#039 - Branding and Growing Craft Cannabis w/ Joyce Cenali

Ben Larson: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 39 of High Spirits. I'm Ben Larson and with me, as always, is Anna Rae Grabstein. We have an exciting show for you today. We're meeting up with one of our friends in California. Gonna be talking about branding California craft cannabis and everything that's going along with it terroir, the organic movement. Just a lot of exciting things about building brand around the farm and co-branding those efforts. But before we get there, I'm going to check in with Anna Rae. Anna Rae, how's your day going?

AnnaRae Grabstein: 0:31

My day is great. I am recording today from Montreal where I have been all week. Yeah, our friends to the north that have federal legal cannabis, which is pretty cool. I got taken on a little tour by a guy up here, michael Elkin, who some of you guys might know in the industry. He's a mover and shaker in cannabis and he took me around. We went and visited some farms shout out to George at the Great White North Growers, who showed me his beautiful amnesia haze plants yesterday growing indoors right in here in Quebec. Yeah, I just have been really enjoying the city. It's kind of like a fake France, you know. There's lots of French speaking and great food and really diverse. I took French in high school so I've been practicing, but the reason I came up here was on Monday for the full Clips totality. Montreal was one of the places and that was also truly breathtaking. So it's been a great week Very good.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 1:33

Yeah, Overall having a great time. How about you?

Ben Larson: 1:35

Yeah, I'm also not at home. I'm sitting in Breckenridge right now, hit the mountain yesterday with a friend in the industry and then heading down to Estes Park for NOCO, which I've never been to this event, but apparently it's supposed to be pretty big, so I'm excited to check that out for the first time and just kind of continue this conversation around integration of hemp and cannabis and kind of the intersection.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 2:02

Totally. It's really event season right now in cannabis. It's like we've got a whole bunch of operators that are busy getting ready for 420 next week, but at the same time I think MJ Unpacked was the last couple of days and then we've got Benzinga and you're at this hemp event. And if people are out doing biz dev, this is high season.

Ben Larson: 2:22

I'm tired just talking about it.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 2:28

I'm keeping my my head focused on the work that's right in front of me, sitting this, this one out which, I have to say, I am a little bit bummed to not see all my friends in the industry, but grateful that I'm busy with lots of work. So just keeping my eyes on that prize. And I will say that it's been really fun working from the East Coast time zone this week because I realized that as a West Coaster, I feel like I'm constantly behind because the East Coast is three hours ahead and even if I'm doing an eight o'clock meeting, it's already 11 am in New York or Canada already 11 am in New York or Canada, and it's been really nice to be able to be getting ahead of all of the West Coasters while sending emails from the East Coast.

Ben Larson: 3:13

Yeah yeah, I've never really thought about that, but maybe it's worth transplanting for a little bit and testing that out. Maybe we can become more productive.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 3:21

I'm all about it. Well, should we bring on Joyce?

Ben Larson: 3:24

Absolutely. Let's do it.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 3:25

Let's do it Well. So I want to introduce our good friend, joyce Sonali. She is a trailblazer in the cannabis space. Currently the COO of Sonoma Hills Farm and a partner at Big Rock, she brings a wealth of experience, from funding to farming. With a background that early entry into cannabis, winning an Emerald Cup more recently a co-founder of the Cannabis Media Council, she is a tour de force in the space. She's a good friend to both of us and she actually introduced Ben and myself, which is a really fun fact. And she's got all kinds of other accolades. We could go over them all day, but I'm just really excited to bring our friend Joyce onto the podcast with us today. Welcome, hey, joyce.

Joyce Cenali: 4:10

Oh good to see you, happy almost.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 4:15

Yeah, so why did you introduce us anyway? What was?

Joyce Cenali: 4:19

it.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 4:20

I mean.

Joyce Cenali: 4:21

I think, honestly, cannabis has always been this like grand uniter. We're seeing people that maybe aren't our people in cannabis these days, because it obviously has such a diverse spectrum of influence. But I just felt like you guys would really kick, hit it off, and that's kind of been like what I've been kind of focused on my whole. I don't know, it's just in my DNA, it's just it's part of my personality and character, just trying to bring people together and and frankly, that's kind of, you know, sonoma Hills farm. We're trying to, you know, give folks a place to call home. It's this industry, like we're all forwarding this plan, and it's not about any singular one of us. It's what we can create together and you guys have just both always created such energy amongst community and I knew you needed to connect.

Ben Larson: 5:10

Well, thank you. The community that you built between Big Rock and Sonoma Hills Farm has just been incredible and I think for the people that don't know you so well, like seeing that transition from, you know, being a funder and now Joyce the farmer, just to kind of give everyone a little bit of a of a background, kind of tell us about that journey. A little bit like building the space in San Francisco and then now spending your days on the farm.

Joyce Cenali: 5:37

Yeah, I mean, I think so many of us in the space it's been, you know, choices that we've made to try and help forward this plant I was. I moved to California in the early 2000s. I was brought out here for just creative expression. I'm from the South and the main reason I didn't want to live in the South was because I wasn't interested in wearing high heels and makeup. Every day In California was a little informal, but, you know, fast forward, what kept me here was just, um, you know, yes, there's a lot of red tape in California, but we do have just this like rebellion mindset of sort of you know testing authority and, um, cannabis was a massive part of that.

