Eli McVey, Research Editor, Marijuana Business Daily

Thinking Outside The Bud - Eli McVey

Eli McVey, Research Editor, Marijuana Business Daily

Eli has been a data-driven researcher throughout his career. He previously worked as an analyst for Nielsen, where he provided analysis to Nielsen’s retail clients for use in pricing, promotion and assortment decisions. He’s also been a consultant for data companies in the cannabis industry. Eli now employs his analytical expertise for Marijuana Business Daily.

https://mjbizdaily.com/
elim@mjbizdaily.com


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:01] You're listening to Thinking Outside the Bud where we speak with entrepreneurs investors thought leaders researchers advocates and policymakers who are finding new and exciting ways for cannabis to positively impact business society and culture. And now, here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.

[00:00:30] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc. Award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program visit Eckfeldt.com/thrive. That's E C K F E L D T.com/thrive.

  [00:01:02] Welcome, everyone. This is Thinking Outside the Bud. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. And our guest today is Eli McVey. He is research editor at Marijuana Business Daily.

 [00:01:11] We're gonna talk a little bit about what's going on in the cannabis space kind of coming into 2020, about what's going on now that we're kind of entering this COVID period. A lot of forces at play, obviously, in the general economy. But we're going to talk a little bit about how this is beginning to play out in cannabis. What is likely or potentially going to happen in terms of the big topics of the big trends, big factors for cannabis and the rest of 2020 as we kind of sort through this fascinating topic? I think I'm I'm excited to talk about this. I think there's a lot of things that we're kind of on the plate the beginning of the year. I'm curious to see what happens as people move through this. I think most people realize the cannabis industry is is going to be affected just like everything else. Cannabis is one of the industries that seems to be remaining open during this, or at least in some places. So the cannabis industry continues to be a business. But we'll see how it's impacted with that. Eli. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. So what do we just get a little bit of background on you? First, talk about the work that you do at marijuana business daily, how you got involved in cannabis. And then we've got to talk about some of these trends for 2020 and we can talk about what's going on with Kobe 19 and kind of the impacts it's having on the industry. So give us the backstory. How did you get into cannabis and begin working with marijuana business daily?

 [00:02:17] So I worked at Nielsen prior about 2014 and 2016. I saw something on LinkedIn that the founders of Leavesley were exiting and they wanted to start the Neilson of cannabis. I reached out to them. You know, I did some contract work with them just to kind of help them set up their P.O.S. tracking platform, got connected with them, and then once a job opening popped up at Marijuana Business Daily, I was able to it just knew the right people and I was able to enter the industry officially.

 [00:02:45] And as research editor, what are you primarily focused on? What's what's your kind of role there in the organization?

 [00:02:50] Just kind of leading all of our research initiatives.

 [00:02:53] So we have a couple of big annual reports, one about traditional marijuana industry with going about the Hampton CBD industry and then putting out smaller research reports out the year that are usually a little more focused on their topics. So data and research is really how it's done that I've.

 [00:03:08] And I guess before all of this covered 19 rhinovirus sort of hit and started really impacting the industry here. What did you see as being the kind of the big topic for 2020 or the big trends or things that people were focused on in the industry for 2020?

 [00:03:22] I think we were going to get a lot more action at the state level on adult use cannabis legalization.

 [00:03:27] Illinois really kind of set the tone last year, the first state to legalize veo the legislature. We had momentum going into New York, New Jersey. There have been talk in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, establishing a commercial market in Vermont, some southern states legalizing medical cannabis. I think it remains to be seen what will happen. But I think the momentum certainly has slowed. I think this is shaping up to be a big year for state legalization efforts.

 [00:03:52] We also had movement at the federal level on things like banking reform talks of these scheduling cannibus again. I don't know if those things would have happened in an election year, but there was attention on that. And I think that, you know, we're just in a different world now than we were just three weeks ago.

