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A Q&A with Everett Smith, Co-Founder & CEO of Presidential

By Aaron Green
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Infused flower and infused pre-rolls are two segments of the cannabis flower market sought after by consumers for their high THC content. Moon rocks are a type of infused flower product made by infusing flower with sticky concentrate and then rolling the sticky flower in kief. THC content of moon rocks often exceeds 50%.

Presidential is one of the largest infused flower cannabis companies and the third largest pre-roll brand in California, with products available in over 400+ retail stores such as MedMen, Gorilla RX, Sherbinskis, La Brea Collective and Royal Greens. Presidential’s success and growth has primarily been organic through word of mouth. Presidential recently launched the Presidential Suite in WeHo, a speakeasy-style lounge with entrance through a subway car inside a NY-style pizzeria, Esco’s. The suite offers events including exclusive cannabis industry nights as well as “pizza parties” held jointly with Esco’s.

We interviewed Everett Smith, co-founder and CEO of Presidential. Everett co-founded Presidential in 2012 following a professional basketball career in Europe. He has a background in marketing and brand development.

Aaron Green: Everett, how did you get involved in the cannabis industry?

Everett Smith: It was really just by chance. I was in Vegas after I was done playing ball overseas. I was working 9 to 5 at the convention center for a company called Freeman. I was out waiting for some clients and I met this guy who started talking to me about cannabis, about this company he was starting and how his friend was manufacturing the product for him. I didn’t love my job. I was looking for something exciting to do. So, I got their information, and I took him up on it and I called them every day for almost three months. Then it finally got together and long story short, we started.

Everett Smith, co-founder and CEO of Presidential

Green: What year was that?

Smith: That was in 2012.

Green: So, you met this person in 2012 and then three months later had it up and going?

Smith: Long story short, yes. After three months, we finally got together and got all the parameters figured out and then we started to create the brand, get the packaging, get the product, and put it out to the street. That all probably took six to eight months.

Green: Presidential is known for moon rocks and infused pre-rolls. How did you hit upon the concept of infused flower? Why did you make that your focus?

Smith: The gentleman I was talking about before – he’s no longer our partner – was manufacturing for his friend and that’s what he did, so that’s what we got introduced to and then as soon as we started selling it, I just found ways that it could be improved. I listened to the customers we were selling to. My old partner wasn’t willing to do that due to the manufacturing time, so we took it into our own hands and got an investor, my partner now, John Zapp, and we figured out how to manufacture it ourselves. We had zero idea what we were doing and we figured it out. I have to give credit to John, he is the one who figured out the formula we are using right now. There was a lot of bumping our heads, a lot of trial and error, a lot of figuring it out. And luckily, we did.

Green: You mentioned you felt like other companies weren’t doing it right. What was the difference that Presidential brought to the table?

Smith: Quality. These other companies were focused on profit margin. They weren’t using quality products. They were using the same product twice in different things, which is the ultimate no-no. I just found that if you started with high-quality raw goods, and put them together, you are going to have an even better product.

Growing up my mom was kind of a hippy. We just like stuff from the earth. Good organic stuff. So, we were taking flower that I knew was being grown organically at the time and then infusing it and it created a better product. We packaged it better than anybody else’s packaging at the time. I have a background in marketing so at that time, I was just trying to create a product and a brand that my friends and I would like. I thought we were our target user at the time. I was working in my late 20s.

Green: Where were you located at the time?

Smith: We were in Los Angeles.

Green: What were some of the challenges of launching a brand in Los Angeles back in 2012?

Smith: Some of the challenges included: education of the consumer; getting clients in the door and making them feel safe to come into a dispensary and purchase medicine at the time; and the legalities – maneuvering all the different propositions that were coming down and being able to do it legally and safely. The legal issues were probably our biggest hurdle. Then there was the challenge of introducing people to Moon Rocks. Infused flower was a brand-new concept, so we had to find as many people as we could to introduce the product to.

Green: I’m just imagining back to 2012, I think Moon Rocks would have been completely new to me. How did you get customers over the hump of trying something new?

Smith: I would get big jars of Moon Rocks. They look crazy. We saw people walk by and just watched the reactions. It was like, “Whoa, what’s that? What in the world is that?” Then we use the tagline: “World’s Strongest”. We’re starting with nice, tasty flower. We’re putting 90% THC distillate on it and then when we’re taking kief in the mid 40s 50s (% THC), and we’re covering it. So we’re putting THC on top of THC of on top of THC.