Joyce Cenali: 6:15

I'm a queer person and I've been a consumer since I was a young one I won't say how young, but um, so I started growing in my home in 2004. Actually, one of my uh, really good friends uh, bought me a light kit from my birthday. I did try and grow outside a few times. Um, I'm just outside of the mission district, so some years maybe I would have a moment, but uh, indoors is kind of the way to go in San Francisco, too much fog here. So I had been growing in my home for eight-ish years when my dad got really sick and it was clear he was going to, you know, unfortunately move on from this world and he had a bout with cancer for about four years and during that time of my life I was working in tech. I had previously worked in music and I just, you know, wanted to follow my passion and Triangle and so it had been touching my life for a long time, but I had kind of gone in the more formal. You know, let's have traditional accolades and successes that I can talk to my family about. So I had my own internalized stigma. You know, all of us do, all women do, all queer people do, all cannabis people do. You know I'm trying to, in this new phase, be a lot more open about it and, like I have been a user for a long time, it has helped me with my life.

Joyce Cenali: 7:51

I think it was my medicine for a long time and as I saw my dad having a ridiculous and awful experience and you know the traditional healthcare system in America I was like this is the thing that I have to do. This is like where my my life is calling me. So I partnered up with someone and we participated during the two 15 days and a medical grow that was meant to be similar to what cinnamon hills farm has now become. We chose to purchase a piece of property and a part of the state that actually didn't pass on the unincorporated side for prop 64. But, as Anna Rae alluded, I we won an Emerald cup in 2016,.

Joyce Cenali: 8:30

Just as that program was, you know, sort of not going to be viable moving forward, and I met my partner, mike Harden, actually at a wedding for some queer friends of mine, and he smoked my weed that night and we set off the not the sprinkler system, thankfully, but the fire alarm at like three in the morning at one of the restaurant bars that he was an investor in. Yeah, and then he started calling me and he invited me into all these meetings with all these big wigs that we're talking about, how you can take the. You know technology that optimizes basal growing and like apply that to cannabis and stuff like that, and so he kind of you know ping ping me for more of like an operating manager oversight, for you know certain ag tech and you know software companies that were trying to step into the space to question those and then eventually it evolved into. All right, I had started to personally invest. I'm a relatively small check he's a little bit bigger of a check but we just started to co-invest together under the landscape of Big Rock. I no longer was operating at that time, so I was just watching other operators that maybe had a better and more sort of solid foundation in terms of the regulatory scope for what they could do.

Joyce Cenali: 9:49

And we invested in 20 odd plus companies, many of which are still at market and we're still very friendly with and you know hope to provide some strategic operational oversight and you know helpfulness to them, operational oversight and you know helpfulness to them. And one of those projects was Sonoma Hills Farm. So we invested in 2017. We bought the land alongside some parties and we initially were invested in the operator. It took a long time Sonoma said it would be like six to eight months for the first license to pop. Ours was the first that popped two years and eight months later.

Joyce Cenali: 10:26

So September of 2019, just as right at the onset of what we're, you know, we're starting to see, you know, covid start to come into communities and right around that time it was a few months later, I guess, but this, this finally pops for us and that operator had had a life shift, you know, a massive life shift in that, two plus years.

Joyce Cenali: 10:48

So all of a sudden we had the first license and true wine country and we had bought this land. And so and I had done this before so we hired Aaron Kiefer at that time, who was the lead at the French Laundry. Who was the lead at the French Laundry, so he grew vegetables for the Thomas Keller organization for 10 years. But whispered in my ear one day, while we actually hired him to be our liaison for like picking vegetables Cause we just wanted to like have a little vegetable garden the first couple of years and sort of test the terroir, and he whispered like you know I've been doing this for a long time and I'm pretty good grower, yeah, so he laid the stage that whenever it popped, you know I've been, you know doing this for a long time and I'm a pretty good grower, yeah, so he laid the stage that whenever it popped, you know he wanted to be a part of it, so we hired him at that time, and you know.

Joyce Cenali: 11:34

Now we're about to embark on our fifth year of planting and what will be. This is the beginning of our eighth year of the arc of this project.

Ben Larson: 11:43

Wow, it's incredible, the beginning of our eighth year of the arc of this project. Wow, that's incredible. I'm dreaming of a private party at the French Laundry where where Sonoma Hills Farm does an infused dinner. Make sure you invite me, yeah.

Joyce Cenali: 11:56

Well, yeah, we talk more about pairing than infusing, but absolutely.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 12:01

Well, so Sonoma Hills Farm, since you guys have operationalized it, it is a lot more than just a farm. It really has become a brand story. It's a lifestyle. You have events I have been there a number of times, so has Ben for the different parties and activations that you guys are doing, that you're bringing community together and community together.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 12:25

And in some ways, when someone has asked me, like, what is it like at Samoma Hills Farm, it's kind of like the living, breathing version of Sunset Magazine Cannabis Farm. It's like bourgeois, bohemian, like everything you could possibly want and envision the cannabis experience to be. And I think it's also born, though, from the authenticity of yourself and your team and the operators there, that you guys are all really putting your heart into it, and so, kind of from that authenticity and that passion, the brand is born, and that brand has started to, I think, hold a really unique place in the sun-grown space, because a lot of outdoor farms have not really been able to build brand, I think, and it's been challenging, and I think a lot of the brands that we see that are popular in California market are indoor brands. So I think you guys have done something really unique and I'd love for you to talk about what the brand means sort of the philosophy of branding craft cannabis and and what you think the long tail is there for the brand.