 [00:04:07] What do you think would happen, I guess, in 2019 or what were the trends that kind of played out in 2019 that really pushed this? Is this public opinion is this. You know, once we get enough momentum with a couple of states, you know, other states just have no choice but to address this issue. I mean, how did you kind of explainer or what was kind of the series of events that led up to, you know, 2020 being originally kind of geared up to be a big state-by-state movement, potential federal movement? How did you kind of see this playing out in 1980?

 [00:04:35] Yeah, and I think you're right. It's a mix of that. It's public opinion. You know, lawmakers are generally several years behind public opinion. Certainly being here in Denver, it seems like, you know, marijuana is kind of a non-issue. Now, certainly that's not the case in every part of the US. But if you look at any sort of public opinion poll on marijuana legalization polls, very well. So I think there is some of that neighboring state phenomenon. No, New Jersey and New York are prime examples of that. Jersey has been moving that way for a couple of years now. And what our reporting has said, that New York is really feeling that pressure. They establish a legalization framework kind of alongside New Jersey and all those other northeastern states. So I think there's a little bit of that. I don't think you can point to a single cannabis industry and I don't use cannabis industry. That's really been a failure. And I certainly think if you look at California, there's things that, you know, there's major problems and there are smaller problems in other markets. But generally speaking, this kind of experiment. Of recreational cannabis legalization has been positive. And so I think it's kind of a mixture of all of that and we're kind of seeing that culminate in 2020, and that's why I thought we were gonna get a lot more a lot more movement on legalization and just more federal action. And again, we still could see this stuff to sell. What the future holds for us. But again, yeah, the whole cohort 19 has really changed the changed the landscape quite a bit.

 [00:05:53] Yeah. I'm curious, in 19, what did you see as being the big political kind of hang ups or issues or why, you know, why did some of these states I mean, I'm in the New York New Jersey area, so maybe have a little more insight on that. But I guess as you look at the different states that have been kind of grappling with legislation with legalization process.

 [00:06:11] Are there common kind of issues or common things that legislators kind of get hung up on in terms of being able pass legislation or define regulations? Or what would have you noticed as as you kind of look to gray states?

 [00:06:23] Banking is always an issue where, you know, there's there's work arounds and I don't work on banking solutions, but there's ways to kind of navigate around that. But I think really just in the last year or two, social equity in the cannabis industry has been a big sticking by I mean, right there in New York. That was a big issue the last time. I don't usually realisation was on the table. So I would say really social equity in the cameras industry, that is a tricky issue. I don't think anybody has figured it out.

 [00:06:50] I think that if you're going to pass something certainly through the legislature, you have to have a social equity component. That's a big sticking point. He attacks it with the right tax level.

 [00:07:00] There is some kind of there are blueprints in other states for how you can navigate around banking where kind of how you should tax businesses, maybe how you license and regulate them. There are some blueprints in other states, but many social equity. There is not a good template for that. I don't think any state has figured that out.

 [00:07:16] Yeah, you know, I've seen various states try different things, but yet certainly no perfect solution, probably even no good solution right now. And fortunately, something that does need to get addressed.

 [00:07:25] You know, if any state's gonna do it internally at a federal level as well, I guess any insights on the federal side of me before we hit this and stuff?

 [00:07:30] What was your bet on the likelihood of something getting passed in 2020?

 [00:07:36] Again, I think smaller things, relatively smaller things like banking reform. I thought that was something that could have made it through.

 [00:07:42] You had the Senate Banking Committee chair was coming around to the idea of moving like something like that on through the Senate. So that wouldn't be kind of a monumental shift in the landscape. When you zoom out. But that would have been a kind of a game changer for a lot of cannabis businesses. And I think that we could have that is something that may have gotten through in 2020, that, you know, there's just not going to be you know, there's the oxygen has really been sucked out of the room on that. So I think banking reform is something we're looking at. There had been some other measures around, like I said, scheduling cannabis. Again, I think that wasn't really a reality for 2020.

