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For all these reasons, as the cannabis industry makes it inexorable move towards less objectionable forms of consumption (edibles, beverages, oils, etc) the demographically-representative consumers who populate that consumer demand will be less willing to accept strong bitter flavours or odours of cannabis raw materials and less willing to experience wide variability in their experience after ingesting their product of choice. When you want a burger you want a burger. When you want a beer, you likely will not accept a snifter of cognac.
So where does the industry go and what should it be doing to prepare to meet actual broad based consumer demand rather than that of the non-indicative early adopters?
Here’s a real-world example in the California cannabis sector – actual corporate names are not being used: On January 1, 2018 California implemented wide ranging new cannabis laws that control most every aspect of how the plant is to be grown, processed, manufactured into consumer products and sold. Some of the regulations are working out and others are not and will need to be modified, but everyone can agree that they represent radical change from the environment that existed previously.
Six or eight years ago – pre the 2018 regs and even before the cannabis debate was remotely as advanced as it is today – there was a company we’ll call “Alpha” that was riding the wave of the then-accurate market demand for their cannabis chocolate driven by early adopters irrespective of the law. Alpha was a bit of a cult favorite with a bad-boy attitude and was enjoying rocketing sales of its chocolate that had 200mg; 500mg; even 1,000mg of THC within it. Early adopters couldn’t get enough and Alpha was the biggest or one of the biggest cannabis chocolate companies in California with rumored 8-figure sales.
Consumers are in Charge, NOT Growers