Welcome And New Baby Life

Ben Larson 0:20

Hey everybody, welcome to episode one hundred and forty-four of High Spirits. I'm Ben Larson.

AnnaRae Grabstein 0:27

And I'm Anna Ray Grabstein.

Ben Larson 0:29

And I'm back. I'm awake. I'm somewhat alive. And we're recording Tuesday, July 7th, 2026. Really had to check the date there. Not sure what way is up, uh, what day of the week it is, but yeah, we're here. How are you doing? Hello.

AnnaRae Grabstein 0:45

Welcome to your new little one who just joined us. It's been less than a week, right?

Ben Larson 0:50

Uh a little over a week. A little over a week. But uh yeah, yeah. It's uh getting back into the whole like sleep deprivation thing. You know, it's like it's funny. I've over the last couple years I've really been honing in on my health, you know, tracking with my whoop in, trying to get my sleep score up, and now it's all gone to shit.

AnnaRae Grabstein 1:09

Your 5 a.m. workouts, you've taken them off the oh god.

Ben Larson 1:14

I was literally up the other morning for an hour and a half bouncing the baby because you know, night is day, day is night, and all of a sudden it was like 4 55, and I'm like, hmm. Right now I'd normally be going to the gym, and all I can do is think about trying to squeeze in another three hours of sleep.

AnnaRae Grabstein 1:33

Yeah, not so much. Well, your baby and America's uh birthday don't are not that far apart.

Ben Larson 1:40

Uh that's right, that's true.

AnnaRae Grabstein 1:43

We just celebrated America's 250th over the weekend. There were parties all over the place. Did you do anything for the 4th of July?

Ben Larson 1:51

Uh yeah, actually, we we there was this fun little uh neighborhood kind of 4th of July parade that the kids were riding their bikes and all decorated and everything, and then we ended with a big pool party. So uh that's fine. Did that and then return home uh to the baby in the afternoon and and yeah, watch the little fireworks. But I don't know, it's all all been a big blur. There's that, there's I mean, well, we don't have to watch soccer anymore. Um, and yeah, I guess there was a big wedding or something that everyone's been talking about.

AnnaRae Grabstein 2:22

Yeah, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got married on my wedding anniversary on July 3rd. Oh, no kidding.

Ben Larson 2:30

Oh, happy anniversary.

AnnaRae Grabstein 2:32

Uh yeah, it was our suite 16 at my house, 16 years. And uh the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's wedding was in New York City, uh, home to lots of adult use cannabis. And apparently they gave away tons of little branded swag bags and boxes with TNT all over them. And my first thought was, well, it's in New York. I wonder if there's weed in those bags. So if anybody knows, I want to know which cannabis product ended up in those swag bags after the after the wedding.

Ben Larson 3:07

And and it was it was hosted at the garden. Is that is that right?

AnnaRae Grabstein 3:11

Yeah, which seems like a very strange place to get married. It's like this massive, massive venue. I've seen fish there. I have I know that like other huge rock stars play there all the time, but apparently there are only a thousand people at the wedding. And I can't imagine this massive venue uh being a very warm and romantic kind of a place.

Ben Larson 3:32

But oh well, she performs in them. He, I guess, also performs in them. So I guess it's only fitting.

AnnaRae Grabstein 3:41

Yeah, and and how much can I really relate to Taylor Swift? Not not too much.

Ben Larson 3:45

Oh, you didn't also host your wedding at the garden?

AnnaRae Grabstein 3:48

No, not at all. I hosted my wedding on a river in Mendocino County, um, with you know, cannabis farms very close by in all directions.

Ben Larson 3:58

Very apropos for a hippie capitalist, yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:00

Yes, exactly. Uh it was Willetz, technically.

Ben Larson 4:03

So actually, okay, so Willetz was the birth the home of my first cannabis conference that I attended and spoke at back in 2015.

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:15

There's no conference center in Willetz.

Ben Larson 4:17

I no, there's but there's a Grange Hall. There was a Grange Hall. And I kid you, you know, I'm coming out of Silicon Valley talking about technology and venture capital, and I I literally got hissed at um on stage. So that was my introduction to cannabis.

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:33

You probably deserved it. My introduction also in Willetz, but it was in a very different thing. It was uh 2004, and it was on the side of a mountain at harvest season, and um, I might have still had dreadlocks at that time. If you guys are lucky, I might even show some of you a picture, but uh please do.

Ben Larson 4:54

Well, we'll post it in the comments.

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:58

All right.

Meet Zach And Ohio Cannabis

AnnaRae Grabstein 4:59

Well, so um we've got a really great guest today. Um, you know, Ben and I, we rain from California, but we're trying to have conversations with people all over the country um who are really moving the needle in this industry. And um about three months ago, I had the opportunity to actually tag along on um on a potential customer visit with one of Virtosa's sales reps. And I got to go with the certified cultivators in Ohio, who are the number one brand in the state, uh, fully integrated company. And I was so super impressed at the operation that I knew that we needed to have someone from the team on to tell us about Ohio. And that's what we're doing today. So um, today our guest is Zach Weprin, and he is the president of Certified Cultivators, uh, one of only a handful of independently owned vertically integrated cannabis companies in Ohio. And while a lot of operators are building big brand portfolios, Zach and his team made the opposite bet. They went all in um on one brand, full control, top to bottom, and it's paying off. Uh, certified is sitting at the top of Ohio's market, and they've got a brand footprint that's carved out close to 7% market share um in the state. And they have all the form factors in the market. It's super impressive. Uh, before cannabis, Zach has a background in hospitality. He was an entrepreneur that was building um fast casual restaurants in the sushi space, and uh and it shows up in the way that he talks about the business. And I think that this is gonna be a great conversation. So welcome Zach to the show today. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Thank you guys so much. Grateful to be here. Lucky day to be talking about cannabis over here.