 [00:08:17] So, yeah, banking reform is really what I was looking for and what I thought had a legitimate shot to move through the House and the Senate this year.

 [00:08:26] Okay, good. So to let our audience know, recording this. We're April 7th, so kind of beginning of April here. And so we're I guess we're in the thick of Rhinovirus Cove at 19. Hopefully I'm out of the New York area. Eli's in Denver. I know it's affecting different parts of the country differently. New York, where we're hoping that we're coming close to some kind of peak in the next couple weeks. But I think at this point where the general recommendation is we're on lockdown until at least through the end of April, I think mostly most of the CEOs and companies that I advise and work with were, you know, having plans at least through the end of May, potentially even through June. You know, at least contingency plans for if we're in that situation. But so we're in this. We've got people who are now, I think the most the country at this point is in some kind of work from home mode, limited ability to travel, limited ability to congregate, socialize, et cetera. It's obviously having huge impacts on all sorts of businesses. What I know or what I recall right now is that many states have declared or have put cannabis dispensaries on, quote unquote, essential businesses.

 [00:09:26] So they're allowing decision to stay open as a business. But obviously, different states have different situations. Different people have different kind of logistical situations around that. And I know some states have delivery capabilities, sometimes do not. Some of those are maintaining in place. Some of those are not maintaining in place. So, you know, all this impact on cannabis industry in terms of the retail side, obviously, you know, there's gonna be huge impacts or there are and will be huge impacts on the cultivation and processing side. Let's talk a little bit about our kind of what we see already and what we can kind of likely anticipate in terms of how these kind of restrictions and kind of impact on the economy and both direct and indirect impacts that the coronavirus and covenanted are going to have on the cannabis industry. I guess where were the immediate impacts that you see in cannabis? Where where do you see cannabis still kind of working and, you know, industries or local and state markets still operating? And where do you see them kind of falling apart at this point?

 [00:10:21] Yeah, but like you said just a minute ago, most cannabis industry, state cannabis industries that classified cannabis businesses as essential. The real notable exception to that is in Massachusetts, where recreational businesses were first to close. Just a few weeks ago, latter half of March. So sales are still happening. All right. But when you look at March sales figures, for example, adult use markets, it was top line state level sales figures are down for March in Colorado and Nevada.

 [00:10:49] That's the first time that's ever happened, where monthly sales in one month are lower than the same month in the prior year.

 [00:10:56] So and when you dig in a little further, you can see that there's really that back half of March where sales were down in Colorado, over 20 percent compared to the latter half of March 2013.

 [00:11:06] So we're seeing top line sales figures diminish, really, Colorado, Nevada. There's a very notable. California is still growing. SALES are still growing over last year, but not really not nearly to the same rate. That's still a very that market is still growing. So a lot of it is not growing as fast as it was.

 [00:11:20] So these are markets that they've not restricted cannabis dispensaries from ours. And I believe basically they've kept the dispensaries open. But the suspicion here or the implication is that because of the lockdown, limited travel, people are just not visiting dispensaries right now.

 [00:11:35] Yeah, they're allowing her to stay open, some with caveats again, various day by day.

 [00:11:39] You know, certain states are saying, hey, it's delivery only like there in Nevada, recreational delivery only there. You know, some states are allowing folks to go into the store, keeping that six feet distance, minimizing the number of people in the store. Some are allowing just curbside pickup. It really varies. But again, they're allowed to stay open. It varies a lot on location.

 [00:11:59] Right. So here and here in Denver, my dispensary, you know, I've got I've spent three six blocks for me, four blocks or me, pretty close. When I drive by there the other day, I can see that there's people in there. It looks about like business as usual. But in the mountain towns, Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, there's no tourism. Those are stores there. Some are still operating with a skeleton crew. Others have closed altogether. So it does kind of vary depending on where you are.