Putting “The World’s Strongest” on there and just putting big jars out in front of as many people, at as many conventions, and at as many dispensaries that would let us set up a patient appreciation day. That’s how we did it.

Green: You are in retailers across California. What were the keys to your success in building out your distribution network?

Smith: Sales. Knocking on doors. My partner comes from the car business. He was a fixer-upper helping dealerships all over the country become more profitable. So, just having that mentality of going out every day and knocking on doors trying to get every single possible client. I want to say it was like being a car salesman and Hollywood, or something similar. At first it was me and John every day knocking on doors. Then the business built on itself.

We have the same process now. Knock on the doors and send our brand ambassadors in there to do customer appreciation. They get our product in front of people and it’s worked for us. The marketing money we do spend we spend in the stores, because we see a direct correlation there. At the end, it really goes back to the knocking on doors.

Green: Do you notice anything different between 2012 sales and prospecting versus today now that your brand awareness has changed?

Smith: Absolutely. Everything is very corporate now. Before 2014, you could knock on the door and the person that you needed to see was sitting right there. The owner was the buyer. Now, you have to get through layers of people to get to the actual decision-maker because they’ve become so corporate. So that’s the biggest difference I see, but I wouldn’t say it’s a negative. I would say that our industry has become more positive. We can guarantee regular pay. We can guarantee that the products are going to be on the shelves and we can cut or markup the pricing. Those are the changes I see and they’re not always easy, but I think they’re for the better.

Green: What does the future look like for Presidential? More broadly, what does the future look like for the industry in terms of infused flower and pre-rolls?

Smith: Right now, the infused flower market is one of the fastest-growing markets. I see that becoming the norm, and the same for pre-rolls. We’re looking at expansion and trying to become one of the national players in this game. We’re swinging for the fences.

Green: What geographies are you looking at?

Smith: Right now we’re in California. We are in negotiations to launch in Nevada in July. We were getting ready to launch in Oklahoma, but had a deal fall through so now we are kind of switching gears. I would say by end of year we’ll be in Oklahoma, and my partner John is trying to close a deal for Michigan. So, those are the markets we have on the table right now. We’re looking to close those all before the end of the year.

Green: What trends are you following in the industry?

Smith: We have the number one selling blunt in California, but in terms of pre-rolls we are number four in terms of sales. The three companies ahead of us all sell minis and packs of minis, whereas we sell single 1 gram and 1.5 gram pre-rolls. So, in July, we’re launching three-packs of minis, so three 0.7 gram blunts and three 0.5 gram pre-rolls.

You can infuse the flower with pretty much any kind of concentrate the way that we do it. I’d like to come out with some diamond products, that’s hot right now. We’re following the wave and trends of the concentrates.

Green: What in your personal life or in cannabis are you most interested in learning about?

Smith: In my personal life, I’m interested in financial craftiness. You know, make your money and make your money work for you. I personally, in the business, would like to learn more about the smokeless form factors of cannabis. Things like beverages and capsules. I think that’s where the industry will end up going. So, I’m interested in learning more about the manufacturing of beverages and capsules and what it entails.

Green: Thanks Everett, that concludes the interview.

Smith: Thanks, Aaron.

Strengthen Supply Chain Management with an Integrated ERP & CMS

By Daniel Erickson
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Success in the cannabis industry is driven by a company’s ability to adapt to an ever-changing market and meet the demands of the evolving consumer. Selecting the right business management solution to handle the complexities of the growing cycle as well as daily operations and compliance requirements necessitates diligent research. Ensuring that the selected technology solution has a centralized database in a secure platform designed to reinforce quality throughout company operations is essential in today’s competitive industry. An ERP solution with integrated CMS capabilities helps businesses strengthen supply chain management by seamlessly incorporating cannabis cultivation with day-to-day company operations to efficiently deliver seed to sale capabilities and meet marketplace demands.

What are ERP & CMS?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a business system in which all data is centralized – including finances, human resources, quality, manufacturing, inventory, sales and reporting. A cultivation management system (CMS) is an extension of an ERP solution to manage cannabis greenhouse operations, including growing, inventory and labor needs. A CMS maintains a detailed level of tracking to account for continuous cannabis growth periods that require extensive monitoring and incur a multitude of expenses. In an integrated solution, both the ERP and CMS data are managed under the same secure database to provide a forward and backward audit trail of all business processes. This visibility encompasses the entire supply chain from the management of supplier relationships to distribution – including growing, cultivating, extracting, manufacturing and shipping.

How do ERP & CMS strengthen supply chain processes?