Joyce Cenali: 13:29

Absolutely Well. You know people sing about Caliweed all over the world, right? Um, there are songs written about it, uh, justin Bieber, of course, being one that we all sing. Recently I get my pages from Georgia and I got my weed from California, so clearly he's singing Um, yeah.

Joyce Cenali: 13:48

So you know, in terms of the like algorithm of indoor, and that you know sort of impact on the industry, like there's not a lot of difference between growing indoor in the ranging geographies. There is some difference because obviously the um, the climate exchange, does impact um indoor in a place like Florida. But I won't go down that rabbit hole. It's just to say that you know California and Southern Oregon and certain parts of this country have a really, really unique um. You know terroir, we, we export agriculture. You know all over the country um, as our country thinks about climate change and you know you know all over the country as our country thinks about climate change. And you know environmental considerations. You know I think it's going to make sense for us if we do start to have the continued increase of sales and you know a market share that we're seeing that some massive portion of that come from. You know sun grown environment. Couple that with the fact that you know this is the richest agro tourism you know area on the planet and certainly in the country.

Joyce Cenali: 14:50

You know we feel like people want to come and experience. You know something and that sense of place and that you know sort of orientation to. You know Mother Earth's providing this amazing plant to us is something that we want to showcase and educate people. You know we feel like it's kind of sad that most people's experience in seeing this plant is in a really sterile, neutral indoor environment. That is just not you know the overall promise of it. And then, relative to like thinking about you know eating tomatoes, eating a hothouse tomato versus an heirloom tomato. You know, um, we've seen the.

Joyce Cenali: 15:28

You know impact that organic produce has had on the shelves. Um, you know whole foods obviously kind of started that movement but you know longtime farmers markets and you know whatnot in terms of how that impacts our food system and how we think about you know ingesting. You know nutritious elements. You know we think that organic is better for you at large and you know cannabis hasn't sort of stepped into its. You know moment in terms of you know organic having the same value as indoor or, as you know certain other. You know ingredients that you would use to power these products, but it's going to come, you know. So we basically believe that people deserve access to the highest quality, the best expression and a scenario where they can actually, in a you know, have some communication and some relationship with the plant. And, you know, if we can give people just two hours of that experience, we feel like that's going to be transformational in a way that they're going to be more loyal to this plant and to this industry at large.

Ben Larson: 16:32

You're pretty well connected with the regulators in California. What are some of the things that you think we need to change or push for in order to kind of create this opportunity, like you were mentioning, kind of the things that you think we need to change or push for in order to kind of create this opportunity, like you were mentioning kind of the sterile environments. You know, I remember when California removed, you know, deli style, you know where you could just go in and see the flower and pick the ones you wanted. Now it's all pre-packaged and can't see it. But are there other elements of the regs that would kind of accelerate the adoption of craft cannabis?

Joyce Cenali: 17:09

Yeah, I mean California has done. The DCC has been challenged. This has been a really challenged rollout. To speak to a couple of the positive things that California has done, they established an OCAL program which, as far as I'm aware, I believe is the first. I think Connecticut is now forwarding an organic program, but California forwarded the first certification for comparable to organic, for comparable to organic. So I say comparable to because of the scheduling scenario we cannot. Usda is what sort of qualifies traditional organic you have to be, your farm has to be registered with the USDA to then go to a certifier and be conditioned for organic, which we are for vegetables and hemp, by the way. But relative to cannabis, there was a new program started in California where there's two certifiers, ccof and EnviroCan, and they certify Ocal. So it's comparable to, or organic-like or like organic. I believe that once scheduling shifts, california will be able to raise its hand and say, hey, we created the first certification towards true organic for this plant and we're actually the first, or 001, registered in that program.

Ben Larson: 18:25

Do you think that's an opportunity with with Schedule 3?

Joyce Cenali: 18:29

Yeah, I do. I haven't spoken specifically with the DCC about this, but I did speak with the CCOF, spoken specifically with the DCC about this, but I did speak with the CCOF and I believe that it will now be allowed to be called organic under the three. I think two as well, but I think anything but one, gotcha.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 18:46

That's unique. People haven't talked about that as part of the rescheduling narrative. I appreciate that call out. Can we talk more? You mentioned that your hemp is USDA organic and I think that's the first time that you brought up that. You're also growing hemp on the farm. You talked about vegetables and you've got your regulated cannabis, but so you are selling into both the hemp space and into the regulated cannabis market. How do you navigate both? Are the products being used in different places? What is it like to be growing hemp while also growing regulated cannabis? I just would love to understand more about your perspective on that.

Joyce Cenali: 19:28

Yeah, I mean ergonomically and from a farming perspective it's the same plant tomato, tomato, potato, potato. You know, and kind of going back to Ben's earlier question, like we would like to see a little bit more neutrality in terms of, you know, the regulatory scope of just sort of conditioning. We have 31 license types in California and it would be nice I think maybe there's more now but it would be really nice to, you know, at least condense some of them so that you can actually orchestrate on your property without having to I have to use transfer licenses from parties off my property just to take it from my, you know, nursery arm to my cultivation arm, to my processing arm. So certain things like that would be really low hanging fruit. And, you know, I think that our, our local jurisdiction is starting to address that and we're going to start to see some shifts.

