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Down but not out: Canadian cannabis predicted to rebound

Published on December 23, 2022 by oz. staff

Photo: Adobe Stock/the oz.

Special to the oz.

While growth in the Canadian market hasn’t been as aggressive as expected, we are still seeing overall growth from the previous year.

In recent news, Statistics Canada released October retail sales for the country, with cannabis sales decreasing from September marginally to $389.2 million. The growth per-day slowed, as October has one more day than September. September was revised from $389.9 million to $392.3 million. The sales were up 9.5% from a year ago, the lowest since legalization began and down from the reported 12.2% September growth rate that was revised to 12.5%. In 2022, total sales have increased 18.4% compared to the first 10 months of 2021 to $3.72 billion.

CannaPharmaRx Inc. (OTC Pink: CPMD), a future leader in ultramodern, highly efficient cannabis production facilities announced that it received its cultivation licence from Health Canada.

The licence, LIC-3JCQW6DIU0, is a major step towards production. A standard cultivation licence is necessary for larger companies that want to build and grow in a large-scale facility. Upon receiving the cultivation licence the company can now grow cannabis and sell wholesale to other licensed producers.

Now that the cultivation licence is approved the company anticipates completing the first harvest and sales during Q1 2023 with estimated annual revenue over $30 million.

“The company now has the facility in Cremona in the final preparations of facility opening. As a result of a multi-million dollar off-take agreement, several strains of genetics for a variety of high-quality cannabis products and a cultivation license, we are primed to enter the cannabis market. This keeps us on track to complete our first harvest and distribution during the next few months with rapid revenue expansion,” states Nick Colvin, CEO of CannaPharmaRx.

Tilray Brands Inc., a leading global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company inspiring and empowering the worldwide community to live their very best life, recently announced that the company will release financial results for its second quarter ended Nov. 30, 2022, on Jan. 9, 2023, which has many in the industry abuzz.

This followed their news of the launch of a new limited edition, premium craft flower series by lifestyle brand, RIFF. The brand’s new series is designed to introduce two new collections of craft flower featuring a rotation of limited edition, rare genetics for the discerning RIFF consumer.

With brand roots seeded in a joint effort, RIFF returns with a new collaborative series partnering with talented local craft growers in its community. Under RIFF’s new Orbital flower collection, consumers will find a rotation of incredible indica strains to choose from, while the Crossfade flower collection rotates elevated sativa strains, all crafted to the highest standard.

Serving as the brand’s most refreshing additions to the portfolio with higher THC potencies and elevated terpene levels, the premium craft strains will launch in market under Orbital Indica and Crossfade Sativa with a new, exclusive strain to be introduced for each rotational drop.

Lifeist Wellness Inc. is also looking to expand their offerings as we move into the new year having announced that its wholly owned Canadian cannabis business unit CannMart Inc. is introducing seven new SKUs in Alberta for its award-winning in-house brand Roilty, including Roilty’s first-ever dried flower offering, as well as several complementary new products from Zest. This latest product line expansion, which is expected by April 2023, will solidify the Roilty brand name among provincial buyers and retailers as one of the highest quality concentrates and vapes in the Canadian cannabis industry.

CannMart has grown its Roilty product line in Alberta significantly over the past year, from two SKUs in the Fall 2021 to 16 currently. With the addition of the planned seven new SKUs, the number of active Roilty products in the market in Alberta is expected to be 23. When SKUs from Master Distribution Agreement partners are included, such as Zest, CannMart’s overall offering in Alberta will include 35 active SKUs between Roilty and MDA partners, a significant increase in portfolio and shelf space.

“There is no other way to view the product expansion success of Roilty than through the continued support and belief in the brand from provincial buyers, retailers and budtenders,” commented Daniel Stern, CEO of CannMart. “CannMart continues to expand the Roilty product portfolio, taking advantage of our advanced extraction and manufacturing capabilities and leveraging the popularity of this award-winning brand across Canada. Developing, manufacturing, expanding, and promoting our proprietary brands is a key focus of our asset-lite, risk-mitigated model, and our continued progress is evidence of the success of this strategy.”

When looking at how high the competition is for sales in a Canadian market, High Tide Inc., a leading retail-focused cannabis company with bricks-and-mortar as well as global e-commerce assets, recently announced that according to new data recently released by the cannabis business publication, New Cannabis Ventures, the Company is now Canada’s top revenue-generating cannabis company.

“Since going public, we’ve continuously been a leader in Canadian retail cannabis. According to New Cannabis Ventures, we are now the highest Canadian revenue-generating cannabis company across all three verticals of retail, extraction and growing. This is a testament to our team’s dedication and continued execution to clearly surpass our own internal objectives over the last few years. High Tide was amongst Canada’s top growing companies as ranked by the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine in both 2021 and 2022, reaching a ranking of 21 out of 430 in 2022. This exponential growth was all accomplished without having more than 29 million dollars in our bank at any given time,” said Raj Grover, president and CEO of High Tide.

“We see plenty of opportunities in Canada, the US, and internationally in 2023 and beyond as we continue this strong momentum to further increase our top line significantly. This growth will come from ongoing bricks-and-mortar expansion in Canada as well as our new and existing e-commerce platforms facilitating the sales of consumption accessories and hemp-derived CBD products.”

In a recent article from The Motley Fool titled, Cannabis Stocks – Should Investors Buy Before 2023? “Cannabis stocks are still in for a rocky future. However, it’s a future that will stabilize with time. Think of this as like the beginning of mass alcohol legalization. There were some rocky times, to be sure. However, we’re now in a place where there are large alcohol companies with blue-chip status. With a recovery perhaps on the way, I would consider getting in on cannabis stocks before 2023 is out.”

As we see the industry develop in Canada, and as developments in legislation continue to push forward in the US, there are a variety of indicators pointing to stronger sales over the short and long term. This is especially true as we see more competitive genetics and growing techniques push the price down and the quality up, something that continues to be an issue for attracting consumers away from the legacy market, but is slowly being addressed by the evolution of the legal market.

— InvestorIdeas.com