Canopy Growth’s Beverage Head Is ‘Bullish’ On The Future Of The Cannabis Category
Edibles and beverages were allowed to start hitting shelves in Canada in December
Despite a delayed launch, Canopy Growth’s cannabis beverages are gaining momentum in Canada.
After hitting the Canadian market in March, the company now has the No. 1 dollar share in beverages, accounting for about 75% of all ready-to-drink cannabis beverages sold year-to-date in the country. Canopy’s Global Head of Beverages Andrew Rapsey said in an interview that since launching, Canopy has sold more than 1.5 million cans of its THC-infused ready-to-drink beverages. According to BDS data in 2019, the entire U.S. THC drink market was only about four million cans.
“The fact that in such a short amount of time, we’ve actually been able to capture nearly half of that market in Canada, which is a substantially smaller market than the U.S., is very exciting for us and certainly we are full steam ahead on our beverage portfolio. I’m very encouraged by the results to date,” he said.
In Canada, cannabis-infused edibles and beverages were allowed to start hitting shelves in December. Before that, Rapsey said cannabis-infused beverages had never been produced for the Canadian market, so there were challenges from a manufacturing and regulatory perspective. Canopy was originally planning to launch beverages in January, but production took longer than expected.
“We were actually able to build an entire production facility in less than a year, moved our production processes from lab scale to commercial scale within a period of a few months,” Rapsey said. “And so that explains some of the initial delay between when we announced and when we launched in March 2020.”
To Read The Rest Of This Article On Food Drive, Click Here
