And everywhere you look, the numbers reflect that. For the first time since adult-use sales launched in 2014 in Colorado—a pioneer of the recreational market—combined sales dropped year-over-year, and by a whopping 21%, according to figures from the state’s Department of Revenue (DOR). And in Denver County, where L’Eagle operates, sales were down by more than 30% year-over-year, according to the DOR and reporting from Cannabis Business Times. The start of 2023 was not promising, either: Combined medical and adult-use April sales, generally bolstered by the 4/20 industry holiday, were $132 million, down from $153 million in 2022 and $206 million in 2021. In April 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic inflated demand, sales were $135.9 million.
Kristina Dyson pulls up the stopwatch on her phone. It’s just after 7 a.m. on a Thursday, and the team at Clarity Gardens is getting ready to repopulate one of the flower rooms. It happens to be May 11, but the date doesn’t really matter—everyone at the Denver-based cannabis cultivation company knows that Thursdays are when freshly harvested and sterilized flower rooms are reset with the next batch of plants.
About 12 miles southwest of Clarity Gardens, another cannabis company has faced similar hurdles, and has a similar resolve to survive. Providing product you can’t get at other dispensaries has been part of Amy Andrle’s business model since her husband, John, founded L’Eagle in 2009 as a medical operator in Colorado. Being vertically integrated was a requirement at the time, but having cultivation attached to the dispensary has helped them survive the most challenging market conditions they've ever experienced.
Founded just a year after L’Eagle, Strawberry Fields, which operates cultivation, retail and processing, has been a staple in the Colorado market for more than 13 years. At 90,000 square feet, automation is a necessity at Strawberry Fields’ massive cultivation hub, Heartland Industries, which is about two hours south of Denver in Pueblo. The company operates four vegetative bays and 11 flowering bays. There are 650 plants per bay and more than 40 active cultivars in production at one time. Each week, a team of about six people harvests 650 plants.
What’s the biggest challenge in launching or maintaining a cannabis business?
