Schedule of Events

There is no question that these are volatile times in the industry. To some operators, this does not come as a surprise; rather the inevitable market evolution. Be it wholesale price compression, shifting regulations, supply chain pressures, inflation, or consumer behavior and spending – there are organizations that are ready and eager to tackle anything.

The key premise is understanding all of the major drivers and impacts to your business; control what you can, and plan for the rest. It is a fundamental shift from reaction to executing on a plan. In a sense moving from surviving to thriving. In this session, learn how to look for the interdependencies in your business, to create a living budget, how to evaluate your fixed and variable costs, and how to streamline your production, post-harvest, procession, packaging, labeling, (and so much more).

Faced with a turbulent market, continually plummeting prices amid widespread inflation and long-term uncertainty, two craft companies (East Fork Cultivars and Peak Extracts) decided to merge to benefit from each others’ strengths while gaining cost and operational savings, among other benefits. East Fork acquired Peak in late 2022, and East Fork CEO Mason Walker believes many other small and mid-sized businesses could benefit from his story. In this candid session, Walker will share how the merger enabled both companies to reduce overhead by sharing costs for compliance, insurance, payroll, legal and other administrative and professional services, which come at a premium for cannabis companies. As Cannabis Business Times reported, “Stem and Walker estimate these costs together run each company about $200,000 each per year—including $13,000 in adult-use licensing fees, $10,000 in hemp licensing fees and $14,000 in banking fees to carry checking accounts for each entity. They estimate these costs eventually will be cut by at least 40% with the merger.”

Walker will also share the details of the entire process, from finding the right partner to setting deal terms to the cost and logistics of merging the company (legal fees, regulatory approval process, etc.) and important lessons he learned along the way.

Building an extraction lab before understanding what is relevant and sustainable long-term in your market(s) is like putting the cart before the horse, and you risk going to market with products that are irrelevant and won’t sell. If launching an extraction business or expanding into extraction is in your sights, they are key things you should consider at the outset. In this session, you will:

• Gain an understanding of different extract products on the market and the methods used to create them (e.g., CO2, hydrocarbon, ethanol, solventless extraction)
• Learn how to evaluate product demand, price points, trends and opportunities in your market
• Understand your goals (to produce CPGs, wholesale to other CPG brands, diversify your revenue channels) and whether it makes business/financial sense for you to build your own lab
• How to use a data-driven approach and market analysis to determine the business case (market/consumer demand analysis) for which products
you will create and what equipment you will need

… and more.

Building (or retrofitting) a greenhouse structure for cultivation provides tighter environmental control than an outdoor operation, but also maximizes the use of natural resources, like sunlight. Learn from seasoned cannabis greenhouse operators the intricacies of building a structure that is highly efficient yet keeps production costs low.

In this session, you’ll take away tips on:

• Climate location factors;
• Materials selection (e.g., glass, polycarbonate, aluminum, galvanized steel, etc.);
• Designing for tight environmental controls and workflow efficiency;
• Automated equipment and technologies to consider (e.g., HVAC, odor control, supplemental lighting);
• and much more.

Even in an up market, it can be challenging for cultivators and brands to gain access to retail shelves, especially in states with limited retail licenses, unlimited cultivation licenses and/or high competition. In a down market with major price compression, even the most savvy and skilled cultivators can struggle.

What are those gaining shelf space and/or finding new opportunities doing from both a product and business perspective? From initial approach to face-to-face time with budtenders, terms, differentiation through genetic and inventory offerings, communication and marketing/brand support, and critical partnerships, this session will share what leading cultivators, brands and dispensaries say are the key to getting and staying on dispensary shelves. Plus, learn what successful cultivators, processors and brands are doing to more successfully collect on deliverables or manage accounts as they navigate challenges throughout a strained supply chain where many retailers are struggling to pay cultivators on time … or at all.

Everyone creates brands—but few companies are successful in creating brands that cultivate staying power with consumers. Many entrepreneurs, not just in the cannabis industry, but in all consumer segments, get excited about the idea of creating a brand, and jump straight to designing a logo. But that’s a big mistake, according to experts, especially as brand power becomes increasingly important in the ubercompetitive, rapidly expanding cannabis industry.

This session will help determine what your ideal customer should look like, how to build out the demographic, and how to conduct important research. Presenters will also outline how to determine your company’s points of parity and/or differentiation in the marketplace, what your brand stands for, and what types of emotions you want to evoke. Then, they’ll provide building-blocks for design and more traditional branding ideas. They will also dive into how to evaluate these concepts for both medical and adult-use markets (as these applications should be handled differently).