AnnaRae Grabstein 6:48

So, yesterday, in prep for this podcast, you sent me this text and it was short and sweet, and you said, best part of this whole thing has been building this with my dad. And I thought, let's start the podcast that way. I want to hear the story. So, what's what's the story?

The Joint That Sparked Certified

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Uh fall of 2017, I was uh smoking a joint with my dad on his back patio talking about how to run restaurants, which we spent a lot of time doing at the time. And uh Kasich, the governor of Ohio at the time, signed uh the medical bill for Ohio cannabis. Um and uh that was the first conversation we had. Um we uh were from Dayton, Ohio. We live in Columbus. Uh my dad spent uh we spent a lot of time out in Colorado where we used to live. And um we've been smoking weed our whole life. I was diagnosed with Crohn's when I was 12. My mom passed away when I was a young kid. Um, so cannabis has always been a part of my life, um, at least since I was probably 18 years old. And my dad's a big time consumer. And we kind of watched what happened in Colorado when it was built, um, when it all started to change out there. And you know, it was always like, you know, whenever this comes to Ohio, we want to be a part of it. And, you know, that conversation with my daddy is we had a building. My when when I was growing up, my dad was in the auto parts business and we had a warehouse um that needed a tenant. And he looked at me and he's like, you know, the warehouse would be a great landlord for one of these cultivation facilities. I said, I agree, but we should be the tenant too. And literally within 24 hours of that conversation, he's more or less like, fuck it, why not me? Why not us? Uh, why can't why do we, you know, why can't we win this just like anybody else? So uh started kind of working on it putting the application together and and you know, talking to whoever would listen. And uh eventually um even after an appeal to the to the state, we ended up being awarded a level one cultivation and processing license uh about a year and a half later. And um it's been a wild journey ever since. Yeah. Yeah.

Funding Without Losing Control

AnnaRae Grabstein 8:58

I will and so I've been there. It's it's a massive. This auto parts warehouse is not small. I mean, it's a very large campus, a few acres at least. Um and uh what you've built is is very large as well. I think that you had over 40,000 square feet of canopy, you got had manufacturing. Um, did you guys go out and raise money from the beginning to get that done, or did you self-fund it yourself?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

We uh we raised some friends and family money. Um we sold our souls to whoever would give us money. Um, you know, one of the the major goals that we had when when we started was to to get this thing operational without losing control. Um, it was very important for us to kind of maintain control as a family to to to to to really kind of maximize the opportunity that we had. Um, so we raised some money. My dad put everything he had in, which wasn't much. You know, he sold his house in Colorado in the middle of COVID and used that money to pay for the next construction bill. So, you know, he was all in. You know, I spent 10 years building a fast casual sushi chain. I didn't have much money to my name, so it was it was a lot of his risk and um, you know, kind of just using our name and reputation to to to kind of take it from there. But once once we won the license, we we knew we had some leverage and uh owning the build the property um that the build the business sits in was essential to everything and it's been a bit huge part of our kind of strategy as we've expanded the business.

Making Family Business Actually Work

Ben Larson 10:31

So there's a a lot of people that opine on whether you should or shouldn't uh do business with family members or friends even. And with so much on the line, it kind of like stakes are high. What's your guys' key to success like to date? Like, how do you how do you keep those the that that dividing line like clean and make sure that Thanksgiving and Christmas or what whatever the holidays that you celebrate are, like how do you keep how do you keep everything kosher around the dinner table?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

We could probably have a whole separate podcast for hours and hours to discuss that. It's um, you know, this is so I've been a part of the uh the origination of two businesses. Um, you know, one was the restaurant business, which I did with siblings and friends. Um, in this situation, it's just my dad and I, and my dad is, you know, he turned 73 next month. He more or less came out of retirement to do this. You know, he's still, you know, the best part about it is that we literally get to talk every day about building the business and making decisions and and how we want to, you know, how much weed do we sell that day. And um, you know, my father's, you know, he's he's not necessarily competing with me in terms of, you know, my role, my position, his role, his position. We have the same goal, the same vision here of maximizing our opportunity of of building, you know, the best cannabis company that we can. And um, you know, we uh you know, one of you you learn a lot trying to build restaurants. And you and I mean you guys had a lens to the cannabis industry. You know, this is a very expensive business to operate, to build, to expand. Um, I made some of my some very strong learning lessons trying to expand and making cash flow mistakes uh running the restaurants and kind of learning uh for a decade on how to scale and build business and cash flow and and um PLs, balance sheets, all that stuff. Like I learned a lot, and that was the education that kind of helped us understand on how to manage this business, how to run this business, how to talk to our team, and how to build the culture and really focus on building a sustainable operation as we operate in an extremely um you know difficult environment to operate in from a compliance standpoint, from a you know, from the laws. And so it's it's try to be nimble, but also understanding you know where we're at and where we're trying to go. And it's just been fun working with him on it just because, you know, yeah, yeah. It's it it he loves it. And it's just so I don't know, I don't know how to say anymore.