Joyce Cenali: 20:21

But relative to the, to the hemp side, um, you know we initially started growing hemp because, uh, we literally put it on our odor remediant plan. There were three major things that the, the, the people, that NIMBYs pushed back on locally, odor crime and the traffic that we were going to create out in the middle of nowhere, because clearly we have people coming there all the time, which we don't. We do have some activity, but it's certainly not a massive amount of impact. So on the odor side, we were like, well, this is, you know, unique, the farm bill. But just passed, and we can grow acres and acres and acres and acres of hemp on the same parcel, for it's cost $1,800 to you know. Put a parcel allowance together and it's an over the counter. It smells the same, it functions the same. So we literally put 100 hemp plants in the ground the first year as just a big like this this is ridiculous, like this makes no sense. Um, and we sold it all.

Ben Larson: 21:21

Wait, so so the is. Is there no odor ordinance for hemp?

Joyce Cenali: 21:26

I don't know. No, I mean people might complain about it, but it's a federal program, you know. So there's nothing that the county's not even going to weigh into. Somebody that sends a complaint on odor, um. There's nothing they can really say about that, um, but they can on cannabis, um so you're almost doing it to be ironic.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 21:48

And then it turned into a business. I love it. Okay, tell us more. What happened next?

Joyce Cenali: 21:53

we did it to be ROM, do Alanis Morissette, and yeah, and then we've sold it all and you know it turns out. People want efficacy and high quality miners, go figure, you know. So for us it's not about trying to trick people and saying like, okay, we're going to derive THCA out of our you know dominant minor biomass. It's about what is that dominant minor going to do for my wellness lifestyle and going to help me in my day. And there are some companies that actually are forwarding unique products, um, where those you know cannabinoids are having impacts on people's lives. I think what happened post, like in the early days of the Farm Bill, was we saw a massive overproduction on the industrial side of folks that were trying to squeeze out the isolated CBD and, just like full spectrum on the regulated side, full spectrum on the hemp side brings out a more efficacious and actually has you know sort of an effect when you consume you know that ingredient, whereas an isolation of you know CBD or an isolation of anything, it may impact you if you have a very specific you know symptom that you're looking to address. But the holistic, you know full spectrum impact will pretty much affect everybody in some way, shape or form. So we just kept kind of on that path of you know, if we build it they will come. And if we grow beautiful, beautiful hemp and there's very few people doing it and there's very few people doing it in known terroir, you know that sector of where we are up to Southern Oregon is really the best place to grow it and we were seeing most of it coming from you know, north Carolina and Colorado and Kentucky and you know, do respect to those places. You're going to get a good volume out of it in isolation but again, you're not going to see the effect when people go buy stuff at. You know Whole Foods and Bed Bath Beyond. To be clear, whole Foods doesn't sell ingestible CBDs. I shouldn't use them as an example, but you know.

Joyce Cenali: 24:10

So, outside of the THC derived from hemp, for those parties that are looking for efficacy-driven ingredients, we saw an opportunity. So every year we've doubled our hemp impact and this year we're going to have about 120,000 square feet of canopy dedicated to it. We are also going to dry farm. So it gives us an opportunity to experiment with our agricultural practices where we don't want to expose that risk. On the cannabis side, like we're going to irrigate our cannabis garden until we know, with assurance and until we can spread out. Right now we have a specific earmark of where we can put our cannabis canopy In an ideal world.

Joyce Cenali: 24:55

Eventually we would move to, you know, crop rotation um, which is, you know, the best practice for regenerative farming. We can't do that per se for cannabis at the moment in terms of crop rotation, but we can with with hemp. So it allows us to kind of do some R and D um to sort of understand the. You know the volume that that you know can be uh derived when you try, and you know, utilize less water um and you know, test new uh miners um that still have, you know there's in the regulated market. People need miners to this.

Joyce Cenali: 25:29

The fact that dispensaries aren't selling a lot of it is just because of the fact that you know you're not going to grow something that you don't know that you have a market for, and we are seeing a market for CBG, we're seeing a market for CBDV Um and we think it will happen um whether or not that's in the regulated market or outside of the regulated market. We'll see Um. But you know, at the end of the day I've been able to sell all the hemp, so we're just going to keep doing it.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 25:56

Yeah, love that hustle.

Ben Larson: 25:58

How far and wide are you selling hemp Like? Where are some of these customers located? Because what I'm thinking about is, you know, we talk about branding California cannabis and there's an interesting opportunity here with the hemp side of the business that we can't really or. I mean there's plenty of cannabis that goes throughout the U? S from California, but legally we have a little some guardrails there.

