Buildings That Were Not Designed for Cannabis

Many cannabis operations begin in repurposed warehouses, retail spaces, or industrial buildings, and the inherited HVAC infrastructure rarely matches what indoor cultivation actually demands. These systems may be adequate for storage or light manufacturing, but are frequently undersized for the humidity loads, temperature precision, and air exchange rates that cannabis requires. Pressure differentials between rooms are often nonexistent in these conversions, creating conditions where air moves freely across spaces with very different contamination risk profiles. Cutting rooms, dry rooms, and packaging areas each have specific air-handling requirements that a generic building system was never designed to address. A thorough facility audit before buildout or retrofit identifies these vulnerabilities before they become expensive ones.

Treating Odor Control as Optional

Community complaints about cannabis odor have moved from a nuisance to a genuine business risk. Lawsuits and municipal enforcement actions have forced facilities to shut down or relocate – outcomes that dwarf the cost of any odor management system. Cannabis cultivation generates significant VOC and terpene emissions that require active treatment. Carbon filtration, vapor-phase systems, and specialized filter cassettes are all proven solutions. In a growing number of jurisdictions, odor control is no longer a courtesy extended to neighbors, but a compliance requirement with enforcement teeth.

Thinking Filters Alone Solve the Problem

Even the best filter is one component of a functioning air handling system, not a complete solution on its own. Air changes per hour, pressure differentials, humidity control, proper air intake and exhaust design all contribute to the environmental conditions that filtration alone cannot achieve.

Facilities claiming to meet hospital-level air quality standards without comprehensive air-handling systems in place are not meeting that bar in any meaningful way. FDA-regulated pharmaceutical manufacturing requires HEPA filtration under 21 CFR 211 as part of a full environmental control system. Cannabis products that consumers inhale, eat, and drink warrant a comparable level of rigor in how the production environment is managed.

Federal regulation of cannabis air quality is a matter of when, not if. Growers who treat these five areas as urgent operational priorities now will be well positioned ahead of an industry that still treats air handling as an afterthought. The cost of prevention across filtration upgrades, intake design, facility audits, odor management, and comprehensive environmental controls is a fraction of what a single failed compliance test, a community lawsuit, or a forced facility retrofit will run. Air quality investment is not a regulatory burden to be absorbed reluctantly, but a competitive advantage available to any operation willing to treat the air inside their facility as seriously as the plants growing in it.

May 12, 2026

Your Banking Problem Is a Margin Problem

By Stacy Litke

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Most cannabis operators have a banking problem. For many, that means limited access to financial services, forcing the business to operate largely in cash and be unable to use the standard banking rails every other industry takes for granted. The banking conversation in this industry almost always stops at access. Can the business get an account? Can it keep one?

Those are real questions, and the answer to both is yes, but they are the wrong ones to stop at. The conversation should continue into how the business is actually functioning within whatever banking access it has, and whether that access is doing the work the business needs. Having some banking is not the same as having a dependable financial infrastructure, and the gap between them does not stay confined to the finance department. It bleeds into operations, labor, vendor relationships, and growth capacity in ways most operators have never stopped to calculate.

Every margin leak described in the following sections traces back to a banking infrastructure failure, even though none of them are ever labeled that way in a report. Courier costs, absorbed labor hours, vendor friction, untracked losses- these get filed under operations, staffing, or shrinkage. The banking infrastructure that produced them is never identified as the source, and the margin problem remains invisible because no one is looking for it in the right place.

The Costs You Can See

The visible margin hits are straightforward. Cash-heavy operations mean armored transport, on-site storage, and security overhead that eats into the bottom line before the day starts. Because cannabis businesses are largely locked out of standard card processing networks, payment acceptance gets pieced together across alternative solutions that were never designed to work together, creating fragmentation that requires manual reconciliation to function at all. Finance teams spend hours every week manually assembling a cash picture that a business with reliable banking would simply have.

Labor is where the repercussions from limited banking access take their most direct toll on the operation. A store manager spending two or three hours per shift on cash management instead of coaching staff, solving operational problems, or running a tighter floor, a meaningful portion of their shift is absorbed by a process that exists only because the financial infrastructure requires it. At one store, it can be seen as a minor inconvenience. Across ten stores, it is a structural margin drag that never shows up as a line item but absolutely shows up in store performance, team development, and the operator’s ability to keep leadership focused on growth rather than logistics.

The Costs That Never Show Up on a Report

The costs that do not show up in any report tend to be the ones that cause the most damage over time, because they are never attributed to the right source.

