From BNN Bloomberg cannabis beverage industry.
The category, backed by beverage giants Constellation Brands Inc. and Molson Coors Beverage Co., is off to a relatively slow start. Roughly $23 million in cannabis-infused drinks was sold in the first 11 months of the year in Canada, according to cannabis retail data provider HyFyre.
That represents roughly 1.5 per cent of the total cannabis market in Canada, which might be mistaken for a rounding error. The low sales figures can be attributed to any number of reasons: manufacturing delays, quality and taste issues and the challenge of convincing consumers that you can drink, rather than inhale, a product to get high.
In November, Truss Beverages Inc., the joint venture between Molson Coors and pot producer Hexo Corp., overtook Canopy Growth Corp. as the pot drink leader with a 35 per cent share of the market after selling its products for just three months, according to HyFyre. Canopy is slightly behind with 33 per cent market share.
"Looking at the data, it's just so nascent right now," said David Kideckel, senior research analyst at ATB Capital Markets, in a phone interview.
The category's future may remain murky unless policy changes that could expand how consumers can purchase pot drinks are made. That could happen over the next year if Canada tweaks the Cannabis Act to allow the purchase of more than six cannabis-infused drinks containing 10 milligrams of cannabis at a time, or if provinces begin to loosen rules regarding where and how pot is consumed publicly.
Canopy's Canadian General Manager Grant Caton said in an emailed statement the company is a "strong advocate" for provinces to allow "on-premise" consumption in lounges and cafes. The company recently hosted an event for journalists on working with provincial tourism associations to advance discussions on consumption lounges. As it stands, Ontario has no plans to allow for cannabis consumptions lounges, while Manitoba is exploring the concept.
Kideckel expects the cannabis drink category to hit about $500 million in sales in the next five years, a figure that corresponds to other analyst estimates.
Truss's Chief Executive Officer Scott Cooper told BNN Bloomberg that he's hoping to target the 20 per cent of Canadians who may be open to trying pot drinks during the holiday season. He's also speaking to various industry associations to help loosen restrictions on how Canadians can purchase these beverages, albeit in a responsible manner.
"At some point, there will be an inflection point where enough people have tried it and that word of mouth gets out," he said. "Our task at hand now is just to create awareness and create ways for people to try these drinks and from that, I think that the growth will come."