Joyce Cenali: 26:24

Yeah, totally. So we do our best to keep it geographically focused on the West coast. We have done business in Oregon and California. You know, the truth of the matter is we we could ship a biomass anywhere, but you know I'm dealing in the flower medium. So I'm trying to work with parties that you know either have some in-house extraction um method that they can apply, um so that we're not. You know, we're vertically integrated all the way through to the cured flower and that's it. Um so that creates limitations. You know I'm not going to send 100 pounds of biomass to Colorado because, even though I can, it maybe will get flagged and you know it's probably not worth the. You know we have inbounds literally four times a day, more than that for THCA. We are playing the THCA and the regulated market. We won a California State Fair Award for THCA. We are playing the THCA and the regulated market. We won a California state fair award for THCA last year and so we're like this is silly. Guys we're not going to like grow hemp to then, you know, send it to Texas so they can have, you know, a inferior version of true THC. Come to California to get that.

Joyce Cenali: 27:33

But the products that we're working with are. I would say about 70% are California derived. We do have a partner in Colorado, but we will generally press that extract before it gets shipped to them and then they formulate there that utilize flower press rosin and Rick Simpson oil-like products that utilize. You know they're just like straight extract. And then you know there are opportunities with ready to drink you know sort of beverage companies that are seeking. You know known origin inputs.

Joyce Cenali: 28:09

We're also seeing a big growth on terpene interest. So you know getting plant-derived terpenes. Terpene belt is doing a great job with that and you know we think that there are other California you know expressions that can be forwarded so that if you are putting, you know just your you know sort of standard, isolated, whether it's distillate or otherwise, to power your products, maybe terpenes derived from a great place like California bring a bit better flavor to it. So we've sold some terpenes. At this stage, though, you know we are trying to work with CDPH registered. You know extractors and I'm happy to say that last year I literally I called every, I emailed and called everyone that was on the CDPH list and I got no kickbacks. This year, as of, I think, october, there's a couple that are registered in the state of California that we can start to work with behind this next harvest.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 29:07

So one thing you talked about and this sort of goes back to the earlier discussion we were having about brand, but you talked about your products, or other people's products, being powered by your ingredients. And you know, if you're in California, at almost many dispensaries you can see Sonoma Hills Farms products on the shelf, but there's other places that you find Sonoma Hills Farm logo and that's on other companies' products too, and that is unique in cannabis. Uh, you're not the only one doing it, but there's not a lot of groups that have chosen to other brands side by side, uh, with their own, even if they are sourcing material outside of their own production, and, uh, that, to me, is really fascinating, that you've somehow convinced people to do it. And so I'm wondering how you convinced people to do it, why you think someone would choose to highlight someone else's brand on a label that has limited space, and and if, if that's the future of your business or if your branded products are, or is it a combination of both?

Joyce Cenali: 30:15

Well, I think we're going to continue to optimize in the flower category and you know, for us, you know thinking about you know we're trying to hit. We believe cannabis is the third leg of hospitality. You know we have heightened food and beverage wine experiences. We don't necessarily have traditionally heightened hospitality experiences, just in our communities they're very quiet and secretive and you know it's it's a small kind of hush hush category. We want that to become a lot more open and in terms of that, we we are not an Island. None of us are. You know we're trying to to build something unique, but we're not trying to do everything ourselves. There are tremendous makers that are making edibles and beverages and there's tons of chefs that want to interact with this plant. The regulated market has made it extremely difficult and expensive for people to think about that. So you know, if you're a top tier chef in San Francisco and you smoke weed every night and you want to try and figure out a way to integrate it into your experience, like the thought of actually stepping into a co-packer partnership and whatnot, like you're looking at what $250,000 investment at a minimum to try and bring a product to market, so for us, we feel like we can utilize. You know partnerships as a way to sort of research. You know what is going to work. You know what impact will that bring to. You know the consumer. You know folks that are really best of class and doing what they're doing and you know some of the brands that we've worked with.

Joyce Cenali: 31:53

On the cannabis side. We've been in four lost farm SKUs. They had worked with a lot of farms and they're, you know, really great team that has a lot of experience in cannabis and you know we just pitched them on. Why don't we try and do this as a showcase, you know, of of the project? And you know a lot of credit to Elizabeth and Christian, lauren and Nicole and you know people on their team who you know had interacted with the regulated market for a long time or sorry, the legacy market for a long time and sort of understood that. You know there is a story to be told, particularly within the lost farm. You know derived brand. It talks it's like what is the lost farm? So we were like let's tell the story of. This is a farm that sort of exemplifies what Lost Farm stand for. And you know now they're taking it to. We were, we were one of the first connected came behind us. I know that they're going to be working with other great farms to uplift them and you know what resulted on the other side of that was it gives their salespeople a couple more bullets to talk to. You know the buyer on the other side. It gives them, you know, a unique storytelling to the customer.

Joyce Cenali: 33:04

I've actually done side by side demos with with their team, and so customer works in and then walks in and instead of just saying this is about flavor, this is about the fast effect and this is about the dose, you now get to say we're sourcing from this amazing farm. There they are, here are the pictures. This is this beautiful, gorgeous place. We're supporting our local communities. We're supporting best of class, you know, purveyors of their craft.

Joyce Cenali: 33:33

Like all of those things gives it gives me goosebumps. It gives the, the buyer and the customer goosebumps and it just, you know it really has a, a, a fun connectivity, um, and so we've seen, you know, a really, really great um sales uplift. I mean, uh, our pink Jesus skew. Um, you can still get it in stores but they are sold out of inventory and it was one of the fastest selling skews that they've ever put out Um so out of inventory, and it was one of the fastest selling SKUs that they've ever put out. So that's one example.