AnnaRae Grabstein 12:59

I I love the hospitality call out too. Um, I grew up in the restaurant business. My mom was the bookkeeper at the family restaurant, my uncle was the chef, my aunt ran friend of house. When I was old enough, I was like waiting tables and bartending and all the things. And and I always tell people that I think that restaurant business is the best boot camp for all types of business, cannabis in particular, but really all of them. It's a ballet, the margins are tight, you got to work with people and a team. And if you can make it in that kind of environment, I think it's a really great uh foundation. So you talked about how some of kind of what came before for you and your career and your dad and his career led to the vision that you guys built with certified. And

Betting Everything On One Brand

AnnaRae Grabstein 13:43

one thing I think that would be interesting to dive in right at the beginning is about going all in on this one brand. You've built a big company, vertically integrated company with retail stores that are called certified, and then all of your products are also called certified. And um, your peers in kind of the vertically integrated cohort of cannabis companies in Ohio, but also nationwide that are putting up the type of numbers that you do, usually have a different type of approach, creating a whole house of brands with a different gummy brand and a different beverage brand and different pre-roll brand, different flower brand. Um what was this bet about putting everything behind certified?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Um I don't know. You watch like the house of brands and the way like the MSOs were all built, and they were just kind of acquiring brands because they weren't, maybe at the time they were moving too fast, not creative enough to create their own brands. And the deeper I got into the space, much like the restaurants, it's like, you know, when I was scaling the restaurants, you try to go near your competition and see what they're doing and and go right head to head with them. And you know, our our focus from day one was building a Cadillac in this facility and building the best growers we can, and everything starts with the flower. So we were super focused on learning how to grow weed and grow it at the best that we can, at the highest quality that we can, and and support our team in doing that. Um and it started with the flower, and you know, the deeper I got into the space, and I, you know, I want to know everybody, I want to talk to everybody, and I was, you know, all these white labeled brands and other operators that you know, they're just ultimately you're kind of just giving away that margin. Um, and you know, my experience of building brand through the previous business and just understanding the relationship that you're creating with the community that you operated in, um, kind of how you're creating the community of within your own four walls of your own business. Um we just wanted to go deep in our own name and and everything was certified. And um, you know, it until we we didn't actually have retail to get at start, you know, we kind of just started scaling the retail. It was probably a blessing in disguise. We didn't have retail to get started, and we were only focused on wholesale and we had to sell our product and all the dispensaries. And um, you know, when we first got started, I was out there getting to know the entire market and knowing all the other operators and and people want to do business with the people that they like and people that they know. And, you know, as I've learned, this business is challenging and a lot of people are coming from different lenses. And uh our objective has just been easy to work with. Anyone that we interact with, our goal is just to be an easy group to work with. Um and over time it just kind of builds and the snowball just kind of gets a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger, and as productions increase, um we we tend to stay even more laser focused on the brand itself. So when we even put out a a beverage or um any new product, it just seems we always kind of have these conversations with other brands and realize that we can just make them ourselves. It's not that complicated to make a gummy. It's not that complicated, like you can figure all these things out. Uh and the process of of creating new products and production to me is fun and creative and what's what our team loves too. And so anything we can do to keep educating ourselves and learning and then creating more products, and uh we just believe it kind of builds a more sustainable business.

Why Retail Comes After Wholesale

Ben Larson 17:08

That is the interesting thing. I could be wrong. I don't know. No, no, no. I I I think that is the interesting uh opportunity with these state-by-state markets, is because you don't have the economies of scale, you don't have the opportunity for these massive operations to scale up where it becomes obvious that that is the better option to market. And so it gives you the opportunity to kind of like build it in-house and and maybe start playing in those margins. And so you kind of started from that foundation of finding the warehouse, deciding to grow, focus on the flower, build the products. At what point do you say to yourself, it's like, oh, we should also own the retail point? And and kind of like the the next question that's already in my head after this is like you're you're suddenly going from that serving other dispensaries as kind of your customer to now having your own dispensaries and trying to own the consumer. So it's like, um, was there a certain point in time where like we want to get even closer to the consumer?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Um, we we always wanted retail. Um first round we didn't win the retail. Um, we ran out of money, weren't able to put enough applications to win that. The second round, we were prepared for it, but then they switched it to a lottery last minute. So we didn't win any of those as well. And at the time we were still we're and we're still doing it today, we're reinvesting and expanding the operation, and we didn't really have the capital to start acquiring um retail. We started doing that with the kind of with the transition from medical to adult use. Um, and that's allowed us to finally kind of get the retail footprint going. We got four stores open, open another one here in 30 days, and we'll have seven or eight open a year from today. But our focus in our stores still is not, you know, we're trying to get it to maybe 20% of our own product in our own stores because it uh the the wholesale business to us is where we're we we think we're gonna make a lot more money than the retail. And I still, I know a lot of other groups think the opposite. And again, we could be wrong on this, but um, we we do think that a large wholesale business can be profitable. So we're still highly focused on on building the relationships and driving as much wholesale business as possible, and retail just continues to elevate the brand itself, uh, which is partially why I believe the timing of kind of retail coming second after wholesales is gonna work to our advantage.

