While April 20 is known internationally as a day to celebrate everything cannabis with parties, sales and other events, a lesser-known cannabis holiday is emerging as an opportunity to educate consumers about products beyond flower.
This Friday, July 10, is known as 7/10 Day or OIL Day, and has become an industry holiday to honor cannabis concentrates, extracts and tinctures. (710, when flipped 180 degrees, spells OIL.) 7/10 or OIL Day does not have the awareness or huge number of sales of 4/20, but concentrates producers and sellers still prepare weeks in advance.
Jonathan Spadafora, a partner and the head of marketing and sales for Veritas, a Colorado-based wholesale cannabis producer, said though the concentrate market is not as sizable as that for flower, concentrate consumers are passionate about their intake method and appreciate OIL Day.
“The 7/10 holiday drives a tremendous amount of attention. It is not as big a holiday as 4/20, but I would argue the fans, the people who celebrate 7/10, are often more rabid,” Spadafora said. “4/20 is an easy thing for a lot of people to get involved with. 7/10 is more of a consumer-driven holiday for people who hash is a very big part of their lives. The [increase in] demand we see around 7/10 is significant.”
Cris Rivera, SVP of retail marketing and store development at Cresco Labs, a vertically integrated, multistate operator based in Chicago, said that sales of concentrates float around the third or fourth highest selling product type in most states. Rivera spoke about using 7/10 Day to both appeal to diehard concentrate connoisseurs and garner the interest of potential new consumers.
“The focus really is on, today, that current user [of concentrate] and trying to see if we can get people who haven’t yet tried concentrates but seem to be heavy cannabis users to consider adding concentrates,” Rivera said.
The deals offered by Sunnyside, Cresco’s dispensary brand, reflect these efforts. In Pennsylvania and New York, Sunnyside is offering large “basket” deals, encouraging the purchase of multiple and more expensive products. These deals are structured as $20 off the purchase of two concentrates or live resin cartridges, and $50 off the purchase of four. But, in the newer adult-use market of Illinois, which has a much less robust concentrate market and less experienced consumers, the deals are aimed toward affordability and easier to use products, namely live resin cartridges. Illinois stores will see a flat $5 discount for all concentrates and live resin carts, with the goal of “pushing for trial,” or encouraging consumers to try the products, Rivera says.
Though this Friday is unlikely to see sales on par with a 4/20 celebration, producers and retailers alike prepare for weeks in advance to ensure they have the necessary supplies. Veritas provides shake and frozen product for concentrate production, as well as having its sister company, Olio, produce original concentrate products.
Veritas increases its production every year in preparation for the holiday, but Spadafora says demand already outstrips supply in Colorado often.
“The number of sample inquiries that come in is probably four or five [times the norm] in the two or three weeks leading up to 7/10, but it is really hard to put a number on it because we do sell out every week,” he said.
Sunnyside is offering its 7/10 discounts from July 7 to July 12, as opposed to the one day it offered them last year.
