Inside
incredibles, the Willy Wonka Company of Marijuana Edibles
420 Intel - Your
Source for Global Marijuana Industry News!
June 24, 2016
Edibles sales
are exploding. Legal cannabis sales hit $5.4 billion in 2015 according to
ArcView Market Research, and dispensary owners say edibles sales might make up
as much as half of that. In Colorado alone, the state's Department of Revenue
said edibles sales jumped from more than 3.3 million infused edible units (sold
from Jan-Sept of 2014) to more than 5.6 million over the same timeframe in
2015. A big chunk of those
sales came from incredibles. Yes, their brand is spelled in all lowercase
letters (thanks, Pixar).
Along with big
names such as Dixie Elixirs, BlueKudu, Cheeba Chews, and, of course, Leafs by
Snoop (though there are countless others across Colorado, Washington, Oregon,
and California), these businesses are rapidly expanding and angling for
national exposure. If any companies are positioned to become the
Hershey's and Nestlé of legal edibles, it's brands like incredibles. We
caught up with Medically Correct LLC founder and President Bob Eschino
(Medically Correct owns incredibles) at Cannabis World Congress (CWC). In the
video above, he talks about scaling the operation nationwide while still
taking care to churn out delicious, mouthwatering chocolates and confections.
The edibles
market is a fascinating one to dissect. These big manufacturers need to mix,
process, and ship assets on a massive scale, while maintaining strict
control over THC levels and seed-to-sale compliance. The incredibles brand has deep
market saturation in Colorado (see map below), with products sold in the
lion's share of dispensaries across the state. The company has plans to expand
its recreational edibles sales in Oregon, Washington, and hopefully California
soon if this summer's key referendum passes. Though the key to building a
brand on par with Wonka Chocolates is making great-tasting edibles that sell
out of dispensaries, there are no golden tickets, but the company's foil
packaging is tough to miss on shelves.
The incredibles
brand is best known for its chocolate. In PCMag's special 4/20 Facebook live
show featuring Flowhub, we even made a mock dispensary sale featuring
incredibles products.
In the
incredibles factory, you'd see the assembly line pumping out bars of Salted
Cookies and Cream, Mile High Mint, Affogato, Boulder Bars, Black Cherry CBD,
Strawberry Crunch, Blueberry Bliss, and Peanut Butter Buddha, and more. Several of the edibles have won awards
competitions, like the THC Championship, Munchie Cup, and High Times Cannabis
Cup. The extra-special-chocolate maker also sells concentrates, vape pens, and cannabis-infused
gummies called "gum-e's."
Since its
founding in 2010 by Medically Correct, incredibles has become the leading
edibles brand in Colorado, sold in more than 760 dispensaries for both medical
and recreational use. As with all legal edibles, every product's cannabinoid
levels is tested in state-certified labs. The company is also getting into
recipes and education on safe edibles consumption.
The incredibles
factory is a grow lab, a kitchen, and a production operation all in one. The
facility currently pumps out between 5,000-7,000 per day. The kitchen and
lab area of the factory operate out of an 8,000-square-foot building employing
executive chefs experimenting with recipes. In the Class 1 Division 1
ETL-certified extraction lab, technicians are constantly tweaking purity levels
and extraction techniques. The company employs 60 employees in Colorado, and
plans to open kitchens in five other locations by the end of 2016.
As with all
cannabis businesses, the company still currently faces significant hurdles when
it comes to banking and capital access, or lack thereof, though there is a bill
called the Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act sitting in congressional
limbo. Until the banking quandary is sorted out on a federal level, incredibles
is making the most of its space and keeping the focus on consistent product and
the human touch.
"My
partners have come from large-scale commercial kitchens that produced
20,000-30,000 items a day. We know how to perfect a recipe and duplicate it
consistently all day long," Eschino told PCMag. "We are not in a
position to fully automate some of our processes because of packaging and the
quality control we have in place, thus, we are still handmade and manually
checked throughout the process. We check and double-check, test and test again
throughout manufacturing."
Medically
Correct also applied for its grow license in 2014, and incredibles now
maintains a hydroponic field of 100 flowering lights as well, with plans to
build out 400 more in the Denver, Colorado facility by year's end. The capital
restrictions have thus far kept all of the operations in one place, so imagine
walking from room to room, building to building, through fields of marijuana
plants, bustling kitchens full of bakers, labs of extraction scientists, and
the edibles manufacturing facility itself.
Faced with a
factory landscape strewn with infused chocolates and candies amidst fields of
hydroponic plant grows and—we would all hope—a rich, creamy THC chocolate
river, any self-respecting cannabis enthusiast might be apt to pull an Augustus
Gloop.