Joyce Cenali: 34:03

We've done a lot in cannabis, I think. We've worked with 20 plus as like some sort of co-brand on their products, but we also want to work with traditional food companies. So right now, anybody in the Bay Area that has a love of ice cream If you go into a Humphrey Slocum store, um, them being the kind of famed uh purveyors of really unique uh ingredients that they put into their ice cream. It's a chef driven ice cream company. I know that Ben has worked with them. Care of uh a fun rotosa.

Joyce Cenali: 34:31

CBD ice cream that they did a couple of years ago. Um yeah, instead of talking about infusing it, we're talking about, you know, people that love ice cream. A lot of them love cannabis. People that love cannabis love ice cream. They go hand in hand. You know, cannabis goes well with so many things. Um so, what are those things that it goes well with and how can we, you know, give them shine? Um, so the the the Humphrey Slocum thing is like. You know, they're Bay Area famed. We're Bay Area famed. We're bringing you know a lot of content and nuance to how they can actually storytell, and they are doing the same for us. They built an ice cream flavor after our award winning signature flavor called Pink Jesus that we grow and you know bread. And then we are interpreting their signature flavor called secret breakfast in the form of a pre-roll. That is awesome.

Ben Larson: 35:26

I love it.

Joyce Cenali: 35:27

So they're going to be in dispensaries throughout California with their name on our product and we're going to be, you know, in their ice cream shops. So that now is sort of incubating to a lot of the chefs that we've been talking to. You know, here's something that we can do together. Also, on the vegetable side, we're in a bunch of restaurants, so you can find our lettuce and Miller and Lux. You can find, you know, we do seasonal tastings and whatnot with all sorts of, you know, great chefs in mostly Northern California, in mostly Northern California. So, you know, sure, it's branding, but it's also kind of an incubator of how to talk about how cannabis will eventually occupy that, that third leg of hospitality, that that we see it will, and then that is a showcase of how California craft cannabis can have a global influence. So we're doing this for us, but we're also doing this to kind of showcase how do we uplift this region as like a central and global message for how cannabis can, you know, take over the world.

Ben Larson: 36:31

Yeah, this is, uh. I my team knows that I just love ice cream, especially, uh, when I'm high, so I'm really excited to try this combination. And yeah, humphrey's Locum I remember the secret breakfast they launched back in like 2009 or something. It's an incredible, incredible flavor. I've always been excited about the prospect of highlighting the origin of the plant, focusing on organic ingredients and just knowing that that's where the consumer is at the mainstream consumer right. The mainstream consumer is very cognizant of the ingredients that they're typically buying. There was seemingly like a disconnect in between that offering and the dispensary consumer, or maybe it was pricing or something. Are you seeing that trend change? Because it sounds like it is like, through the work that you're doing with Kiva and others, are people coming in looking for a more pure ingredient?

Joyce Cenali: 37:34

Well, I think they are. I think there's a couple of things Relative to the volume that comes from an outdoor garden. You know we're seeing the increase of, of full spectrum products, um. So you know, live rosin, live resin, um, you know, going into edibles and eventually ready to drink, um and otherwise. And you know, if you just think about, like, the parcel size and impact that that's going to have, you know it just makes more sense that you know you need a large volume of that and you probably want to serve that through an outdoor element. But in addition to that, you know there's a lot of studies that showcase the optimization of the terpene composition in an outdoor environment as opposed to an indoor one.

Joyce Cenali: 38:20

In addition to that, we in our unique area there's a lot of wind, so it's called the Petaluma gap. So what the plant does is it overexpresses the trichomes, because those trichomes are generally, you know, if it's seeking to be pollinated, you know it's overproducing oils to try and catch the particles in the air that are going to pollinate it and then seed it. We're not, we're not trying to seed our outdoor, our outdoor flower, but that's just the natural expression that the plant expresses against the wind. So that's an example of like a natural environmental, where the plant is overexpressing based on what nature is giving it. And so in our area we see they call it the terp gap or the terp belt, because we have just a massive volume of trichomes and terpene that are that are created. So you know we've worked with extractors that have said, wow, this gastropop last year we also sold to Kivitz inside of their root beer skew. Right now the extractor has been working in the space for nearly a decade and was like this was our top volume extracted plant that we've ever worked with.

Joyce Cenali: 39:32

So you know, I think you optimize the volume output in certain environments, output in certain environments and then, in addition to that, in terms of you know the efficacy that's driven to the customer, you know I feel like the taste is better because you have that terpene. You know, sort of in an indoor environment you're going to see, you know, an increase on maybe the trichome production but a decline in the amount of terpenes that are coming off of the biomass. Outdoor, questionable on whether or not you can get to the same cannabinoid composition, but you can certainly get a higher terpene composition and I'm the type of person that's interested in not necessarily always smoking 30% plus THC, and I think a lot of consumers are starting to hold their hand up and be like I really want something more balanced, but I want it to taste good, you know. So I think that that's the story. And then, in addition to that, you know the, the organic model, and just the you know you're buying from. You know folks that are utilizing fair farming practices, which is obviously natural, and places like Sonoma that folks are going to want to buy more of that. And you know the dispensary model.