 [00:12:24] Retailers that I've talked to in urban areas like timber are saying traffic's down, the order sizes up. Right. So people are coming in fewer times a week, but the purchasing more. Yeah, but when you look at kind of this top line revenue figures, they're saying maybe some of them are down a little bit. Some are about even. But yeah, they're just seeing a shift in how people are purchasing. You know, we've also seen sales of free rolls have really taken a hit in the last couple of weeks since coronavirus pandemic started to ramp up. We've seen edibles, beverages, those kinds of things become more popular.

 [00:12:55] Garner more sales in the last couple of weeks in implying that people are worried about anything that they're going to consume before their lungs because of the nature of coronavirus in their focus. More on edibles.

 [00:13:04] I actually don't know if that's the case because I think it may be you know, I'm kind of speculating, but if you look at flower sales and vape sales, those actually have depending on the state, they've either gone up or they're about the same.

 [00:13:15] So those are still inhale levels. My guess is, you know, pre rolls are kind of that's a more social consumption experience.

 [00:13:23] And, you know, you've got I mean, you've got people at home all day with their kids.

 [00:13:26] I'm assuming that the screen, they're not going to run around with the blood in their hand eggs and try to homeschool. Yeah.

 [00:13:34] Yeah, I would hope not. Right. And so you see that manifest in the sales figures, edibles up, beverages up, kind of these more discrete consumption mechanisms, vaporizers up. So there is I'm certain there are some consumers that are concerned about what they're putting in their lungs. But I think it's really a function of consuming in isolation and in circumstances where you are kind of cooped up in the house with family members for weeks, potentially months on end. So but in general, if we zoom out just a little bit in terms of this isn't good for the cannabis industry or anything that's going to affect the amount of money that people have to spend on non-essentials is not good. What we are seeing, we're heading into a little bit of a downturn, just like the broader U.S. economy. But, you know, sales of alcohol, prescription medications, kind of related consumables have proven resilient in times of recession. So I think we are going to see the cannabis industry come out of this with maybe a few cuts and some bruises, but relatively unscathed. But there is going to be really a period of adjustment here. And we are going to see some cannabis companies not be able to make it out of this. But on the whole, I think that it's going to be healthy. And we are going to, like I said, get out of this relatively unscathed.

 [00:14:45] So a couple interesting kind of ideas that I think came up there. One is this idea because because of the travel implications.

 [00:14:50] Right. So people are no longer traveling. You know, tourism is down. That is certainly hitting any geography or any dispensary that's primarily focused on selling to tourists. So you mentioned all the mountain towns in Colorado. So I would imagine that any cannabis market, which is primarily or heavily dependent on tourism. I mean, even I would imagine even like the Las Vegas markets and things like that, where, you know, they're selling to people can coming out of town or going to be hit in a nontrivial way. Yeah. I think the other one around, you know, given the new kind of social situations we're in, locked at home with families, with children, things like that, the format, you know, what people are consuming is likely going to charge at least for the lock. Down period, most likely towards edibles, most likely towards tinctures. You know, things that are gonna be discretely consumed, that are not going to be smoked either viewable or cause constrained. A two bedroom apartment to be full of smoke. With my family. And then just kind of the general economic impact as people are feeling the economic pinch, I guess. Curious if you if you think alcohol, things like that. I imagine that most people go from getting kind of top shelf liquors and things like that to more economical choices around this stuff. Do you expect or could you anticipate that there's some shift in the price points or kind of the value or people potentially not going to be going for the premium brands as much and more for the economic brands on this stuff?

 [00:16:15] Yeah, I think you're exactly right. We look back at some old Nielsen data just a couple of weeks ago trying to look at how this kind of played out in the bed of Al Sektor back housing crisis and kind of exactly what you said. You saw movement from those kind of top tier premium brands into the more lower priced here as more value priced tier brands. I do expect that's what we're going to see in Canibus. You know, if you think about flour, I think is a prime example.

 [00:16:41] Even as a consumer, you know, somebody consumes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times a week every day, whatever it is, I think they'd be hard pressed to tell you what the difference between mid-tier, upper mid-tier hi to your cannabis is. I really don't think that people are really that knowledgeable about cannabis flower, certainly.