Tracks individual plants and growth stages – By tracking plant inventories at the individual plant level in real-time with a unique plant identifier, greenhouse operations are optimized – monitoring the entire lifecycle of the plant throughout the germination, seedling, vegetative and flowering stages. Audit trails maintain regulatory compliance, including information such as terpene profiles and THC and CBD potency. Monitoring genealogy, mother and cloning, crossbreeding, plant genetics and clone propagation are key to success in this industry. Strain tracking is equally important, including identifying which strains are performing best, producing the most yield and how they are received by the marketplace. Tracking of the entire supply chain includes the recording of plant health, harvesting techniques, production, growth, costs, lab testing and batch yields – without any gaps in information.

PlantTag
A plant tagged with a barcode and date for tracking

Optimizes growing conditions to increase yields – By automatically documenting and analyzing data, insights into plant and greenhouse activities create streamlined processes for an optimal cannabis cultivation environment. This includes the monitoring of all growing activities such as space, climate, light cycles, moisture content, nutrient applications, fertilizer and other resources, which all have an effect on plant growth and yields. Most importantly, labor costs are monitored, as it is the highest expense incurred by growers. In an industry for which many companies have limited budgets, enabling efficient greenhouse planning, automation and workflows reduces overhead costs.

Integrates with regulatory compliance systems – Compliance is a mandatory part of the cannabis business, and many companies haven’t expended the effort to ensure their processes are meeting regulations. This has placed their licensing and business at risk. An integration that automates the transfer of required reporting information from the ERP to state government approved software such as METRC, Biotrack THC and Leaf Data Systems to ensure regulatory compliance is imperative. This streamlined process assures that reporting is accurate, timely and meets changing requirements in this complex industry.

Facilitates safety and quality control – With an ERP solution tracking all aspects of growing, manufacturing, packaging, distribution and sales, safety and quality are effectively secured throughout the supply chain. Despite the lack of federal legality and regulatory guidelines, proactive cannabis producers can utilize an ERP’s automated processes and best practices to ensure safe and consistent products. By standardizing and documenting food safety procedures, manufacturers mitigate the risk of cannabis-specific concerns (such as aflatoxins, plant pesticide residue, pest contamination and inconsistent levels of THC/CBD potency) as well as dangers common to traditional food manufacturers (such as improper employee procedures and training) for those in the edibles marketplace. Food safety initiatives and quality control measures documented within the ERP strengthen the entire supply chain.

Maintains recipes and formulations – In manufacturing, to achieve product consistency in regards to taste, texture, appearance, potency and expected results, complex recipe and formula management is a necessity – including monitoring of THC and CBD percentages. The calculation of specific nutritional values to provide accurate labeling and product packaging provides necessary information for consumers. Cannabis businesses have to evolve with the consumer buying habits and marketplace saturation by getting creative with their product offerings. With integrated R&D functionality, the expansion of new and innovative edibles, beverages and forms of delivery, as well as new extractions, tinctures, concentrates and other derivatives, helps to meet consumer demands.

Handles inventory efficiently – Established inventory control measures such as tracking stock levels, expiration dates and product loss are effectively managed in an ERP solution across multiple warehouses and locations. Cannabis manufacturers are able to maintain raw material and product levels, reduce waste, facilitate rotation methods and avoid overproduction to control costs. With the use of plant tag IDs and serial and lot numbers with forward and backward traceability, barcode scanning automatically links product information to batch tickets, shipping documents and labels – providing the ability to locate goods quickly in the supply chain if necessary in the event of contamination or recall. The real-time and integrated information available helps mitigate the risk of unsafe products entering the marketplace.

Food processing and sanitation
By standardizing and documenting food safety procedures, manufacturers mitigate the risk of cannabis-specific concerns

Utilizes user-based software permissions – Access to data and ability to execute transactions throughout the growing stages, production and distribution are restricted to designated employees with proper authorization – ensuring security and accountability throughout the inventory chain.

Manages supplier approvals – Assurance of safety is enhanced with the maintenance of detailed supplier information lists with test results to meet in-house quality and product standards. Quality control testing ensures that critical control points are monitored and only approved materials and finished products are released – keeping undeclared substances, harmful chemicals and impure ingredients from infiltrating the supply chain. When standards are not met, the system alerts stakeholders and alternate vendors can be sought.

Delivers recall preparedness – As part of an edible company’s food safety plan, recall plans that include the practice of performing mock recalls ensures that cannabis businesses are implementing food safety procedures within their facilities. With seed to sale traceability in an ERP solution, mitigating the risk of inconsistent, unsafe or contaminated products is readily maintained. Integrated data from the CMS solution provides greater insight into contamination issues in the growth stages.