Consider what happens when a finance team cannot see the business’s cash position in real time. Forecasting becomes an exercise in approximation built on information that is already two days old. A vendor payment gets timed incorrectly, not because anyone made a bad decision, but because the visibility to make a good one was not there. Each of these feels like an operational problem in the moment. None of them gets logged as a banking problem, which means the root cause never gets addressed, and the friction keeps recurring.

The vendor dimension is the most underestimated consequence. Suppliers do not announce when they have decided an operator is a payment risk. They adjust quietly, building uncertainty into how they price, how much credit they extend, and how quickly they respond. An operator managing cash-heavy, fragmented operations for years may have no idea that their margins with key suppliers are softer than they should be, or that better-banked competitors are getting more favorable terms. That gap does not show up anywhere. It just slowly erodes the economics of relationships that the business depends on.

At one or two locations, all of this feels manageable. A small finance team can hold the whole picture in their heads. Scaling changes that entirely. Five stores do not produce five times the reconciliation burden of one. They produce a fundamentally different problem: each location adds its own exceptions, timing variances, and failure points. At some point, the workaround becomes the business model, not by design but by default, and the cost accumulates in a margin that never materializes and in growth that lags behind what the market is offering.

Choosing the Right Financial Partner

Moving toward dependable financial infrastructure starts with finding the right institution, and that search has a predictable failure mode worth naming. Two patterns come up consistently when cannabis operators end up losing banking access. The first is choosing an institution that was never genuinely comfortable with the business model to begin with, and the second is opening an account under a name that seems ambiguous enough to fly under the radar. That rarely works. Transaction activity, including high cash volumes and interactions with known cannabis payment systems, gets flagged, and accounts get closed. A search for cannabis-friendly banking options will surface legitimate institutions. The focus should be on finding one that understands and is genuinely comfortable with the business model.

The second mistake is evaluating options on monthly fees alone. Understanding the full service menu matters more than the base rate. Wires, ACH, loans, and other services may not be needed immediately, but knowing their costs before the business needs them in a hurry prevents costly surprises. A $2,500 wire fee at the wrong moment is the kind of thing that leaves a mark.

Where the Margin Lift Actually Comes From

The fastest margin improvement typically comes from moving bill payments, tax obligations, and payroll onto traditional rails such as ACH or checks. Reducing the volume of cash moving through the operation reduces courier fees, cash handling overhead, and the security exposure that comes with it. Working with an accountant who understands cannabis, and specifically the implications of cash-heavy operations, surfaces losses that are genuinely hard to see when everything runs through cash. Duplicate payments, theft exposure, and untracked expenses are consistent findings when operators finally get everything documented and reconciled.

There is also a longer-term dimension worth naming. When financial activity is fully documented, the operator is in a materially better position with lenders, investors, and their own accountant. Demonstrating sales, revenue, and expenses clearly is increasingly important as the regulatory environment evolves, including for medical operators navigating the recent changes to 280E disallowance, where a complete payment audit trail is what makes claiming expenses possible.

Most operators have never added up what their current setup is actually costing them in labor hours, management capacity, and forecasting accuracy. When they do, the number is bigger than expected, and the conversation about banking stops being about compliance and starts being about margin, where it should have been from the beginning.

April 30, 2026

Why Understanding True Manufacturing Costs Is Essential for Cannabis Business Survival

By Kate O’Conner-Masse

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The U.S. cannabis industry generated more than $30 billion in regulated sales in 2025, yet profitability has become harder to predict. According to a recent national index report by Cannabis Benchmarks, wholesale pricing remains volatile, recently fluctuating between approximately $987 and $1,007 per pound.

In an environment where pricing moves faster than cost structures adapt, profitability is no longer driven by yield alone. It is driven by cost visibility.

Yet many operators still cannot confidently answer a simple question:

What does it truly cost to produce this batch?

Cannabis Is a Batch Manufacturing Business

Every cannabis product, from flower to edibles to pre-rolls, is produced in batches.

Like food and pharmaceutical manufacturing, cannabis production requires costs to be tracked at the batch level to determine the true cost of goods sold (COGS). Without batch-level clarity, financial decisions are often based on averages, and averages can conceal risk.

The Two Categories That Define Manufacturing Profitability

Understanding profitability begins with distinguishing between direct and indirect costs.

