Edible Brands, the parent company of the fruit basket company Edible Arrangements, is taking part of the cannabis industry.
The Georgia -based company, which registered annual sales of 500 million dollars last year, launched this week Edible.com, an electronic commerce site that sells products with this -derived THC products, made by some of the most important brands in the marijuana industry, such as Wana, Kiva and Cann. Edible Brands no Marijuana sells, which is illegal at the federal level, but focuses on products with THC derived from hemp, the least powerful relative of marijuana and legal at the federal level.
But these products are still powerful enough for customers to be placed. “This is something natural for us,” he says a Forbes Somia Farid Silber, executive director of Edible Brands. “They already call us ‘groceries’, right? We know that sometimes there is even some expectation from the customer towards the products (cannabis).”
Edible.com, which the company acquired last year, will be launched first in Texas, but will soon expand to Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina, and hopes to extend to the entire country at the end of this year. With its network of more than 700 Edible Arrangements stores, the company states that customers can make online orders and receive their cannabis products at their home faster than with a traditional marijuana seller.
“We have an incredible delivery network with our franchisees for compliance with orders: we can reach 70 % of US households in an hour,” says Silber.
Since marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, but hemp contains enough THC to get high, some of the main companies in the marijuana industry have begun to sell hemp products outside the dispensaries. The hemp and marijuana industry used to be conflict, but during the last year some of the largest cannabis companies, from Curaleaf and Trulieve to Kiva and Wana, have accepted the federal legality of cannabinoids derived from hemp, thanks to the 2018 Agricultural Law, and have begun to sell their own products.
The hemp industry is even greater than that of marijuana, which has been stopped by a federal federal punitive code for drug trafficking and excessive regulation at the state level. In 2023, the sales of hemp products reached 28 billion dollars, while marijuana exceeded 26 billion, according to Whitney Economics.
Joe Hodas, Wana executive director, one of the best -selling edible manufacturers in the country, says he sees hemp as a way of expanding to states that do not have recreational marijuana laws. Wana has also begun to sell its beverage line with THC derived from hemp in Total Wine stores.
This is not the first time that edible Brands ventures into the cannabis market. In 2019, Edible Arrangements launched its own line of edible with CBD, which are not psychoactive. But this commitment to THC is even bold. And it is a sign that cannabis products, especially groceries and drinks, have popularized.
In 1999, the Pakistani immigrant Tariq Farid opened the first edible Store Arrangements in Connecticut. Based in Georgia, the company has become the favorite brand to give fruit baskets, selling strawberries covered with chocolate, cookies and bouquets cut for birthdays, anniversaries, funerals and other special occasions. In addition to its franchisee stores in the United States, Edible Brands is also the owner of Freshfuit.com and Roti, a chain of Mediterranean restaurants of fast food.
Edible Brands is getting fully involved in the political battle on hemp products with THC that is currently being freed in Texas. Vice governor Dan Patrick leads an initiative to close the industry, composed of more than 8,000 hemp stores throughout the state. On Wednesday, the Texas Senate approved a bill that would prohibit all the products that contain THC, including gummies, vaporizers, flowers and drinks. The project has not become law, since the House of Representatives must still vote on its proposal, which it would regulate, would not eliminate, the state hemp market. None of this stops edible Brands.
The company is also building a flagship store in the center of Atlanta. He will own the first hemp stores under this concept, but over time he will open the franchisee model.
“We are treating it as a winery style store,” says Thomas Winstanley, executive vice president of Edible.com. “We want you to feel like a regular, high -end experience, and not like entering a tobacco store or a gas station.”
When asked if Edible Brands is betting his future for cannabis, Silber, daughter of the founder, is clear: “For us, this is only one of the pillars of our growth strategy,” he says. «It is definitely not decisive. We will continue to diversify and expand this brand, as with our other brands ».
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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