This digital component was in conjunction with the in-person WestPack show, which took place April 12-14, 2022, in Anaheim, CA.
Beth has more than 20 years of experience in the packaging industry and about eight years of involvement now on the cannabis side.
So let’s walk through a couple of these to explain what the situation is and offer some solutions or recommendations where we can.
I think that in markets where it’s more challenging — and more mature markets such as a California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, even Nevada — in those markets that are more mature, behaves more like a typical retail consumer product environment.
And in some markets where it will be interesting to see in places like, let’s say New Jersey or New York when they first come out and or even Illinois when it first came on, is that in those markets it’s all about … there isn’t enough cannabis to service the market when they go legal.
Lisa McTigue Pierce OK, wonderful.
So for example, in the state of Florida, you’re really limited in terms of what you can put on the package, primary or secondary.
In some cases you see folks coming up with really creative structures, so everything from … And I think it brands like Dosist in California who have come up with a very elegant premium experience that definitely stands out on shelf.
Still very important in this market, it can just be a really upscale pouch experience.
If it’s a rigid package, let’s say a child-resistant tube, a child-resistant jar, I’m seeing a lot of folks veering toward stock item just because it gives them a little bit more flexibility.
Whether it be … in our case, we have a child-resistant folding carton called easy lock that is terrific for things like cartridges or vape pens, and it’s fully custom, fully customizable.
I would want if I were ever looking at doing something like that, I would really want to make sure that I’m partnering was a supplier who really understands the market, who understands all the timelines that are involved to develop something, who really has the skill set to do that and to help you manage to the whole supply chain.
What are the things that are important to them? For example, do they want to make, do they want the flexibility? If you have pouches or cartons to have a hang hole to give them the flexibility, is it, you know, when you’re thinking about how that carton is going to be laid out, making sure that your packaging is right sized, nobody wants something that’s oversized base is what it is.
And in that case, we helped them reduce it by about 40% because there were dispensaries in California who didn’t want to carry the product because it was oversized for what the product is.
Elizabeth Corbett You know, is there something about your, in your package? Can you provide some sort of educational element for the customer to talk about what the desired effect is of that particular product? Is it something to help you relax? Is it something to help you with anxiety, to help you sleep, to give you energy, whatever, whatever that may be? And I’ll be the first one to say as a consumer that there are products that I have tried for the first time solely based on the package.
Just how you mentioned earlier, you know, know the dispensaries where you’re going to be selling your product … but once you get to be a large company or a multistate manufacturer, I can see how that can get unruly, if that’s the right word to use.
I think in any retailer take outside of cannabis, every retailer has different items, so if I’m a product, if I’m a company and I’m selling into the Vitamin Shoppe, they’re going to have completely different regulations about what can be on shelf versus, let’s say, going into support.
But one of the things about this carton which is uh, you know, it’s kind of a hexagon shape, very distinctive on shelf.
But if I see this carton, I know this carton, right? So I can walk into a dispensary and I’ll be like, oh, they have Wild, right.
So it can be done in a simple, you know, carton like a traditional card and it could be done in a really creative shape.
Or you can make your pouch look amazing.
Lisa McTigue Pierce OK, excellent.
It often requires very significant changes to the packaging to reflect that.
Elizabeth Corbett The unfortunate part is every state makes their own rules, and that is an unfortunate part of the industry right now, and that comes from the fact that we’re not federally regulated and as a result, in the state of Michigan, they have recently ruled that you cannot have fruit on any edibles packaging and in the state of Washington, you can’t use bright colors.
So it may be that you design a structure that works in all of those states, but in some states that has to be labeled differently or you have to put a sleeve over it so that you can’t see the product or a label over it.
In some cases, we’ve designed a box that’s maybe a little larger than what you had originally wanted for the product.
So there are ways that you can design the package so that it can be used in as many states as possible.
Like in some states you can only have 10 milligrams at a package total in some states you can have 100 and in some states if you have 100 individual dosing has to be there like you know 10 individual 10 milligram packets within it.
Overall, one of the biggest trends is just trying to be sustainable, finding the most sustainable packaging possible, whether that’s using paperboard that’s recycled or recyclable or using cans or using recycled plastic or in the case of pouches, ones that are compostable or recycled or recyclable.
