Tips For Illinois Craft Growers: Look To Craft Beer Model

The Illinois Craft Cannabis Growers Association hosted a meeting in October that shared tips for craft growers and how they could compete in such a thriving industry. Like craft brewers, speakers said craft cannabis growers must stand out with authentic products and solid partnerships. 

The advice was given by speakers who are established dispensary executives to the group of wide-eyed and eager entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs and their startup businesses are striving to create high-quality, special cannabis products.

These products would help the industry become more diverse, and this goes for ownership as well as the array of products sold to consumers. Gabriel Mendoza, executive vice president of operations at Mission Dispensaries, said craft growers must make niche products that reflect the brand and encourage people to relate and get behind it.

He said it’s challenging for craft growers to “compete at cost,” meaning they have to create something that “people will buy irrespective of the price, to a certain extent.” Niche products are marketed and promoted for specific effects like pain relief, relaxation, fast-acting edibles, and mood elevation.

Speakers mentioned how we are in a time of instant gratification, meaning consumers are seeking products like joints and vapes they can use right after purchasing. Another tip for newcomers is to partner with cannabis retail stores to ensure their product is being distributed in stores.

Some speakers also shed light on the newer aspects of the cannabis plant that society is opening up to. Cannabis attorney Cole Eastman, an investor with Herban Garden Craft Growers, said to the crowd that new cannabis cultivators must make the most special and unique aspects of the plant.

These aspects include terpenes and the unrecognized cannabinoids outside of CBD like CBG and CBN. These compounds are all linked to anti-anxiety and cell-protecting antioxidant effects. He added that craft growers really have to “differentiate themselves” and that their force of creativity lies within the higher quality plants they grow. 

Dispensary licensing applications are held up in court, but state officials have recently confirmed 40 businesses eligible for craft grower licenses. The state also gave additional licenses for infusers and transporters, which were selected by a competitive scoring process between long and complex applications. 

In terms of diversity among the winners, The Pantagraph mentioned that state officials said 67% were nonwhite, and 83% qualified as social equity applicants. 

Social equity applicants mean they reside in low-income areas that also have high rates of cannabis arrests or those who had minor cannabis convictions or family members with criminal records for cannabis. State officials also mentioned that veterans owned most craft growers.