AnnaRae Grabstein 19:32

Um yeah, I I think uh to comment on your point about the the mix of of wholesale versus retail and some companies focusing on trying to pump their own product. I think that it's short-sighted. And I think that the the upside on wholesale is I don't want to say it's infinite because the market isn't infinite, but but it's it's a lot beyond the eight stores that you're allowed to have in in Ohio. And so I think that you're right to continue to have diverse uh mix of products at your stores that serve kind of all the consumers that are coming through the door while trying to continue to scale wholesale. I think that that's like absolutely a strategy that works.

Building Deep In House Manufacturing

AnnaRae Grabstein 20:17

Um as it relates to your product mix, let's talk a little bit about manufacturing uh because you are really focused on growing the best flour at the most, the most flour that's the best and the most efficiently. Uh, but you guys also then take the flour and process it into lots of different products. Uh, you guys make your own extract. Then from that extract, you do lots of different things. You make gummies, beverages, um, all types of different products. And I think that that choice to go that deep in manufacturing is absolutely a stretch coming from somebody that hadn't been doing that already. Like that is wild. That's the manufacturing that you guys are doing is is is a lot. So I'd love to dive into that a little bit of why and how you built that in-house uh capability. Instead of choosing to source from the market, use an some other processor, you know, use a copacker that knows more about gummies before you did, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Um we when we when we got started, I still think everybody was kind of trying to get their feet wet. It was a new market, um, not as much experience in the market. So we, you know, we made mistakes, whether it was manufacturing, you know, gummies or vapes or whatnot. Um I don't know. I think it kind like the brand the brand, flowers always gonna be king, and that's always gonna be the top dog. But I do believe that when you have manufactured goods, like very CPG like products, you know, that's what vape carts are, that's what drinks are and gummies, um, they're way more accessible. To the average person. And it really, I think it makes the brand that much stronger. It would be, you know, when we add cultivation, I do believe there's more space for us just to sell a lot more flour. And it gives us opportunity to, you know, gain in a category down the road. But it's harder to, I think, probably enter a new market or enter the market today and try to establish a vape brand or a gummy brand, unless it's like a national brand that's just trying to enter and white label and stuff like that. So we've gone deep in vape carts and gummies and we have the, you know, when I started exploring the beverages, um, you know, obviously it's a smaller category, but I'm super bullish and excited about the beverages. You know, we started with the shot, we're working on a, you know, more of a kind of a sparkling water type product, um, seltzer, and and excited to do that as well. Um, so I just think it's it's, you know, as a consumer, I depending on how I'm feeling and what's going on, I consume flour, I'll smoke joints, I edibles are amazing. That, you know, I'll eat five to seven milligrams of an edible, and I feel like it's the most therapeutic way ever for me to behave and to manage whatever's going on in my life. So I like to consume products in different ways. And I think just being really good at each category um gives us that much more opportunity long term to kind of hit those larger wholesale numbers in each category. So I try to look at individual categories month over month and work on, you know, keeping those where they're at and growing, not going backwards. So um I don't know if that answered the question, um, but obviously, you know, the maybe we are going too far too deep with too many categories here, but I do prefer that they're all at least under the certified name, and I'm not obligated to be making products for for other brands.

Ben Larson 23:53

Yeah, I just want to double-click on it a little bit because um there are different philosophies when going into building a brand, and some people go super deep on a on a single category, like a vape card or something like that. And a lot of times when you're offering different form factors, you're comparing you know the ROI on a certain effort, right? And so, like, how do you just think about these product categories as they sit next to each other as far as the the revenue opportunities and and the the profitability of each one versus you know just feeling that need to have a suite of products that kind of fill that you know 20% of your shelves in a branded store.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Good question. Um one thing that we've told our team here internally, and we try not to get in the way of how we sell our product, is every gram of THC we produce, we want to turn into revenue. So to some degree, I'm looking at the entire operation as a whole to drive cash flow and profitability. And if one month, you know, the vape category drops a little bit, but gummy jump or flour jumps, it's like I'm trying to look at the cash flow model as the entire operation from a wholesale standpoint, as opposed to individual categories. Um, it hopefully strengthens the brand over long term. And it's looking at kind of a top line sales figure with bottom line cash flow as opposed to individual category. Obviously, when we get laser focused and kind of get down to the operations from department to department to figure out, you know, how they're, you know, where is there room to improve, where is there room to find prop like increased cash, or um, you know, there's there's there's that. But we've also like we're a lot of people probably don't like this, but we do, we're buyers of biomass in the market. We can't produce enough THC in our own facility. Um, so we buy, you know, biomass from other operators to also make vape carts as well. So um, or gummies or whatever product is we're making. So we're, you know, in that pos in that in those markets, you have a lot more potential for long-term sales growth if you're also using other people's flour and biomass to make products internally as well. So if you're making a Disdy card or a gummy, you know, it's not as essential that it's that THC is coming from our garden or somebody else's. But when you're putting flour in a jar or pre-rolls or, you know, whatever the premium product, um, you know, we're not we're not repacking, we're not buying other people's biomass and repackaging it and put it into a certified jar. We would never do that. Um, so it's it's kind of looking at the long-term scalability of each category. You know, there's vake specific vape companies on the West Coast that crush. There's specific pre-roll companies that only do pre-rolls that crush. And then when those brands try to get into the vape category, another category, maybe those categories are much smaller compared to the original one. But in in our position, in a kind of a limited license market, um, it allows us to ultimately gain more market share um and position the brand in a stronger spot. The more you see our brand in front of in front of you, I think it it ultimately creates more consumers and more buyers and versatility.

