Wyllow, a new line of California-grown cannabis flower, has launched in the Los Angeles area with inclusivity and affordability at the forefront of its brand.

Although CEO Camille Roistacher said Wyllow is intended for all cannabis consumers, the brand was inspired by a desire for more women representation in the cannabis industry.

“If I walk into a dispensary today, I would like to see more products on the shelves that are geared or marketed towards women that are also owned and operated by women, so that’s one angle to our inclusivity,” she said.

The other angle, she added, is centered on the brand’s pricing strategy.

Photo courtesy of Wyllow

“The goal is really to not have $80 or $90 eighths on the shelves, especially considering everything that’s going on,” Roistacher said. “People are losing their jobs, unfortunately, and money is tight. So, how can we bring our really nice product at a reasonable price to the consumer?”

Roistacher also operates a cannabis distribution company, Voyage Distribution, which allows her to run a more cost-effective business.

“This gives me the opportunity to essentially cut out the middle man and not have to mark it up so that we can bring this high-end flower at a reasonable price to the retailers, [and] more consumers can go ahead and give it a try,” she said.

Wyllow has partnered with an indoor cultivation facility in Coachella Valley, and Roistacher then directs that flower through her distribution hub.

And it was through Voyage Distribution that Roistacher first took notice of the cultivator that ultimately became her partner for the Wyllow brand.

“We started to notice how beautiful this flower was and thought, you know what? We could probably use this flower and really create something cool,” she said. “We talked to them about it, and they were definitely interested in the messaging behind the brand and they liked working with us.”

A Socially Distant Launch Strategy

Launching a brand during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic certainly posed challenges, Roistacher said, because traditional marketing activities like launch parties and other in-person events are not possible.

“We’ve had to shift very quickly with what that launch strategy looks like,” she said.

Roistacher and her team hosted a virtual launch series the week of Aug. 24, with each day featuring a free, live event, including Soundbath with Dynasty Electrik, a “Freedom Yoga,” class, a “Fireside Chat” with Roistacher and the founders of Cannabis Doing Good, an instructional, how-to called “J-Rolling with Jenn” and a launch party featuring DJ Essty.

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“When would people join a virtual yoga session to celebrate the launch of a cannabis brand?” Roistacher said. “It’s so bizarre, but it’s just so fascinating and it makes me think, how can we incorporate more virtual activities? … I think this virtual aspect to our lives now is really fascinating, and I’d like to continue it in some way, somehow.”

The entire Wyllow team is currently working remotely, Roistacher added, with a social media manager based in San Francisco, a PR manager in Colorado and a virtual administrator in Florida.

The brand hosted pre-launch activities and in-store activations before Wyllow’s product line officially debuted on Aug. 24, and the team reached its goal of having product on the shelves in five dispensaries prior to the official launch date.

“We’re in quite a few different strategic locations,” Roistacher said. “I wanted to make sure to cover greater Los Angeles and then also get out into the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area to cover that territory, as well. I feel like we have a really nice spread throughout Southern California, and then some of the stores we’re in now expand up into the Bay, so it’s exciting to break into that market in the near future.”

Meeting an Increasing Demand

Right now, Wyllow’s product line is exclusively pre-packaged eighths of flower, but the brand is already receiving requests from its dispensary clients to expand its SKUs. While Roistacher is considering adding pre-rolls and possibly other products to the line-up, she said it will be some time before additional SKUs are introduced.

Roistacher’s shorter-term goal is to secure more flower to meet the increasing demand.

“I think the initial demand is higher than we expected, which is good—things are going well,” she said. “We need to secure more flower, though. [The] initial short-term goal is to onboard additional farms that we can work with and make sure they go through our vetting process so that [the flower] meets the standards of the brand and what we’re looking for.”

Then, Roistacher plans to focus on unveiling a line of pre-rolls, as well as a CBD product lineup.

