sunnyside cresco labs cannabis dispensaryAs Illinois prepares for adult-use cannabis sales in 2020, Chicago-based Cresco Labs is meeting the legalization news head-on with a fresh retail concept. The publicly traded company unveiled its Sunnyside* retail brand July 29 and announced plans to overhaul its 56 dispensaries around the U.S. to match the new look and feel of Cresco’s cannabis business.
The Sunnyside* brand will get Cresco’s retail businesses on the same wavelength. According to a company press release and assorted imagery, the stores will feature bright spaces, a goldenrod motif and segmented areas where customers can interact with Cresco’s different product categories. Prior to stepping up to the counter for payment, customers will have opportunities to learn more about the products and their effects—from the spectrum of edibles available in the store to the expanding topicals niche.
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The rebrand is a move toward familiarity and consistency in the cannabis shopping experience—something that cannabis companies have turned toward more traditional consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) markets to replicate.
The company’s retail holdings now operate under a smattering of different names; some came under Cresco ownership through mergers or acquisitions. Cresco holds five medical cannabis dispensary licenses in Illinois, and the company plans to open five new dispensaries in the state. All 10 Illinois dispensaries will bear the Sunnyside* brand.
The first Sunnyside* location will open in Philadelphia in November. Additional locations and rebrands will follow in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts and Michigan.
“Unlike traditional CPG industries, customer performance data is hard to come by within the cannabis industry. The Sunnyside* retail experience was built to maximize customer data analytics and insights,” Cris Rivera, vice president of consumer experience at Cresco Labs, said in a public statement. “Not only will we have one of the most robust customer journey data-inputs in cannabis, but we will also collect insight on customer preference trends on new forms and flavors to inform our assortment and new product and services agenda.”