Direct Costs

Direct costs can be attributed directly to a specific batch. These include:

Production labor tied to a batch
Cannabis inputs and recipe ingredients
Packaging materials
Batch-specific testing fees

These costs are typically visible and easier to track. They form the foundation of traditional COGS calculations.

But direct costs alone do not provide a complete financial picture.

Indirect Costs

Indirect costs are the expenses required to operate the business, but cannot be neatly tied to a single batch.

They include:

Supervisory and management labor
Administrative staff
Facility rent and utilities
Security
Depreciation
Equipment wear
Compliance overhead
Process-stage supplies not traceable to a specific unit

In many cultivation operations, indirect costs represent a substantial portion of total production expense. When these costs are not allocated consistently across batches, profitability calculations become distorted.

Why Pricing Volatility Makes This More Urgent

With wholesale price indexes fluctuating and competitive supply dynamics shifting from quarter to quarter, margin assumptions can change rapidly.

If an operator’s cost per gram is miscalculated by even 10 to 20 percent, pricing strategy, SKU rationalization, and expansion decisions may all be built on inaccurate foundations.

Pricing volatility alone does not eliminate profitability. But pricing volatility combined with incomplete cost allocation magnifies risk.

The Cost Structure Framework Most Operators Overlook

Cannabis manufacturing costs typically fall into five core buckets:

Direct Labor – Production payroll and contract labor
Direct Materials – Ingredients, packaging, testing, waste
Facility Costs – Rent, utilities, security, equipment
Office & General – Professional fees, travel, vehicles
Inventory Adjustments – Depreciation and accounting allocations

The framework itself mirrors traditional manufacturing industries.

What differs in cannabis is execution. Many operators rely on compliance systems and basic inventory tools that were not designed for managerial cost accounting. As a result:

COGS may be underreported
Indirect costs may be absorbed inconsistently
SKU-level profitability may remain unclear
Tax exposure under 280E may increase
Strategic decisions may rely on production metrics rather than margin analysis

Yield Is a Production Metric, Not a Profitability Metric

Grams per square foot, harvest weight, and throughput remain important operational indicators.

But they are not measures of profit.

A high-yielding strain can still erode the margin if:

It requires longer cycle times
It consumes disproportionate labor
It demands greater energy input
It experiences higher waste or discounting

Production success does not inherently translate to financial performance.

Profitability emerges only when production metrics are paired with accurate cost allocation.

Practical Steps Toward Better Cost Visibility

Operators do not need complex systems to begin strengthening cost discipline. Immediate steps include:

Clearly defining which labor roles are direct versus indirect
Establishing consistent methods for allocating facility and overhead costs
Reconciling batch-level costing to financial statements monthly
Reviewing SKU-level margins quarterly rather than relying solely on yield data
Separating compliance reporting from managerial cost analysis

Even incremental improvements in cost allocation accuracy can meaningfully impact pricing decisions and profitability insight.

The Shift From Growth-Driven to Margin-Driven Thinking

In earlier stages of legalization, growth often masked inefficiencies.

As markets mature, financial discipline becomes the differentiator.

Operators who understand how direct and indirect costs flow into each batch gain the ability to:

Optimize strain mix
Identify underperforming SKUs
Adjust pricing intelligently
Improve investor reporting clarity
Make smarter capital allocation decisions

In a market where pricing can fluctuate and margins continue to tighten nationally, cost visibility is no longer an accounting exercise. It is a strategic advantage.

Bottom Line

The U.S. cannabis industry is entering a more disciplined phase. Sales remain strong at the macro level, but pricing dynamics and competitive pressure demand sharper operational awareness.

Manufacturing accounting fundamentals, especially understanding how direct and indirect costs flow through batches, form the foundation of sustainable profitability.

Operators who move beyond production metrics and invest in cost clarity position themselves to grow smarter, protect revenue, and remain competitive in an increasingly complex marketplace.

In the next phase of cannabis growth, operational sophistication, not output volume, will define long-term winners.

April 27, 2026

Inconsistent Messaging Is a Compliance Risk. Full Stop.

By Michael Mejer

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Picture the moment a cannabis company’s compliance team gets copied on an email from a banking partner’s risk officer. The subject line says “Questions re: public materials.” Attached is a spreadsheet. On one side, language from the company’s Florida medical dispensary website. On the other, language from the California recreational site, the New Jersey acquisition press release, and a quote from the CEO’s interview in a trade publication eight months ago. The risk officer wants to understand how all of it reflects the same company, because from where she’s sitting, it doesn’t.