An ERP solution developed for the cannabis industry with supporting CMS functionality embodies the inventory and quality-driven system that growers, processors, manufacturers and distributors seek to strengthen supply chain management. Offering a centralized, secure database, seed to sale traceability, integration to compliance systems, in-application quality and inventory control, formula and recipe management functionality and the ability to conduct mock recalls, these robust business management solutions meet the needs of a demanding industry. With a variety of additional features designed to enhance processes in all aspects of your cannabis operation the solution provides a framework to deliver truly supportive supply chain management capabilities.

Stratos: Quality, Expansion & Growth in Multiple Markets

By Aaron G. Biros
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Jason Neely founded Stratos in 2014, when he and a small group of people left the pharmaceutical industry in search of a new endeavor in the cannabis marketplace. The concept was straightforward: Apply pharmaceutical methodologyof production to cannabis products. Back then, Stratos offered a range of THC-infused tablets in the Colorado market.

Brenda Verghese, vice president of research & development

Brenda Verghese, vice president of research & development, was one of five people on staff when Stratos launched. Now they have about 30 team members. Consumers were looking for a cannabis product that would be consistent and reliable every time, taking the guesswork out of infused products dosage. That’s where Brenda Verghese found her skillset useful.

Transitioning to the pharmaceutical industry right out of college, Verghese started her career as a chemist and worked her way up to the R&D business development sector. “I specializedin formulations and taking a product from concept to commercialization in the pharmaceutical space,” says Verghese. “Jason Neely approached me with the idea of a cannabis company and focusing on making products as effective and consistent as possible, so really bringing pharmaceutical science into the cannabis space. In the matter of 4 years we grew substantially, mainly focusing on the efficacy of products.”

Behind the scenes at packaging and labeling Image credit: Lucy Beaugard

Soon after the success of their THC products became apparent, Stratos launched a CBD line, quickly growing their portfolio to include things like tinctures and topicals as well. According to Verghese, they are hoping that what’s been established on the THC side of their business as far as reproducibility and consistency is something that consumers will also experience on the CBD side. “Quality and consistency have definitely driven our growth,” says Verghese. “That is what consumers appreciate most- the fact that every tablet, tincture or swipe of a topical product is going to be consistent and the same dose every time.” This is what speaks to their background in the pharmaceutical sciences, FDA regulation has taught the Stratos team to create really robust and consistent formulations.

Quality in manufacturing starts at the source for Stratos: their suppliers. They take a hard look at their supply of raw materials and active ingredients, making sure it meets their standards. “The supplier needs to allow us to do an initial audit and periodic audits,” says Verghese. “We require documentation to verify the purity and quality of oil. We also do internal testing upon receipt of the materials, verifying that the COAs [certificates of analysis] match their claims.”

Process validation in action at the Stratos facility
(image credit: Lucy Beaugard)

Verghese says maintaining that attention to detail as their company grows is crucial. They implement robust SOPs and in-process quality checks in addition to process testing. They test their products 5-6 times within one production batch. Much of that is thanks to Amy Davison, director of operations and compliance, and her 15 years of experience in quality and regulatory compliance in the pharmaceutical industry.

Back in August of 2018, Amy Davison wrote an article on safety and dosing accuracy for Cannabis Industry Journal. Take a look at this excerpt to get an idea of their quality controls:

Product testing alone cannot assess quality for an entire lot or batch of product; therefore, each step of the manufacturing process must be controlled through Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Process validation is an aspect of GMPs used by the pharmaceutical industry to create consistency in a product’s quality, safety and efficacy. There are three main stages to process validation: process design, process qualification and continued process verification. Implementing these stages ensures that quality, including dosing accuracy, is maintained for each manufactured batch of product.

Fast forward to today and Stratos is looking at expanding their CBD products line significantly. While their THC-infused products might have a stronger brand presence in Colorado, the CBD line offers substantial growth potential, given their ability to ship nationwide as well as online ordering. “We are always evaluating different markets and looking for what suits Stratos and our consumer base,”says Verghese.

Richard Naiberg
Quality From Canada

Protecting Intellectual Property in Canada: A Practical Guide, Part 2

By Richard Naiberg
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Richard Naiberg

Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a series by Richard Naiberg where he discusses how cannabis businesses can protect their intellectual property in Canada. Part 1 introduced the topic and examined the use of trade secrets in business. Part 2 goes into how business owners can protect new technologies and inventions through applying for patents.