 [00:16:57] So when you ask them to spend, you know, would they rather spend thirty five underneath or 20 underneath in a time of economic distress. I think they're gonna go for the value here every time. So yes, I think we're definitely going to see movement towards some more value here, a low price tier categories and products.

 [00:17:15] If you look at the branded landscape right now as it is, I think it's oversaturated in those premium tier products. It seems like, you know, every celebrity has a strain or brand of cannabis. Like, I just don't think the market was there in the first place to sustain that. And I think we will see some shakeout now that times are tough.

 [00:17:33] There'll be some calling of the hurt on the next couple months and certainly on the premium.

 [00:17:37] Do you think that product opportunities on the more value side, you think that cannabis brands are going to sort of sense this and and quickly pivot and say, hey, look, we need to come out with a much more reasonably priced, mid-tier priced, you know, high quality for the for the range or for the price point and come up with new products around this.

 [00:17:54] I would think so. It's tough to tell how quick they're going to be able to pivot. You know, everybody you know, everybody's work situation is different.

 [00:18:00] Things just seem like they move slower now that everybody's working from home and you don't have any of those Face-To-Face interactions. But yeah, we are seeing retailers, for example, are doing their merchandising, their products and engaging in sales to encourage kind of the stock up behavior that people are already engaging in. So I do think that brands and producers will understand that there's opportunity to serve a portion of the customer base that maybe is underserved right now with the current options that exist in retail dispensaries.

 [00:18:31] Know that makes sense. Let's talk about some of the new market. I mean, so one of the big trends are the big things that, you know, the Cannabis City has been driven by or recently been anticipating as, you know, new entrants, you know, people that have not been cannabis users entering the market, you know, lots of different sort of interesting segments that people have been talking about.

 [00:18:47] You know, some of the older population people in sports, you know, soccer moms, I mean, there's, you know, the part of the market growth here is, you know, adopting a new people and people adopting cannabis or new new adopters and cannabis.

 [00:18:59] How do you see that playing out? Do you think this is going to chill that? Is that dependably good?

 [00:19:03] It could accelerate it. You know, if people of certain people are seeing, hey, I know I'm kind of stressed out, I'm dealing with all this stuff. You know, maybe cannabis is a way to address some of these things. I mean, just what's your take on how this is potentially going to impact some of the new market growth in cannabis?

 [00:19:15] That's an interesting question. And boy, that's tough to predict, right? I think certainly people are going to do things that they may not normally do if they've been cooped up in the house for a month to month on end. You know, I think that maybe they would be more willing to try something like cannabis. That's my gut telling me. I really don't know how that's going to impact somebody. That was maybe cannabis. Curious, right? That's a really interesting question. I wonder if there's anything I can keep my eye on the data that might suggest we are seeing new market entrants, because I think over the long term, that's where the growth in the cannabis industry comes from.

 [00:19:45] But I've always maintained, though, that I think certainly in markets that are two, three or four years old, a lot of that you're really getting people that are coming in from the illicit market.

 [00:19:54] I think that's where a lot of your growth is coming from. And, you know, we're seeing juniors years are aging into candidates right now. I think it's just ginzler is. Twenty three consumption rates among that younger generation are significantly higher than millennials and Xers and boomers.

 

[00:20:10] So I think we get a lot of growth coming from just younger consumers entering the industry.

 [00:20:14] But that's. Yeah. Like to your question, I don't have a great answer for you. I'll be curious to see how that shapes up.

 [00:20:20] Yeah, it's an interesting one. I've gotten calls from lots of friends who were like, hey, now's the time. I want to play around with his work and I get some. So I think, yeah, there's potentially a. Bump or there's a there's going to be this, hey, everyone's cooped up, you know, people are both kind of combination of bored and kind of stressed out. And I'm thinking, hey, maybe this is the time to kind of try this and then come out here. As you know, as we come out of the restrictions, to the extent that people are dealing with, you know, just general anxiety or economic challenges, and they decide that this is this is going to be a tool that they use to help manage some of those things.