THC Beverages Hemp Confusion Distillate

unknown 27:16

Yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:16

I want to I want to dive in a little deeper on the cannabis ingredients piece of this. And uh I'm surprised, Ben, as the beverage guy on this podcast, not me, wasn't the one that that do that asked you more deeply about beverages.

Ben Larson 27:32

I'm not sure just try not to make it about me.

AnnaRae Grabstein 27:35

You you brought up beverages. I know, I know. Yeah, and and the seltzers that you guys are bringing to market. I think you called them like a sparkling water. And um, and it's and it's a unique opportunity in Ohio from my from my perspective at least, because um Ohio has been a and was a very um a very exciting market for hemp beverages. And and Ohio has kind of gotten in the way of of those hemp beverages staying in the market to the same extent. And the question is, is will those consumers that were purchasing hemp beverages outside of dispensary channels come and look for them in dispensaries now? And there aren't a lot of folks making um THT beverages in Ohio. You guys are are one of them. And I think that that's really interesting. And so I'm curious when you say that you're watching month-over-month category growth, if there has been a shift or if more consumers are coming to stores looking for beverages, if you've seen that. And then the other part of the question, as it relates to um the ingredients, you talked about being a biomass consumer in order to be able to create the amount of um cannabinoid extract that you need to make all your products. And I am wondering what your perspective is on distillate versus more full spectrum extracts and manufactured products as well. So tell me about beverages and tell me about cannabis ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, so the beverage thing is it's an interesting, obviously, there's a lot of people's opinions about where beverages are. You know, the consuming THC through beverage is a wonderful format. We all can agree on that. You know, as far as regulation around that, like the amount of regulation and scrutiny that we go through to operate in in our business is is insane. It's high, it's extremely expensive. Um, the uh it's it's it's very difficult to operate with the compliance side of things. So the whole like hemp story is is it's uh it's just confusing to consumers because of the way uh you know intoxicating hemp and and it's just selling weed. So selling uh THC drinks that aren't regulated in a completely different format from all of the existing operators in the markets um is definitely conflicting. Um and that that creates some I'm sure Ben's got a different opinion of that because of his position in Vertosa and what they're trying to do. And um so the the market's there. I mean, what what intoxicating hemp did and the T and the hemp beverages did create is more awareness and more accessibility uh for the first time, which obviously we all want THC drinks. Um some of those consumers will come into dispensaries over time, um, and and some won't. Some are here are trading back up to beer because they're at the bar. Um what I do find to be interesting is is that the market's there, the product people want. Um and I'm grateful that I'm in a position to maybe to to make that product and and sell those through the dispensary channel today. You know, what is what is what does the wall look like that look like in two years, three years, five years, and how could that change compared to where it's at? That could be significant. Um, and if we can be any part of kind of helping create that, that's that's that's intriguing to me. Um obviously there's there's a market for you know a low dose, even high dose drinks. That there's no question about that. Um and we start with the shots and you know, the uh you know, a 12-ounce seltzer is obviously a different product, but similar, and there'll be a market for those too. So I'm just excited to kind of work on that and get into you know creative product mode. So I don't know if that answered the question. Um, but you know, there's there's we're in our very early infancy stages of where THC drinks go across the nation, and Ben's been in a very unique position, you know, getting to where he's at today. You know, I've been working with Source. I know I I know you know that. That's how I kind of I was in true, I didn't even know who Virtuoso was at the time. It took me a few months to figure out who was doing it. There's only a couple of you. And um, so the drink segment's been interesting. Um, our drink category sales have gone up a little bit recently because we added some automation. We were doing all these little two ounce, five-hour energy shots by hand. Um we were always strapped by you know people. And as we've expanded and invested more in automation and equipment, allows us to kind of look at the category a little differently.

Ben Larson 32:13

Um reminds me of the early days of beverage. Like every beverage manufacturer had like a forehead filler and we're just doing like hand pumps and yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I even remember hearing stories about can going into new states and and doing cans that way. It was uh very, very low tech.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Um hard to scale.

unknown 32:33

Yeah.

Regulation Risk And Interstate Commerce

Ben Larson 32:34

Yeah. Yeah. So so you mentioned kind of like this this look ahead of like these shifting regulations, and you know, we'll we'll set aside hemp. Like hemp's one shifting regulation um at the intersection of of cannabis. But there's also this whole like the federal conversation that's happening like right now. Uh literally the hearings are going on, and and there's constant activity at the state level. And so this is uniquely different than probably your experience in in the restaurant business, right? Where you're just kind of constantly on this shifting landscape. How do you yeah, how do you create like a stable center of gravity for yourself, knowing that it could change a year from now or two years from now? You know, we had uh Graham Ferrar from from Glasshouse on a couple weeks ago, uh, episode 142, and he was talking about looking ahead and thinking about interstate commerce and and creating you know California cannabis everywhere, like knowing that that's a potentiality. And you can you can opine on whether you think that is or not, but like yeah, how do you how do you how do you continue to operate with confidence knowing that it's constantly in flux?