This is not a hypothetical. It is a conversation that is becoming more frequent as financial institutions become more sophisticated in how they evaluate cannabis operators.

Inconsistent messaging across states is not a brand problem. It is an operational risk that has been misclassified, and companies that treat it as a marketing issue tend to find out the hard way that they have compliance exposure.

What Regulators and Banks Are Actually Looking At

A state regulator reviewing a multi-state operator and a financial institution conducting due diligence are doing the same thing, even if they don’t describe it that way. Both are trying to determine whether the organization they’re looking at is actually in control of itself, its operations, its decisions, and its story.

Take a company positioning itself as a premium medical operator in Florida, a value-driven recreational brand in California, and a community dispensary in New Jersey. From the inside, that probably reads as market awareness. From a regulator’s desk or a bank’s credit committee, it reads as an organization that hasn’t decided what it actually is. Localization is a legitimate strategy. Contradiction isn’t.

Regulators look for discipline. Banks look even harder, and a financial institution considering a lending relationship or a banking program with a cannabis company wants evidence that the organization is coherent: that leadership, operations, and communications are all aligned on the same set of principles. When the public-facing story differs meaningfully, depending on which state you’re looking at, it introduces a question that nobody wants to answer in a credit committee: Does this company actually know what it is?

The Specific Ways Inconsistency Creates Exposure

The risk shows up in a few specific patterns. Claim inconsistency is where it gets most expensive. A company runs health-adjacent language on its Florida medical site that it would never put on its California recreational pages, sometimes because the regulatory environments differ, sometimes because the Florida site was built by a different team two years ago, and nobody has looked at it since. Either way, both versions exist publicly, simultaneously, and are findable by anyone who goes looking. A regulator in a new market where the company is seeking a license will find them, and if what they find contradicts what’s in the application, it creates a discrepancy that requires explanation.

The second pattern is acquisition-related fragmentation. Integration often prioritizes operations and compliance while messaging gets addressed later, or not at all. From the inside, this can feel like flexibility. From the outside, it looks like an organization that hasn’t finished becoming one.

Due diligence on a cannabis company now routinely includes a sweep of public-facing materials across every market in which the company operates. Reviewers are looking for the version of the company that shows up when nobody is actively managing the narrative: the archived press release from the acquisition two years ago, the market-specific website that never got updated, the social content that says something different than what’s in the pitch deck.

When those materials tell inconsistent stories, it doesn’t automatically kill a deal. It does create questions that have to be answered, and every question answered under scrutiny starts from a worse position than the same question never having come up. At that point, the company is no longer controlling its own narrative. Someone else is defining what the inconsistency means, and in a regulated industry, the interpretation that fills that vacuum is rarely favorable.

Messaging Consistency as Compliance Infrastructure

The frame that makes this problem solvable is treating narrative consistency the way serious operators treat compliance infrastructure.

A company’s messaging record doesn’t disappear when a campaign ends or a website gets refreshed. Press releases from three years ago are still indexed. Media coverage still quotes the positioning that got deprecated. Investor materials from the last raise still circulate. Every public statement a cannabis company has ever made is potentially part of the picture that a regulator or financial partner assembles when they look at the organization, and inconsistencies across that picture are visible to anyone who takes the time to look.

Companies that build a consistent narrative framework treat it the same way they treat SOPs. The core story doesn’t change. The way it is communicated across markets may be adapted to local contexts, but the underlying claims, identity, and standards remain uniform. That consistency is not just good brand management. It is evidence of organizational discipline that regulators and financial partners are actually looking for.

What This Requires in Practice

Fixing messaging inconsistency is not primarily a creative exercise; it is an operational one.

It starts with an audit of what the company is actually saying across all markets, all owned channels, and all public-facing materials. Most multi-state operators have never done this systematically, which means the first output of the audit is usually a document that surprises the leadership team. Claims that were approved in one market were never reviewed in another. Language that predates the current regulatory environment still lives somewhere. Positioning developed by an acquired brand is still out there, attributable to the company, and inconsistent with how the parent company describes itself.

Nobody is trying to make every market sound identical. The work is figuring out what can never change, regardless of the market: the claims, the standards, the core identity, and building a process that protects those things as the company grows. That is a different project from a rebrand. It is closer to writing an internal constitution that communications and compliance can both enforce.

The companies that treat this work seriously tend to discover something useful in the process: the exercise of defining what is consistently true about the organization is itself clarifying, it forces decisions that had been deferred, and it surfaces contradictions that were being quietly tolerated.