Joyce Cenali: 40:46

We've had a hard time as an industry trying to, like you know, have the narrative that sun grown can win. You know Flocona, to their credit, tried to do a good job at actually exposing that in the dispensary model, but they didn't build a supply chain solution that actually, you know, processed and distributed the cannabis in a fair way to those farmers, and so we saw just a. We are now seeing a huge gap, but I do see that there are certain partners that are setting up. You know a lot of farmers are not branding, you know, and marketing strategists, and they shouldn't be. They should just be farmers.

Joyce Cenali: 41:24

If you have, you know, a family farm where it's two to four people working on it all the time, like you don't necessarily want to think about. You know packaging and building a brand and you shouldn't have to there just hasn't been like an outlet for them to extend through. I'm really excited to see Soulful is uplifting three farmers and are now selling under Soulful co-branded jars into other dispensaries. So that's a first step. That's going to include, among others, Emerald Spirit, full Moon and, I believe, essentia. So you know that's one step there and you know there's certain other. You know projects that are happening like that that would hopefully start to, you know, uplift the farmer in the store.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 42:10

Well, so one of the things that happens when you're an operator and you're so enmeshed in your business and also as a connector, like we talked about earlier, that you are and I know that Ben and I have both experienced this ourselves as founders and operators that once you're in the business, you start seeing all of these things that we're up against, that are massive challenges to opportunity that feel like real injustices, that are either as a result of prohibition, as a result of regulation, as a result of the way that capitalism works, whatever it is and I've always thought about it as like I never set out to be an advocate or an activist but what happens is that when you really care about something, you want to protect it, you want to uplift it, you want to free it, and so it just sort of happens as a result of right, and you've been involved in advocacy related to cannabis in lots of different touch points.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 43:11

I know you were involved in Live and Grow early on, but more recently, in the last couple of years, you've really stepped into leadership by being one of the founders of the Cannabis Media Council, with a very specific and focused mission, and we don't have that much time left, but I think it would be a real bummer if we didn't get to touch on that for a little bit, and so I would love to hear about what the Cannabis Media Council is up to, and what is the impact that you're hoping to make with it.

Joyce Cenali: 43:42

Yeah, it's very spotlighting it. Yeah, so I, you know I did everything I could with my balance sheet and budget to help to deploy capital into companies and, you know, stewarding other. You know great investors into the space and then when we kind of saw, you know, as there were a lot of questions about how those investments were going to play forward, you know great investors into the space and then when we kind of saw, you know as there were a lot of questions about how those investments were going to play forward. You know, is this a venture type of investment strategy or will we shift towards more of a private equity and commodities driven kind of market, but independent of how that, you know, is going to evolve? There was a decline in capital support for cannabis and, you know, as, right after you know, kind of COVID started and then we saw the decline of the capital markets and whatnot. So, um, what we were able to focus on on big rock at big rock was, like you know, shifting to operating and I just kept seeing deck after deck after deck of like people that were like they saw their total addressable market and they're trying to like penetrate this sliver, and it was just like every company had these minutiae marketing budgets and they were all trying to duplicate efforts to the same demographic. And, you know, my question just kept being like why aren't we trying to do this together?

Joyce Cenali: 44:53

I believe in coalitions, I believe in community building. I, you know, believe in diplomacy. Believe in community building. I, you know, believe in diplomacy, I believe in, you know, a march towards us. You know, doing this together as opposed to like singularly. So I started to talk to a friend of mine who deploys media, so she's more of a you know, kind of media buyer and I'm more of a brand, you know, business development networker, um. So we came together, um, and formed the Cannabis Media Council, which now, um, is a coalition of 20 some odd volunteers, um, and we have over 400 members, um, and essentially we are trying to end the media prohibition of this plant by forwarding uh pro uh cannabis, uh destigmatization ads, promoting uh pro uh cannabis, uh destigmatization ads, um.

Joyce Cenali: 45:43

You can check out I'm high right nowcom which is the first uh ad that we put together, um. So it focuses on the baby boomer demographic, um. It gives a lot of like funny, kitschy information about how cannabis has helped them and their lives. It makes them feel high and their daily efforts. High because they're reinvigor their daily efforts. High because they're reinvigorated their sex life, because they're spending more time in the garden, because they're walking better, because they're playing golf more, not necessarily just high because they've, you know, ingested a bunch of cannabis. Um, and it has been such an amazing program. We are basically powered by the support of um sponsors. Um, it is a is a. You can donate to it as a tax deductible donation care of our fiscal sponsor, sema Studios, and essentially we deploy every dollar back into building amazing ads and then launching them on traditional media. So we absolutely want to, and we'll hopefully have enough of a budget to, work with cannabis groups, but we're actually mostly donation in terms of media. So we're getting media people to donate us inventory and we try and build an affiliate network where those media companies can connect with our 400 plus members.

Joyce Cenali: 46:54

So Hertz has been our main partner out of the gate. A lot of folks have feelings because Hertz were some of the grandfathers of prohibition. But guess what? Everybody Pretty much everybody in traditional capitalism said no cannabis here. So we all kind of have to change our hearts and minds and bring in folks that maybe we otherwise wouldn't have wanted to do business with in previous chapters and so we've really welcomed Hertz has been such a great partner. We've been able to refer a couple of partners their way. They're the fourth largest media conglomerate and the largest, taking cannabis advertising across all of their channels. So they float our ads to a lot of you know great publications. Care of them. We're in right now running in good housekeeping men's health, women's health. We we ran in vanity fair first full page ad and vanity fair Um, we are also connecting with you know great companies locally.