SPEAKER_00 33:45

There's a lot smarter people out there involved in politics than I am. Um, so I try to do my best to keep my mouth shut and let them focus on that and just kind of hope for the best. Um, because I have no control of how things change. I mean, I don't want interstate commerce. I think we don't we don't need we don't need glasshouse flour being sold in Dayton, Ohio. Like that's our territory. Like you stay in your lane, we'll stay on ours and and figure it out. Um and I believe there's a lot of operators and politicians that believe that as well. Um so I'm just hopeful that we'll kind of maintain this this state regulated operation because each state's completely set up differently. So, you know, I've also invested a lot of money building my facility out, just like Glasshouse has built theirs and you know what they do. Um so I I want, you know, I want the regulation to continue and I want the state-by-state operations to exist. So it hopefully minimizes some of our risk long term because uh we're highly invested in a facility that we built and it's extremely capital intensive. And um at the end of the day, like their brand means nothing here too. So it's like, you know, there is no brand um certified means something here because we've been operating here. So I I don't um I hope for kind of state-by-state operations to continue, and I'm assuming the MSOs and all those groups do too, because they've invested a lot of money in each state's operation as well. So it's um, you know, we don't need them flooding the market and lowering price. And, you know, we all know that every market price compresses over time. And it, you know, I think Andrea, with your your question earlier about production, a lot of it has to do with kind of supply and demand in terms of how much supply is in in the Ohio market. And, you know, as more operators continue to expand their facilities, um, you know, access to more cannabis over time and um, you know, it hopefully gives us a little bit more of a runway to continue to have a strong, you know, positive, sustainable business that helps us, you know, minimize risk over time. Does that make sense?

AnnaRae Grabstein 35:52

I totally understand wanting to run a sustainable business and the idea, especially of like protecting the resources and the investment that you've made in the market. It makes all the sense in the world. At the same time, like you're talking about supply and demand in the market. I know from talking to you that you love weed. And um, when you think about being a biomass consumer and and where where that biomass is coming from, I think that most of the cannabis in Ohio is being grown indoors and that from certain other places in the country, there's a lot more access to very high quality, um, sustainably grown outdoor cannabis that is perfect for biomass, for ingredient production, like full spectrum extracts, live rosins, live resins, things like that. And um and I'm wondering if you can also see that side of the complex equation as it relates to interstate commerce and the supply and demand equation, knowing that if we were to look at the amount of cannabis being grown around the whole country, um is very different than the amount of cannabis being grown in each individual market and how that all levels out. And how you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yeah, I mean, I mean, we we make a our our our livelo with diamonds and our eye crushers are you know taken from a fresh frozen. We got hydrocarbon extraction, and it's the most premium product that we make. Like we can't, you know, we've we've it it's the best product that we make. It's a lot different than the Disty uh the category. Um, but the way we're able to also do both. Um, you know, you start throwing in biomass that you know might be great for rosins and extracts, sending them into uh, you know, a a state market like Ohio, at the end of the day, it's gonna, it's gonna lower the value and the quality of of all the existing operators in the market. Um, so you know, I think we're still in the infancy stages of kind of from my lens uh from where Ohio is gonna be. I mean, I think stink we've had um it's taken us a while to kind of get to where we're at. You know, our transition from medical to adult use has been slow. Um, you know, it's taken us a while to get all the rules enacted. So we haven't seen the drastic change from medical to adult use in some other markets, and I think every operator in the state right now is is seeing some some growth and excitement for kind of where we're gonna be. So I don't know. I'm still gonna I prefer to uh to operate with uh you know all the people that we get to do business with here in Ohio as opposed to buying some from yeah some farm in Colorado or Oklahoma.

Building Trust Through Design And Team

Ben Larson 38:45

So I want to zoom out a little bit because you you have done a great job at kind of rallying to the top of the Ohio charts. And um, you know, I think it's more than just the product that that has gotten you there. I mean, it's it's kind of in the name. You you you named your company Certified, which kind of uh evokes trust and all this kind of stuff. And you know, I kind of fancy myself a little bit of a naming geek. It's like I imagine like a year or two from now, you might find yourself in a position where you yourself are ready to expand your brand, you know, into other states and and beyond, because you've built more than you know just a product offering, you've built that that consumer trust, you you speak to the consumer. And I'm so so one aspect I'm wondering if if if you think that you will get to that point, right? Like, do you allow yourself to think like beyond the the walls of Ohio and then how that might change your perspective on things? And then the underpinning of that is like, you know, how have you built that that trust with the consumer? Like because I think that's the critical aspect. That's something that we've focused on a lot, you know, with Vertosa is just you know, how do we build trust every day? And and it's kind of really resonating with me as a as a consumer.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