What comes out the other side is a version of the company’s story that can withstand the kind of review that serious operators now face regularly. Getting there requires someone who understands both the communications and compliance sides, not just one or the other. Communications people don’t always understand the compliance implications of the language they’re approving. The operators who close this gap most effectively tend to bring in advisors who are comfortable in both rooms.

Scrutiny is not going away. Regulators are getting more sophisticated. Financial institutions are getting more rigorous. The standard for what a well-run cannabis company looks like is moving, and messaging consistency is part of what that standard increasingly includes.

April 21, 2026

Move Over Flower, Pre-roll is King

By Brian Beckley

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Driven by innovation and convenience, pre-roll sales in 2025 not only had the strongest growth of any major category, topping $3.6 billion in sales and moving 383 million units, but supplanted flower as the most units sold for the first time in the industry’s history, according to a new report from Custom Cones USA.

It’s the fifth consecutive year that pre-rolls have outperformed the industry as a whole, growing revenues 9.8% year-over-year, well ahead of the 1.5% growth rate of the entire sector. On top of that, unit sales grew 18.6%, helping lead the category to a 15.9% market share.

In total, pre-rolls have seen by far the largest growth of any category over the past five years, driving growth for the entire industry, despite having the lowest average price point of any major category at just $9.18.

“Pre-rolls are no longer an afterthought,” said Harrison Bard, CEO of Custom Cones USA. “What started as a trim byproduct, pre-rolls have matured into a highly competitive, innovation-driven category where brands are winning through quality, scale, and smart branding.”

Drawing on point-of-sale data from 15 states collected by cannabis analytics firm Headset, as well as a survey of pre-roll manufacturers from around the country, the State of the Pre-Roll Market 2026 report shines a spotlight on this growing and important category, revealing what pre-rolls are selling, how they are being sold, and who is buying them.

Infused Pre-Rolls Dominate

Looking deeper at the numbers, the State of the Pre-Roll Market Report reveals that infused pre-rolls, which combine a concentrate with flower to boost potency and flavor, are driving the category’s growth.

In 2025, infused pre-rolls accounted for $1.68 billion in sales, or 47% of all pre-roll revenues, up from $1.44 billion the year before, the largest growth of a segment in the category.

However, looking at unit sales, the Hybrid-Single Strain segment is the most popular, selling 175.6 million units, well ahead of the 144.6 million units of second-place infused, however, the lower average price point brings their revenue total for the year to $1.3 billion.

Together, the Infused and Hybrid segments account for more than 84% of all pre-roll revenues and nearly 84% of all units sold.

Multi-Pack Ascendance

While pre-roll multi-packs have long been a growing section of product offerings, they absolutely dominated the sales charts in 2025.

Multi-packs saw their largest growth year ever, reaching a full 48.5% of pre-roll products sold. But the real impact can be seen on the top-selling product charts, where multi-packs accounted for 90 of the top 100 pre-roll products sold, up from 78 the previous year.

The most popular multi-pack format is the 2.5-gram 5-pack, generating $612 million, or about 17.2% of total pre-roll revenue and nearly 24 million units sold.

Who is Buying?

While they appeal to consumers from all generations, millennials are clearly the core audience, accounting for 43.9% of all pre-roll revenue, about $1.6 billion in sales.

And though males make up nearly 60% of all pre-roll buyers, millennial females sit clearly in the No. 2 spot, just behind their male counterparts but ahead of both Gen X and Gen Z men.

What’s the Future of Pre-Rolls?

Looking ahead, the State of the Pre-Roll Market Report predicts the category to continue to grow at industry-leading rates, with infused pre-rolls once again leading the way.

Using what they call a “conservative” growth estimate, the report predicts that pre-roll revenue will top $4 billion in 2026 and grow to more than $5.2 billion by 2030, though as more markets legalize, those numbers would be expected to grow further.

The report also specifically targets the Tri-State New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area for growth in the next year. New York showed the largest year-over-year category growth of any state in both revenue and unit sales, followed by New Jersey in both categories. Connecticut placed third in unit sales. Additionally, New Jersey is expected to open consumption lounges this year, again juicing pre-roll sales.

“It’s an exciting time to be in pre-rolls,” Bard said. “The category is constantly changing and growing, with innovation constantly pushing the whole sector in new and fun directions. It used to be something companies did with leftover product, but now, any business that is not looking to start or expand their pre-roll lines is leaving money on the table.”