Sweet Dirt, a Maine-based, vertically integrated cannabis operator, opens its first adult-use dispensary in the state Dec. 9 after a long journey to transition from the state’s medical market.
The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the store, which is located in Waterville, on Dec. 7 in conjunction with the Kennebec Valley and Mid-Maine Chambers of Commerce. Also in attendance were the incoming and outgoing mayors of Waterville, two state representatives and city personnel, including the fire chief and the chief of police.
“We wanted to give them a glimpse before we open to the public, which will happen on Wednesday,” Rebecca Henry, Sweet Dirt’s VP of marketing, told Cannabis Dispensary. “Mid-week isn’t great for a grand opening party, especially in the middle of COVID, so we’re keeping it really small in terms of the marketing activities and who all is attending that day, and we’re going to have a bigger party come summer when COVID is hopefully behind us and the nice weather is back.”
“We’ve got a ton of positive feedback,” she said. “This community is wonderful. … We have people stop by every day asking what we’re doing and when we’re opening, so we feel really supported by the community, which is super exciting.”
The dispensary features decorative copper accents, greenery and sensory bud bars to showcase the product while still keeping it secure, Oliver said.
“We have a virtual tour of the store that we’re making available so people can get a sense … [of] how much space [there is], the cleanliness and all those kind of aspects, but you’ll see from the aesthetic of the store to the merchandise we carry to the packaging, we definitely have a different aesthetic than the stark corporate aesthetic,” Rebecca added. “Some people are going for an Apple tech look or the kind of grow culture or stoner culture, but we’re definitely a different direction, especially in Maine.”
The store carries flower, edibles, concentrates and vape products, as well as CBD topicals, edibles and tinctures.
“We wanted to make sure that we opened our doors with a wide array of product and product that we’re proud of,” Rebecca said. “Some of our competitors—or other players—are still struggling. There are adult-use stores that have no cannabis products whatsoever on their menu right now. They’re basically selling corporate T-shirts and paraphernalia, but they have no product whatsoever. It’s not a good position to be in, so we’re feeling very bright about our wait-and-see approach and doing it on our timeline.”
When Maine launched its first adult-use cannabis sales Oct. 9, many businesses, including Sweet Dirt, opted to delay their launch into the market to finalize license approvals and ensure a great customer experience when they did open their doors.
Founded in 2015 by registered caregivers under Maine’s medical cannabis program, Sweet Dirt ramped up its operations near the end of 2018, when it opened its first storefront for medical sales. Since early 2019, the company has been raising capital and acquiring and building out additional cultivation, extraction, manufacturing and retail facilities in preparation for the adult-use market, which voters approved in November 2016.
When it began building its adult-use retail strategy in 2019, the Sweet Dirt team chose its Waterville location due to its robust tourist population, as well as the overall lack of cannabis retailers in central Maine.
“A lot of folks are very focused on the southern part of the state, and we are, [too],” said Sweet Dirt CEO Jim Henry. “We have stores down there, … but this is an awfully large geographic state, and it’s got a lot of people dispersed throughout. We wanted to make sure that the entire state is getting a feel for who Sweet Dirt is.”
Out of the state’s roughly 480 municipalities, approximately 50 have opted in to the adult-use cannabis program, Jim said.
“We started to look at the map and we saw that central Maine was really lacking in a major municipality that had presence,” he said. “There were some small towns, and those towns are going to have some really successful companies, … but it’s not something that was on a larger scale that we could set up shop and proliferate the brand throughout the entire state. But Waterville acted as that location.”
Jim grew up about an hour north of Waterville and took great responsibility in creating a dispensary that would be one of the first businesses that people see when coming into town off the highway.
“We took that responsibility very seriously, as we do with all our locations, but we wanted to make sure that we found the right building to give the appropriate amount of self-love to and really make it an elegant solution for the town that people got to see in Waterville,” he said.
Sweet Dirt received over 200 applications for two job postings for its new location, Oliver said, and the team is proud to be able to offer employment opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That means a great deal to us, that we can bring that kind of economic activity to a town like this that needs it,” Jim said.
The newly hired staff for the Waterville store trained in Sweet Dirt’s medical cannabis dispensary in Eliot, and the company has designed an internal product knowledge and customer service training program to further employees’ education.
Sweet Dirt keeps diversity at the forefront in its hiring practices, Jim added, and 70% of its executive team is female.
“Not only is that important just from a corporate standpoint, but it’s also important from a branding standpoint, the way that you conduct yourself as a business,” he said. “Diversity … is an incredibly important thing, and I think … all the women on the executive team have really brought a level of elegance and have really elevated the organization that we work for, [which] in turn is helping to develop an industry that can use a little bit of elevation from that standpoint.”
The company leveraged as many marketing channels as it could to advertise its grand opening in Waterville, from print advertising in publications with a 21-and-older audience and online ads to email and text marketing.
“This was a labor of love, and we feel good that we’re here today, opening up as the first store in Waterville, but also the first store in Kennebec County in general, right in the center of Maine,” Jim said.
Sweet Dirt plans to open three additional adult-use dispensaries in Maine, and will open its next store in Portland in February. The company also has plans to partner with a beverage company to continue the development of new products for Maine’s consumers.
“I think what’s really exciting for this industry overall is the product development and innovation that’s happening everywhere,” Oliver said.