 [00:20:49] I wonder if you looked at. I wonder if you would look at loyalty to new loyalty, customers and dispensaries. You might be able to find something there that's on the checkout.

 [00:20:56] Because I really don't think people are shopping around anymore for cannabis right there.

 [00:21:00] Probably go into the store that closes to them. Look at new customers entering into stores. Yeah. I wonder could see some effect like that. That's a really interesting question.

 [00:21:08] Yeah, because to see how that one plays out, because I think there is that is certainly going to be a force that's playing out the next couple of months. And then as we kind of go to recovery, those people are on that side in terms of we talked about the brands, we talked about some of the products, any other kind of shifts that you can envision in either the products or how they're packaged or how they're sold. I'm just kind of thinking of how the consumer experience is going to get shaped given the situation we're going through. Any thoughts on that?

 [00:21:35] I mean, online ordering an express pickup were, you know, they existed prior to go for it.

[00:21:40] But, you know, now that's a significant if not all portion of a retailer's business is coming from that, you know, order online. Either pick up in-store through some sort of express checkout or curbside mechanism. I think that that it's hard for me to imagine that going away. Right. I think the effects of the rhinovirus are really going to linger. And even in the absence of a corona virus pandemic, I think that that just make the experience easier on the consumer. So I think that that's really forced retailers to figure that out. A lot of them did not have some sort of online ordering express pick up in-store or curbside delivery before this. A lot more do now. And I think that that's not going to go away, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of thinking about just like in Colorado here, for example, we kind of have like deli style flour. Right. So if you want let's say you wanted an eight, the blue dream, you know, maybe the store has one or two kind of just glass mason jars of blue dream. And then they would say, you want that. They'd open it up. You get spell it, examine it. It's just a kind of a more physical experience. Again, that seems almost unimaginable in this new era we live in. I think you might be seeing more cannabis flour might becoming more prepackaged. That's already happening. That already is the case in Washington. Illinois is already doing prepackaged flour. I think you might build a I think that might persist in this coronavirus world we're in now. It's really kind of what comes to mind in terms of the consumer experience.

[00:23:01] Let's talk faster to let's talk about those two, because I think there's hope for the delivery stuff. I'm kind of curious what your take is on.

[00:23:07] I mean, clearly, there is a short term, right? You know, anyone that's still trying to do business has to move delivery. Right. You know, even curbside is somewhat problematic. Anything that's in store, I think is going to be tough. So delivery is going to be, you know, the next couple months is gonna be huge. Do you think this is going to kind of accelerate what you saw as kind of a natural progression towards delivery models away from retail? Or do you think this is just going to shift the industry where people are going to be just focused on delivery now that they're used to it? It's just going to establish a new pattern for folks. I understand the short term. I'm kind of curious if you think that that's going to stick and if that's that that is going to create a little bit of a seismic shift in the industry here where people are going to get used to delivery. So that's going to be where the industry goes at this point. Or do you think it's going to swing back once people since we don't have the restrictions and people are now going, you know, are able to go in dispensaries without health concerns? Yeah.

[00:23:55] So I really.

[00:23:55] So in terms of markets that have added delivery, it tends to be on the medical side.

[00:24:00] Right. So here in Colorado, they said, hey, if your medical you can you can go to delivery service. Not so on the recreational side. The addition of delivery really has been in medical markets. So in recreational markets, we're seeing it is mandating that curbside pickup. I mean, in California, where delivery already existed, it was a big component of the industry. You know, it's really experienced a lot of growth here in the last few weeks. I don't know if a witnessed the kind of, like you said, a seismic shift as delivery. Will it stick? I don't know. Right now, we're seeing a lot of promotions, right? $0 delivery fee, that kind of thing. You know, in the absence of this kind of pandemic, you know, I think if a consumer goes online and, you know, they get to the checkout and they see that it's going to be seventy five minutes and it's going to be a $10 surcharge, is that really gonna be as palatable to them? You know, a lot of cannabis consumers are already price sensitive. But so I think you will see, like in California, I think you'll see more people using delivery post-crisis than you saw pre-crisis. But I think physical retail will still continue to be the dominant form of cannabis retail.

