Cannabis Edibles and Drink Review had the pleasure of speaking with Todd Beckwith, Director of Corporate Affairs for Muv.
CEDR: Todd, please tell us about the Muv in-store experience
Todd: We take great pride in and spend a lot of time educating and training all of our staff. Our job is to serve patients. And it starts with products and quality of products and our focus on always improving everything that we’re doing.
We’re now hand trimming our flower and have our genetics all dialed in. And obviously with the addition of edibles and Wana another best of class product, it’s an exciting time for us.
CEDR: There’s also a merger on the horizon?
Todd: Yes. We have announced that we’re merging with Verano out of Chicago and going public in the very near future. We will be one of the three largest cannabis companies in the country here shortly.
CEDR: Is there an anticipated industry multiple that addresses when a market goes from medical to adult use in terms of growth in revenue?
Todd: That’s a good question. I do not know that answer. I know what our forecast is compared to previous years and it’s gone up significantly. I’ve been in the industry for six years. I was actually one of the first employees of AltMed. I was hired as the original Marketing Director. My background is Marketing with thirty years of experience with Fortune 100 companies. I spent a decade with Merck Pharmaceuticals managing global creative ad agencies. But my first day at work here, we had no license to operate, no brand and no products. We now have over 700 employees.
CEDR: Wow. What does your growth plan look like from here?
Todd: We’re incredibly fiscally conservative. Cash flowed everything, based on our performance. We built organically without carrying debt and delivered strong profits to the business. You have to deliver a profit. The analysts are looking at our IPO offering and saying, “You guys are profitable already?”
CEDR: Can you please share details on the Wana rollout at MÜV™ Florida?
Todd: Even though we’re based in Florida, AltMed got its first license to operate in Arizona. So, we sent a bunch of our team out there to prove our business plan and get our products to market. That was where we had our first licensing deal with Wana.
We were the first company to be ISO certified in both cultivation and manufacturing of cannabis. Those standards were something that appealed to Wana, who has the same exacting standards as we did. At the time, this industry was maturing so quickly, it was kind of the Wild West. So, we partnered with them, even though we weren’t the biggest in Arizona and we turned Wana into the number one edible in Arizona. After we got a license in Florida, we expanded our very successful and mutually beneficial relationship.
It was several years until the edible rules came out (in Florida). Wana was with us standing on the sideline. They finally approved edibles, I think in August of last year (2020) and we launched Wana in December. You can’t just put a product in the market. We had to submit what’s called a Variance to the Department of Health, which involved every detail about the product from packaging to how it’s made, etc. and the Department of Health had to approve it. Then after they approved it, we ordered all of our packaging and began manufacturing, etc. We weren’t the first to market, but we believe we have the best offering in the market, especially in the Soft Chew category, which is what it’s required to be called in Florida. We can’t call them gummies.
CEDR: How have “soft chew” sales gone thus far?
Todd: We just finished our first month of Wana sales here in Florida which were 300 percent above our forecast. We know how to forecast. We forecast our annual sales,14 months ago, within two percent. That’s how popular the product has been out of the gate. The patient feedback that we’re getting is just remarkable and not unexpected because there’s a reason Wana is the number one edible in the country.
CEDR: Which Wana soft shews are you making and selling?
Todd: We have four variants. We have an Indica blueberry. We have a mango Sativa and we have a Hybrid that is watermelon. And then we have a one-to-one. That’s ten milligrams of CBD and ten milligrams of THC. That has a strawberry lemonade flavor.
CEDR: And do you have any insights on the degree to which the Sativa versus Indica versus Hybrid gives a different result?
Todd: I like to say that anyone can make an edible and people have been doing that at home for years, but these aren’t the same. Wana are different and they’re better because they reintroduce the terpenes that provide the effects that the patients are looking for in each of their variants. So you truly are getting Sativa and Indica, the Hybrid and the CBD products.
CEDR: What’s the latest with THC beverages?
Todd: THC drinks are not allowed in Florida. Additionally, drinks are (physically) heavy and they take up a lot of space. Drinks often require refrigeration and additional handling.
In Arizona, the market is horizontally integrated. So, we carry all of our MÜV™ products, but also other brands as well, because the name of the game is providing variety. We carry some beverages, but they are a very small portion of the edible market and they require all these additional overhead costs and maintenance. They’re not as desirable from a retail perspective, because they require twice as much space and twice as much handling, for no more profit.
CEDR: What are your production capabilities for the Soft Chews?
Todd: We have the ability to produce 300 percent more than we’re currently making. So, this isn’t a product that we have to be concerned about supply chain-wise, unlike certain strains of flower. You’re either harvesting or not unless you’re growing all strains all of the time. So, we don’t have to worry about the cycles here, because as we have expanded our cultivation and manufacturing facility, we’ve also been investing heavily in producing at scale without compromising quality on all of our products. We’re going to have over 40 dispensaries open by the end of this year and we need to be able to consistently supply and service our patients.
CEDR: Thanks Todd for the fantastic insights. We look forward to keeping up with AltMed / MÜV’s growth here in Florida.
