Vertically-integrated Cannabis Brand Ignites Multi-State Expansion

One of the cannabis industry’s first premium seed-to-experience cannabis brands is experiencing a major growth spurt from west to east. And given their recently-released first-quarter sales growth from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019 – an eye-popping increase of more than 365% – retail and institutional investors may want to take a long, hard look at this Company.

Grown Rogue International Inc. (C:GRIN, OTCMKTS:NVSIF, Forum) is a vertically-integrated, publicly-traded company with a strong cultivation, brand, and retail footprint that is now a multi-state operation. In short, Grown Rogue is growing.



Beyond their Oregon home base, Grown Rogue has made strategic moves into two additional states – California and Michigan. The Company recently expanded into Michigan with a partner that has secured critical real estate in limited license jurisdictions.


Why Michigan?

Michigan has become the first state, not on the east or west coast, to legalize adult recreational cannabis use. This a huge milestone for the Midwest, but also for the future of the U.S. Here’s why – America’s coast and Midwest might as well be two different countries regarding public opinion. However, cannabis legalization in Michigan signifies a dramatic shift in public opinion…and it’s quickly gone from prohibition to attracting mainstream bipartisan political support.

Company founder and CEO Obie Strickler says that Michigan is an appealing state because it has a mature medical cannabis market and has the second-largest medical cannabis patient base in the US, and the largest per capita. Michigan, with a population of 10 million people, has a larger medical cannabis patient base than Canada. And the hard data speaks for itself – Michigan with 313,000 registered medical cannabis patients, or 3.1%, compared to Canada with a population of approximately 38 million, and 296,000 registered medical patients, or 0.77% where cannabis is fully legal at both provincial and federal levels.

Mr. Strickler believes the company’s experience operating in a highly-competitive market like Oregon makes Grown Rogue well-suited to compete in established recreational and medical markets like California and emerging ones like Michigan.

Here’s what he had to say about this burgeoning market:

“Michigan represents a very large market with significant barriers to entry at the local level. Our partnership with an established cannabis and business team will allow us to rapidly expand and scale the Grown Rogue footprint and brand. We are very diligent in our expansion strategy and in our Michigan leadership we have found the right partners and opportunity to take the proven Grown Rogue platform into the state.”

In a press release from February 25, 2019, the Medford Oregon-based company announced they had “signed a binding agreement which provides the Company the right to acquire certain assets to expand operations into Michigan, pending certain regulatory approvals.”

Details of the agreement are as follows:

• Two strategically-located proposed provisioning centers (retail dispensaries) in high demand regions in Midtown Detroit and Hazel Park where limited municipal licenses have been granted.
• A proposed 19,000 square-foot indoor cultivation and processing facility in Detroit Michigan capable of producing 1.5 million grams of dried cannabis flower annually at full production.
• And, an entity that has received multiple municipal cultivation licenses for a 28-acre parcel located in the northern portion of the lower Michigan peninsula.

Investors should take note that Michigan has the second highest total number of cannabis medical card holders in the United States, second only to California, but uniquely has the highest per capita licensed medical card holders.

STATE	# OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS	STATE POPULATION	# OF PATIENTS PER 1,000 RESIDENTS
Michigan	269,553	9,9962,311	27.06
California	915,845	39,536,653	23.16
Colorado	88,946	5,607,154	15.86
Oregon	45,210	4,142,776	10.91
Washington	80,818	7,405,743	10.91
Massachusetts	48,265	6,859,819	7.04

Razor-sharp Focus on Quality

According to the Mr. Strickler, Grown Rogue’s incredible growth over the past few of years has not been by accident. The Company has made significant investments in the becoming the highest-quality producer of cannabis in Oregon by partnering with academic research psychologists, herbalists, and plant scientists to quantify the effects of cannabis and match those to its branding strategy. The endgame? To create an unparalleled experience for consumers in both the recreational and medical cannabis space.


(Click image to enlarge)

The origins of Grown Rogue began over a decade ago when Obie and his wife Sarah began cultivating cannabis under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. While they started growing medical marijuana as a hobby, the couple soon realized the potential for the plant to bring people together in common goals and create better, healthier lifestyles. The operation quickly expanded to over 50 patients and Grown Rogue was born.