And then I’d say the other interesting trend that just is, it’s a natural byproduct of the pandemic, is moving as much production of as possible of packaging to domestic to North America and that’s for a lot of different reasons.
So if I’m waiting on my, let’s see, I was able to get something for cheap, but I can’t get it and I’m not able to have my product on the on the shelf … no savings is worth that.
I would imagine though that as we were talking about — you know the regulatory changes causing some packaging changes to be needed — that from a sustainability point of view, that might generate a lot of a lot of waste where you might have packages that you can no longer use.
The second thing is overall, we work with our customers to recommend that they not usually have more than three to four months’ worth of inventory on the floor just because there’s, it’s too high a risk.
And the last thing is you can also, I mentioned designing a package where you’re making it apply a fit different states needs with the labeling on the back that can also reduce some of your risk.
Elizabeth Corbett For labels, not direct on cartons, it’s been something that’s, it’s still labeling.
The other thing is I think you’ll see a lot of interesting investment once it’s once we’re able to go Interstate, because once two of the Interstate commerce and you can consolidate, it’s going to take a lot of these pain points away.
I used to think this year, I don’t know, but I think that that’s the thing that has the highest factor of passing and that’s going to help a lot of things, that’s going to help investment.
And just to explain a little bit, Beth has said SAFE Banking a couple of times and what that is, is that’s the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act.
Lisa McTigue Pierce You know, as if we haven’t talked about enough challenges, I do believe that there is one other challenge, well, two other challenges that I want to talk about and then we’ll wrap things up here.
So I’m going to use the word “every-day.” And when you’re thinking about every day, you’re going to think about from a packaging design, Hey, what’s going to fit my budget? Right, ’cause? Obviously, that’s a big part of it.
And then you have what I would consider like you said, more of your let’s say premium and then I’m almost what you would consider like reserve limited edition.
Whenever we’re sitting down with somebody to work on new packaging, one of the first things I ask is, do you have a target cost of goods, do you know where, do you have your target COGS and do you know where packaging fits in that ’cause that really helps me figure out, are you going to be doing a pouch which is your probably least expensive oftentimes? Is it something where you’d like to at least get into a child-resistant folding carton? And you know, what is your brand saying and so.
Cresco has multiple products, multiple families and so you might have the high supply family, you’ve got the Cresco, you’ve got Mindy’s.
So in every day might go in and just a child resistant tube with a label on it and maybe next step up maybe child resistant tube inside a really nice folding carton and maybe one step up from that might be a much more elegant experience.
I guess what I’m trying to think of is, if they’re going to be selling everyday products and have a, you know, a price point for packaging just from an investment point of view, if they want to spend a little bit more on packaging.
You can have a high-end pre roll but pre rolls would be an example of something where it tends to be pretty competitive and that’s something that you have to keep in mind when you’re designing the packages.
And I want to wrap up with one of the challenges that, I have to be honest with you, Beth, of all the people that I’ve talked with who are in the cannabis market, this is the one that they’re almost always bringing it up to me first.
Elizabeth Corbett Absolutely.
I think it’s pretty interesting what Michigan is doing, where they’re saying that flower products — so inhalables — do not have to be in child-resistant packaging and that edibles have to be.
So if I had a crystal ball and I’d be very interested to see what the industry as a whole starts to do to think about that from a child resistant perspective.
Elizabeth Corbett I know in our case we have something called Easy Lock, which is just a button.
There’s actually a vape pen that I bought in Northern California that I refuse to ever buy again, even though it was actually a great vape pen because I could never reopen the packaging.
I think that we should all keep that in mind when we’re, when we’re looking at buying something.
If you have to sit there for five minutes or thinking, well, they really didn’t want me to get into this, right.
I will say one thing in child resistant that I’m waiting to see happen is right now a lot of CBD product is not in child-resistant packaging.
And one of the things that I wanted to end with here is that there may be some solutions at the upcoming CannPack event which is in Anaheim, CA, co-located with the WestPack event.
Beth is going to join me with a couple other people on a panel discussion there, which is also going to talk very specifically about sustainability strategies for cannabis packaging and that is going to be on Tuesday, April 12th, right.
But I do thank you so much for your time and look forward to talking with you, hearing what you have to say a little bit more on the sustainability side at the in-person event.