While Roistacher was initially concerned that her focus on creating a women-focused brand would alienate male consumers, recent in-store launches have shown that many of the brand’s buyers are also men, which means Wyllow is well on its way to achieving its goal of inclusivity.

“We want all walks of life to be able to afford us, try us, follow the brand and join our community that we’re building here at Wyllow,” Roistacher said. “The initial feedback has been extremely positive, and that’s a great feeling because we took a chance on this and I’m just glad to see the initial success so far. I can’t wait to see where we’ll be in the next three to six months."

A judge determined Aug. 24 that the court did not have jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit brought against Loveland, Colo., City Clerk Patti Garcia by supporters of a petition for a ballot initiative to allow cannabis dispensaries in the city, but the city clerk’s office has agreed to accept additional signatures collected during the initial 90-day period allotted for signature gathering.

Loveland does not allow cannabis retailers within its borders, which prompted petitioners to propose a November ballot initiative that would let voters to decide whether to allow the regulation and sale of cannabis in the city.

Petitioners had 90 days to collect a minimum of 2,888 valid signatures from registered electors to place the issue before voters, and the lawsuit arose following allegations that Garcia provided misinformation to the petition representatives.

“The clerk was giving confusing deadlines of when signatures could be collected, how long they had to collect the signatures, and then she summarily cut short the window in which they had to collect the signatures,” said Michael Dailey, senior counsel with Greenspoon Marder, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Petition representatives can drop signatures off to the city clerk in batches, he said, and Garcia allegedly took one of the batches and counted it as the final batch without petitioners indicating that it was indeed the final batch.

“At that point, she said, ‘Well, I have this batch, this is the last batch, and no, you don’t have enough signatures,’” Dailey said. “She’s obviously arguing that she took the last batch she received to be the final batch, but the record really doesn’t clearly indicate that.”

The plaintiffs argued that the clerk’s decision to stop the signature collection process early, before the 90 days were up, was detrimental to their efforts. The clerk validated 2,143 signatures out of the 3,589 submitted when she halted signature gathering, according to a Loveland Reporter-Herald report.

“She counted all the signatures and said there weren’t enough, but she didn’t recognize that we still had more time to collect the signatures,” Dailey said. “It was a very bizarre process that she used in the sense that it didn’t really make sense why she stopped collecting signatures.”

Since the lawsuit was filed, Loveland has agreed to accept additional signatures that were collected during the 90-day period, and those signatures are currently being counted. In the Aug. 24 hearing, the court found that it did not have the jurisdiction to order additional days to collect signatures, since the city had already agreed to accept additional signatures that were gathered.

“The issue that we have, though, is that the plaintiffs didn’t really use the time—the entire 90-day window—to continue to collect signatures because during that time, in mid-July, … the plaintiffs reached out to her to say, ‘Hey, we have more signatures,’ and she said, ‘No, I’m not accepting any more.’ So, they ramped down their efforts and that had a detrimental impact,” Dailey said.

The case is still ongoing, he added, as the plaintiffs wait to see how many signatures are ultimately validated. A final count is expected this week, according to the Loveland Reporter-Herald.

“It’s possible [that it might still make the ballot],” Dailey said. “We have to wait until the office finishes its count, and then [when] we get the findings of that process, we’ll examine if we have additional remedies at that point. … We appreciate the city acknowledging the additional signatures, but the issue is, … because of the actions, we didn’t really utilize the 90-day window.”

If the petition falls short on signatures to qualify for the November ballot, petitioners would have to draft a new initiative for the next election cycle, and all signatures would have to be re-collected at that time, Dailey said.

“I think it’s an unfortunate reality where you have to bring a suit in order to prompt the city to allow more signatures that are mandated per the [city’s] charter, but I do hope that as we move forward, this litigation serves as a reminder of city officials’ obligations, not only in Loveland, but just generally speaking,” he said. “I do hope that the threat of legal action prompts cities to understand what they can and cannot do, and they’ll act accordingly."