I mean, it starts with your team always. Um, I think it starts with your team um design. The you know, is as as simple as it might be, the rainbow and our our logo um is important. It's it's highly designed, it's very recognizable. Um, you'll see rainbows in in Dark Side of the Moon and Aviator Nation and Vintage Kodak and BMW, and you'll start noticing it all over. Um and I think that the color of the rainbow and just the name, it's just constantly in your face. And I think that's kind of built trust through through color and design and and highly highly um detailed uh curation, I think. Um and I think you can kind of see that in everything that we do, whether it's our the art that we have for our strain and our you know our our our you know our our we have individual art for each strain that we put out. Um as far as going outside of Ohio, like yeah, I mean that does sound fun, that does sound enticing. You know, I don't know what that'll look like one day or what it could look like and what it would mean for certified. There's also like sometimes there's this kind of lightning in a bottle due to timing. You know, it's possible that the certified brand does not, you know, not possible, it very well likely could not make the type of impact in a different market um that it did at the time that it created its brand and its presence here in Ohio. You know, is it a new market? Is it a market that doesn't exist yet? Is it a Indiana or North Carolina or South Carolina, like us or states that are just getting started? Um, you know, as opposed to like, you know, Wana or Kiva or Jeter and these other types of kind of brands that have taken a different model. Um so I don't know where certified will go. Um, but I also know like we have 12 million people in the state, and Ohio is a big market. And I'm very grateful. I I've been I travel a lot, and I don't know if you guys deal with this where we're from, but you're gonna find Ohio people everywhere. You know, there's there's a lot of us, and we all like to, you know, give pride that we're from here.

Ben Larson 42:22

So, you know, I run into a buckeye fan or two here or there.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Yeah, we're loud, I know. And hopefully hopefully they're they treat you right. Um, but we um we have so much opportunity right here at our fingertips to be um, you know, a strong presence in what are we, the sixth most populated state in the country. Like we're not small here. Um, so you know, until there's some type of change or or whatnot, like we're still all in on the four walls of Ohio and trying to build the strongest presence um in in in business here and and yeah, I mean, again, like that's the vision and strategy today. It doesn't mean we're right, you know, it doesn't mean it can't change quickly. But the more we try to stay laser focused and kind of um eyes on the prize, the the the better things get and sales keep going up and um you know, is that yeah.

AnnaRae Grabstein 43:26

I

Genetics Pheno Hunting Tissue Culture

AnnaRae Grabstein 43:27

love it. Um I think that one of the things we haven't touched on that I remember from when I visited you guys is uh is that you had a real focus on genetics uh in the cultivation, and that there was a whole pheno hunting room that I saw and some really innovative cultivation techniques going on. And it, you know, I have to admit, it reminded me of some of the best indoor cultivation that I've seen uh in California and then elsewhere. And I wonder. If you could talk a little bit about the genetic strategy and and what that is doing for the Ohio market and for your product line and how you see see genetics as as part of the strategy.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Yeah, I mean I learned early on um it's genetics, it's the environment, and it's your team. Um and if you can kind of combine all three of those, you can have some form of lightning in a bottle. Um so we've done our best to provide the right facility and and tools for our team to kind of live their dream and grow the best product that they can that we can and create the best strains and genetics. So yeah, we we we phenoh hunted from day one. Uh we've never brought in outside clones. Um, you know, we we've been buying seeds, we haven't started um breeding yet, but that is something that we're talking about. We have a tissue culture lab. I'm pretty sure now most of our, all of our, you know, our clones now are coming from tissue culture. So we're trying to keep the ones that we love and search for new ones. And, you know, it it gives you something new and fresh to talk about. So genetics is essential to the name, to the story, to the brand. Like it's a it's it's our brand ethos. It's like we want to be known as an operator that is searching for the next thing and constantly trying to improve. And and it it's it's solely focused around doing our best to create the environment for our team to to maximize their dream and their opportunity. And one thing that I think our team likes to do, to be a part of certified, is that we kind of give them those tools to execute and operate. And we have the leniency. We don't have a we don't have a uh a committee here making decisions. It's um it's just us. And now it's just them. Like they're their team, or my team is amazing. I think Anna Ray, you met you met the team. Like we just uh we just sent a couple of our guys out to Cali last week um to check out some facilities. Um, and it's you know, they they came back with so much enthusiasm and so much energy and so much excitement, realizing how great we are, like how great of an opportunity we have right here in Dayton and how awesome our facility is and how well we're doing. And the grass isn't always greener on the other side. And you know, it's uh you know, it's uh um it it I think it got them more excited to come back here and to execute here and not think that just because you see some Instagram account of Cali that's great at creating content or growing, like you know, we we can we can be just as great here. Um and that's awesome.

Ben Larson 46:47

Yeah.

Hiring For Culture In Cannabis

Ben Larson 46:48

Zach, I really appreciate you you kind of clearly identified the three legs of the of the certified stool. You you said like genetics, which is the the very root of of the plant, and then you talked about the environment and giving people all the tools and and and creative freedom to to kind of do what they love. Um, and then the third piece is the team. And so like just with the a focus on building the team, which which I think a lot about. What's like one of your secrets to ensuring that you're putting the right people on the bus? Like what are what are some of the things that you're looking for as you're as you're building out your team?