[00:25:06] And then you also mentioned this. You know what's happening, flower and kind of going from a deli style tube to pre-packaged. I mean, you think this is going to drive kind of innovation in terms of packaging, technology, packaging products, you know, different ways of being able to obviously package and protect and keep flower in its best form through the process. I mean, I I'm kind of thinking. Strategic implementations of this, I don't know if you've seen anything in terms of either trends or technologies that have been coming out there or what, you know, already is going to have to happen in the production kind of distribution process. Supply chain process to be able to do packaged flour or you have any insights or thoughts on how that may play out.

[00:25:45] I think in the absence of mandates requiring people to sell pre-packaged flour, I don't think we'll see it. I so like in Colorado, if it's if folks are allowed to sell deli style, I think that's the way it's going to. I don't think that's going to go away because there's just so many logistical hurdles that, you know, all of a sudden packaging falls 100 percent on the on the cultivator and a processor before it comes to the retailer. So it would be that would be a big shakeup to just how business is done as usual. So I don't know if we will see any kind of big shifts when it comes to packaging products. Really, I think it's just going to be ex consumer experience in retail. You see it in even commercials for Pizza Hut, Domino's and whatever it is, that kind of contactless delivery or contactless pickup. I think that's really where we're going to see those changes. I don't know how much we're gonna see on the kind of packaging side. You know, early on in January, when this was really the Corona virus, it really was playing out kind of solely in China. We were seeing supply chain disruptions, Dave, cartridges, just general packaging materials. And we saw some moves towards domestic suppliers. But again, I don't think that that's going to stick. Right. I think that low cost packaging is always going to that's going to be the preferred method of delivery for retailers and manufacturers.

[00:27:02] Prices is going to win ultimately once they have the capability of shipping and really kind of getting the supply chains back up. Any other shifts that you see in the kind of you look kind of down the supply chain, down the growth chain in terms of processors and cultivators? Anything else that you're kind of seeing or anticipating might impact or might have to shift in the coming months and quarters for those folks as we kind of work through the Cobbett issues, not off the top of my head.

[00:27:26] Not anything that we haven't touched on already.

[00:27:28] But again, yeah, it's just it's tough to see how this plays out, but predicting the future.

[00:27:32] Yeah, yeah, boy. So outside of what we talked about, there's nothing that comes to my mind.

[00:27:38] Good. Does it been a pleasure and thank you so much for taking the time. I think we covered some really good topics here. I know a lot of this is kind of predicting the future. So I appreciate you picking a little bit of a stretch and kind of figuring out how this is going to play out. I look forward to kind of keep in touch with you and seeing how things actually do play out. And hopefully we can do kind of more episodes as we get more data and more insights.

[00:27:59] But I appreciate that's a fun that people have questions or want to find out more about you. Marijuana Business Daily. What's the best way to get that information?

[00:28:06] Yeah. So, you know, I've always got something going up on marijuana business daily.

[00:28:11] So just mjbizdaily.com If folks want to get in touch with me directly. My email is elim@mjbizdaily.com

[00:28:22] Great. I'll make sure that the links are in the show notes. Again, this is great. Thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate you lending us your knowledge and expertise and insight in the industry with some really helpful stuff. So thank you for doing that today.

[00:28:35] Awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me

[00:28:38] You've been listening to Thinking Outside the Bud with Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt to find a full list of podcast episodes. Download the tools and worksheets and access other great content. Visit the Web site at thinkingoutsidethebud.com. And don't forget to sign up for the free newsletter at thinkingoutsidethebud.com/newsletter.