Today, Obie and Sarah’s enthusiasm for the medical benefits of cannabis exceed simple economic interests. And as he explains, their path to enlightenment has been a long and winding one:

“We started as a small medical marijuana company in the mid-2000’s. It’s always been a passion – the health and wellness side of the product and how we saw it through medical conditions as a replacement to traditional pain medications, a better solution than alcohol for relaxation or stress relief. But with the stigma attached to the product, the lack of legality – outside of the medical component – it was never the focus of my professional career. So, simultaneously, I was working in the natural resource sector with a small group of us who were very focussed on project development. But as legalization started to hit, I started to see the change in perception and the way we predicted there would be a monumental shift in the way people looked at the product we thought it was a prime opportunity to start the company.”


(Obie and Sarah Strickler – Grown Rogue Image)

The first thing the Stricklers did when they made the decision to develop the medical operation into a recreational cannabis brand was to recruit an experienced and knowledgeable management team who brought a blend of cannabis business experience and a track record of successful execution in respective categories.

Obie then explained how his background working within regulatory frameworks helped lay the foundation of how Grown Rogue operates both ethically and in strict governmental compliance, today:

“With my experience working in highly-regulated industries, like the mining sector, we created Grown Rogue to be an intersection of those two diverse skillsets. So we formed Grown Rogue in 2016 with the emphasis on taking advantage of the change in perception, our history in medical cannabis, and on our experiences in heavily regulated industries in the natural resource sector to build a recreational-focussed company. And rapidly built our platform based on three things:

• Number one was heavy focus on brands as the ultimate solution for the space.
• Number two – vertical integration. This is going to be a very important early term facet in the industry, mostly because of the fragmentation and volatility that is part of the supply chain.
• (And number three) – taking the platform multi-state because of the restrictions for shipping product out of state. You have to pick up your IP, your expertise, and your management team and place them in jurisdictions where you can create a geographic footprint.”

Obie went on to discuss that the Company’s meteoric growth has not only been a labour of love, but a strategically-planned effort to build and scale a sustainable business model:

“In less than two years we’ve gone from submitting licenses in Oregon to holding assets now in three states with 22 licences in front of us or under control that we plan on developing in the next 6 to 12 months…all of which should all be up and operational. As we continue our expansion, we’re going to take that proven platform and the innovative product component that we’ve developed in Oregon – arguably the most competitive market in the entire world – into new jurisdictions where we have a battle-tested management team who really understand what the consumer is looking for and to apply it to these more acceptable, robust and early-stage markets.”


‘Sweet’ Deal in Edibles Line

In December 2018, the company announced a formal partnership with acclaimed Oregon chocolatier, Jeff Shepherd. Under the terms of the strategic partnership, the two will create THC and CBD-infused chocolate products for markets in California and Oregon under the GRAM and Grown Rogue brand names, which are both wholly-owned by Grown Rogue International Inc.

Obie Strickler commented on the partnership:

“In carefully analyzing our edible line, we wanted to find an expert that not only shared our values but shared our vision for the right experience for customers. Jeff and his team have been pillars of the community and create delicious products, as well as delightful experiences, so we were excited to know Jeff felt the same ways towards our team.”


(Click image to enlarge)


Investors Corner: About the Company

Commencing trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) on November 26, 2018, Grown Rogue International Inc. is a vertically-integrated, multi-state cannabis company curating innovative products to provide consumers with the right cannabis experience. Each of Grown Rogue’s products and strains are categorized and marketed based on unique effects and designed for the full range of a consumers’ lifestyle.

The Company is currently scaling the vertically-integrated model into multiple US markets by incorporating best-in-class manufacturing facilities and a proprietary distribution platform based on Microsoft technology. Grown Rogue’s diverse cannabis product suite includes premium flower, patent-pending nitrogen sealed pre-rolls, oil, and concentrates, along with the aforementioned new edibles product line.

The CEO went on to say this about the Company’s growing footprint and financial outlook moving forward:

“Despite some compression of pricing, Grown Rogue has continued to excel and expand our business model.In fact, we’ve quadrupled our sales from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019. So while we’re in a very competitive market with compressing prices, our approach, our brand, our transparency, and our commitment to the consumer is reaping the benefits of the philosophy we hold inside the Company.”


Meet the Management Team


Left to right: Mike Brady (Director of Sourcing), Sarah Strickler (Director of Community Relations), Obie Strickler (CEO), Elizabeth Bobek (Head of Administration), and Jacques Habra (Chief Strategy Officer).


In Closing

Grown Rogue International Inc. is rapidly expanding beyond Oregon into California and Michigan where they should rapidly scale up revenue and market share. For savvy investors looking for a compelling small cap investment opportunity with a multi-state cannabis presence, this company looks likes a bona fide undervalued asset.


(Click image to play video)




FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.