SPEAKER_00 47:24

I mean, it's it's it's wild. I mean, we have I think we're up to we probably have 300 people across the team right now, between, you know, 200 in this facility and another hundred in the retail. You know, it was it was it took us, it's taken us seven years to get here. You know, the way when we first got started was a lot different than it is today. Um, and we have we have we just have highly enthusiastic and um people that love the plant and love um being a part of it. I think uh, you know, I've always thought that I kind of had this unique lens to the business. Um a lot of the people that I would compete with are either, you know, they were lawyers or bankers or people smart enough to get licenses and get these businesses started, but may not understand culture, definitely aren't consumers of the product, didn't understand brand, those kind of things. Um I found myself a little bit kind of in the middle there where, you know, I'm a consumer of the product, but I've had experience building culture, building brand, working side by side. Um, and I think that's kind of helped us create this environment where it's okay to talk about weed and be consumers, and we all love the product. So um over time it's created, it's attracted people that wanted to be a part of that. And, you know, one thing that in any business, whether it's restaurants, cannabis, or any other industry, you know, they all go through cycles and their infancy stage versus mature stage, and kind of they have these, you know, the people that are are required on our team today to help us get from where we're at today to where we want to go is maybe different than what it was in step one and step two. You know, it took me a long time to find the right lab director or the right director of operations. Like we don't have a uh we don't have a a cultivation director. We have a a head of operations. Um so we've created this environment and how we're doing things, and you kind of have to mold your way in here. We I I interacted with a lot of people that were coming from the black market when we first got started. I didn't have any of that experience in the black market. So I'm also learning how to navigate the people and the conversations. And you know, we first got started, we didn't know. So you find yourself looking for people that have the expertise, or at least claim that they have the expertise, to do X, Y, and Z. And then you learn and you make mistakes and you make cash flow problems and all that stuff. But um it it nobody knows how to do this. Like there is no cookie-cutter way on how to massively scale a cannabis company. So when you find the right people that are here for the right reasons, that are willing to work with the team, um, and and work side by side with people, then and you know, the faster you you you make decisions on the people that aren't working out and you continue to focus on your team every single day, that's how you kind of build the nuts and bolts and how this all stuff, all this works. So, you know, that's where I try to spend my time is is is building the relationships with the team and building relationships with the customer. And as those relationships continue to strengthen, it helps you know what to do and what not to do. But I've got a great, I got yeah, so I don't know if that answered the question, but I think it it it uh you know, I you know, I think people like people love my dad. He's fun. Like I think we have we have fun, we try not to take ourselves too seriously. Uh we want to be easy to work with, but we're also, you know, we try to be professional too and and you know, get shit done.

Ben Larson 50:57

So um I I mean I think I think you painted a pretty good picture of your dad smoke smoking a joint at 74 on a porch and making a snap decision to to launch a cannabis company. That's uh pretty cool guy.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Yeah, I think he was probably 64 at the time now because it's been a minute. Right. This has been like, you know what? He was he was he at that time he was told he wasn't allowed to ski anymore. He was probably a little depressed, probably smoking a little too much. And this is like extended his life and made him excited and gets him energized. And it's you know, dude, he's it he's just having so much fun. It's like, you know, it's a it's an incredible opportunity to like be a part of this change in in society. Like cannabis, like in those times, talking about cannabis around the dinner table, it wasn't it wasn't like it is today. It's like my mom would look at him and be like, you're fucking nuts. Like, what do you mean this is good for Crohn's disease? Like you're talking about getting like and you know, the perception of cannabis in America and each individual each individual one, each one of us evolves over time. So it's you know, it you know, it's in it's just a great time to be in the business.

Last Call And Closing Thanks

AnnaRae Grabstein 52:08

Zach, I gotta say, um, you have been incredibly transparent and honest. And I think that you've given everyone who's tuning in a pretty um real lens into what it's like to operate in Ohio. So I am really appreciative of everything that you shared today. Uh, but it is time for our last call. So uh, Zach, this is our time when uh we turn the mic over to you one last time for some advice, call to action, or a closing thought to leave our audience with. What is your last call?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Um, thank you uh for including us. Thank you for bringing attention to the Ohio cannabis community um on behalf of our team here at Certified, um, on behalf of the entire community of people working in the cannabis industry here in Ohio. Um, thank you. Uh thank you for uh being a part of building something special and new. And um, I do feel like we're all just getting started here. I'm very excited for the future of Certified. Um, we have lots of growth and exciting times ahead. Um smoke weed every day. Enjoy. Take care of yourself.

Ben Larson 53:19

Smoke weed every day. I love it.

AnnaRae Grabstein 53:22

Smoke weed every day, mic drop. Um, Zach, thank you so much. Uh thanks, guys.

Ben Larson 53:28

Yeah, yeah. All right, talk to you soon. All right, everybody. What do you think? I I I feel like my spirits are a little bit higher, especially hearing about Zach's dad. Um, and and glad to hear that the industry has done that for him. All right.

AnnaRae Grabstein 53:43

Like to have us have a session with him on a back on a back porch sometime overlooking some awesome cannabis field in Ohio.

Ben Larson 53:51

I know what I know what my Ohio bucket list is now. It's it's a new list. I I didn't have much of one before. Yeah. All right. Thank you to our teams at Virtosa and Wolfmeyer, and of course, our producer, Eric Rossetti. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share, like, review, do all the things wherever you to listen to your podcast. Thank you for listening. And as always, folks, stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, keep your spirits high. Until next time, that's the show.