Patents: Protection For New And Inventive Technology

Patents, which are issued in accordance with Canada’s Patent Act, provide their owners with the right to have a Court prevent anyone else in Canada from making, using, selling, importing or exporting what is claimed as the patent’s invention. The owner of the patent enjoys this monopoly for a period of 20 years from the date the patent is applied for. A patent is infringed even if the infringer arrives at the invention independently, without actual copying. If a patent owner brings a lawsuit and the Court finds infringement, the Court will typically order the infringing activity to cease and require the infringer to pay the owner a suitable amount of compensation.

There are several drawbacks to applying for a patent from the point of view of the applicant.Patents are meant to protect only inventions, meaning novel, non-obvious and useful solutions to practical problems. In the cannabis field, such inventions could include engineered genetic sequences or new plant cells that lead to useful improvements in the whole plant, new cultivation processes, new methods of extraction, new methods of storage or means to enhance stability, new formulations for administration, and new uses for the plant. It would not be uncommon for a cannabis producer to hold a suite of different patents that cover a whole range of innovative technologies and innovative business methods.

Not all classes of technical innovations are protectable by patent. For example, patents are not available for a whole cannabis plant because no patents are allowed on higher, multicellular organisms. Patents are not issued for genetic sequences or cells that are the result of cross breeding. Patents are also unavailable to monopolize methods of using cannabis as a medical treatment. That said, patent agents are skilled at casting innovations in areas such as these in terms that do provide some patent rights.

To obtain a patent, the applicant hires a patent agent to prepare and submit an application to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). An examiner at CIPO reviews the application for compliance with the statutory requirements and enters into a correspondence with the applicant’s patent agent in a process known as a patent prosecution. Third parties also have the opportunity to oppose the grant of a patent on limited grounds. The prosecution may continue for a period of years before the application is either allowed to issue to patent, or is ultimately rejected. Separate patent applications must be filed in every country in which patent rights are sought, though there are international treaties that facilitate these separate filings and preserve early priority filing dates.there can be a significant cost in obtaining patents, particularly if patent rights are sought in multiple countries.

It is important to emphasize that if an invention had been disclosed to the public more than one year before the application for the patent is filed, a patent cannot issue. Cannabis producers must therefore ensure that disclosures of their innovative work be controlled, including when working with partners. This can typically be handled with the use of appropriate non-disclosure agreements.

The prospect of market exclusivity makes the filing of patent applications a must for cannabis businesses, including those just starting out. For a start-up, simply filing a patent application projects that the company has value and a clear vision of its business. Venture capital often seeks companies with patent applications on file because the applications can mature into assets which can be monetized either by protecting a market for the owner, or through assignment or license to others.

cannabis researchers and producers have already filed hundreds of patent applications in Canada. There are several drawbacks to applying for a patent from the point of view of the applicant. Unlike the case for a trade secret, an applicant for a patent must make full and correct disclosure of the invention and how to use it in the patent itself. This disclosure will allow competitors to understand the applicant’s technology. The public disclosure provides a blueprint for competitors to build upon the patent’s disclosure, and to design around it to avoid infringement. Also, and unlike trade secrets, patents have an expiry date after which the public is free to practice the invention. The Commissioner also has the power to issue compulsory licenses to third parties in several circumstances, including when the demand for the patented article is not being met on reasonable terms. Further, the patent right is not infringed when the patented invention is used for non-commercial or experimental purpose. Finally, there can be a significant cost in obtaining patents, particularly if patent rights are sought in multiple countries.

Disadvantages or not, cannabis researchers and producers have already filed hundreds of patent applications in Canada. These applications relate to a wide range of inventions in the cannabis field including new cannabis resins and oils, methods of producing cannabis having improved properties, specific new growing processes, new harvesting methods, new extraction techniques, new formulations for human and veterinary use as foods, medicines and supplements, new delivery devices, new purification methods, new analytical methods, and new stabilization methods. Interested companies can access these disclosures from the public record.

As cannabis companies rush to obtain patent monopolies for their technologies, minefields are created for operating companies. Cannabis producers should obtain reports on what patent applications exist and might be asserted against their operations if and when these applications mature to issuance. With that intelligence in hand, the cannabis producer can understand what threats can be safely ignored and what patents must be addressed by assignment or license, by ‘design around’ or by developing an argument as to why the patent is invalid and thus unenforceable.

Editor’s Note: In Part 3 of this series, which will be published next week, Naiberg will discuss plant breeders’ rights and protecting new plant varieties. Stay tuned for more!