Joyce Cenali: 47:49

So you'll find us at the Emerald cup, hopefully. California state fair Uh, we're hoping to be a part of reefer. Madness is coming to Broadway off. Uh, so Seth Rogan, uh, alan coming. Chris, all of these people are involved in the May 30th announcement. The run in LA starts at the Whitley Theater for six weeks. So we'll be involved in that. And yeah, we're also connecting now. So Hearst was our first out of the gate. We're talking to Cats Media, meredith, condé Nast, to name a few, and basically we put out guidelines. So our second annual guidelines will come out in May, end of May, and essentially they look to give guidance to media companies that would seek. You know we've got some great legal minds Vicente is our of counsel, and then Shabnam Malik house with 1906, but an amazing lawyer who also works with Rolling Stone and otherwise is on our legal team. So, yeah, so we're we're trying to build guidance for the industry and a coalition building.

Joyce Cenali: 48:47

Basically, what I keep saying is I want the plant to have the first Superbowl commercial, not a singular company, and as federal legalization starts to happen, you know we want the industry. I want to see impact where the tax dollars that we're putting out into the world. We should be winning some of the RFPs of an industry. We should be winning some of the grants of our tax dollars so that they come back and work for us and not just, you know, agencies and companies that have worked with one or two cannabis companies. You know folks need to be deep in this to be able to benefit from. It is my belief, and you know this coalition hopes to hopes to start to. You know, tell that story to regulators and say here we are, you can give us some of our money back now. Thank you.

Ben Larson: 49:31

Yeah, that's such an amazing project and I don't know how you have the time, because yeah, my wife doesn't do there um, but yeah, I mean on behalf of the industry. It's very much appreciated how exciting it is to see ads like that in major publications. It's validating, you know, that we've destigmatizing the plant and going mainstream and that we have a rightful place here. So I really appreciate all the all the work that you do on the side for the broader community.

Joyce Cenali: 50:02

Thank you.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 50:05

Not to mention, the ad campaign is just hilarious and funny. You guys make great hats that say I'm high right now and it's just, let's be real. That's what I like about it. There's this realness.

Joyce Cenali: 50:17

It's really fun when I wear the I'm high right now hats out in the wild and the people that talk to you when you're wearing stuff like that are the people you least expect. You know it's the elderly lady with her cane, it's the. You just never know who is a user. So let's all come out of the closet and start to show ourselves in these communities. I love it so fun.

Ben Larson: 50:40

Anna Rae, we talked about this a little while ago. I submitted a branded cooler filled with THC beverages to my kid's school for the auction, for the adult auction, and the number of people that reached out and were just stoked to see these products and their ability to bid on them yeah, it just felt like a kind of a cool step forward.

AnnaRae Grabstein: 51:04

I love that. We should all take all the wins. Well, so we're getting close to the end of our time and, joyce, it's been so fun to have you and I think that it's worth having some more conversations about all the stuff that's going on in the media, and I'm just continuing to hear the progress and growth of Sonoma going on in the media, and I'm just continuing to hear the progress and growth of Sonoma Hills Farm in the future. So, open invitation. But for now, we're going to move to the last call, which is really your chance to just grab the mic and tell our viewers whatever it is that you would like. So what's your last call, joyce?

Joyce Cenali: 51:35

Absolutely Well. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much. This is on the eve of 420. And we're in our fifth year of legalization out here in California. So I'm just going to encourage everybody to you know, start to get loud and proud about cannabis. Go out, wear the hats, wear the merch, talk to people that you maybe haven't talked to before that you consume cannabis and how it's helped you in your life. I hear in Northern California uh, sf weed week is happening. Uh, throughout the Bay. Uh, david Downs, uh, from Leafly, has done an amazing job of pulling together. It's like a festival orientation where you can go to a bunch of dispensaries. You can find us, um, uh, let's see blaze on Friday, hate street art museum on Saturday, spark Polk Street on Monday and then next weekend the big weekend at Urbana in the City and then Seven Stars and Jane Dispensary on 420.

Ben Larson: 52:31

All right, a lot going on 420 around the corner. Joyce, so great to catch up with you. Thank you for staying true to the plant and ringing that bell for everyone.

Joyce Cenali: 52:42

Yeah, well, thank you, and thanks to all of those that are supporting us with your dollars. It's meaningful. Support the brands that you want to see on the shelves, because it's been really, really, really hard and they won't be here unless you buy them. Yeah.

Ben Larson: 52:54

All right, we'll talk to you soon, anna Rae. Another one in the bag. As We'll talk to you soon, anna Rae. Another one in the bag as we wrap up. Remember that the dialogue doesn't have to end here. We invite you to continue these conversations and we'd love to hear your thoughts. Who would you like to see on the show? What topics would you like us to cover? We're immensely grateful to have you in our audience. Your engagement encourages us to keep bringing these thought-provoking conversations. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, share, do all the things. We really appreciate it. Thank you to our teams at Virtosa and Wolfmeyer for keeping the lights and mics on. And, of course, remember folks. Stay curious, stay informed and keep your spirits high Until next time. That's the show.