How Grown Rogue's Craft Cannabis Model is Disrupting the Industry ft. Obie Strickler

How Grown Rogue's Craft Cannabis Model is Disrupting the Industry ft. Obie Strickler

Obie Strickler: This is what people thought cannabis should be, and I think we're about to embark upon delivering some of those things that everyone was hoping for. Bryan Fields: What's up guys, welcome back to an episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellan Finney. This week we've got a very special guest, Obie Strickler. Obie, thanks for taking the time — how are you doing today? Obie Strickler: Yeah, I'm doing great, you guys. Appreciate having me on and looking forward to it — excited to dive in and talk about Grown Rogue. Kellan Finney: Doing really well, really excited to talk to Obie, really excited to dive into a really powerful West Coast company coming east, so super excited. How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I'm excited. I think there's a lot of misnomers out there about craft cannabis, and I think profitability should be tied into all that every single time. I think today we're really going to dive into some of the nuts and bolts that make Obie and his team pretty special. Before we started recording, Obie, we were talking about some battle-tested elements, and I'm excited to get your take on some of those experiences so anyone listening can learn through some of the ups and downs. Before we start, can you give a little background about yourself and some of the early days at Grown Rogue? Obie Strickler: Yeah, so I'm born and raised in Oregon, been here my whole life. Met my wife here, we've got kids. We've always had a strong passion for cannabis. My professional education is in geology, so we kind of had a dual path early on — started in the early 2000s when medical marijuana in Oregon began, and we always had this side-hustle medical marijuana caregiver business we were running. But then I spent a bunch of my professional career running big natural resource projects. We built a really nice cultivation business — it was always around freedom of choice, holistic healing. Obviously people use it for recreation, but we saw firsthand the health and medical benefits cannabis could provide for pain and sleep. We're big on freedom of choice and people's right to choose, and everything in moderation — you can abuse anything, cannabis being one of them, but moderation is critical. We did that dual path for about ten years, mostly focused on outdoor cannabis. I also got into mining work on the geology side, did a tech company for a bit, and then around 2014-2015 we started seeing the perception shift — cannabis becoming less egregious and more acceptable. Canada was going through its legalization process, and in the mining sector I had a fair amount of experience with public companies — we were on junior exchanges with assets in the U.S. and internationally. So it was like, if we're going to do this, we're passionate about it, I was traveling a bunch — now's the time. We started Grown Rogue officially in 2016, early 2017, took it public in 2018, and made a ton of mistakes. We were all over the place, listening to what people told us we should do — expand quickly, raise a bunch of cash, get into every market, be vertical — and that was a disaster for us. It wasn't where our passion lay. We were operating in Oregon, one of the first states to go through an aggressive compression cycle — oversupplied, prices going down. I was telling everyone at that point, wait till Canada turns on millions of square feet of greenhouse in areas you don't want to grow in — just wait. That came true. By 2019-2020 we were running out of money, not excited about what we were doing, spread too thin. So I reorganized the entire business to focus on cultivation. We sold our California asset, got out of distribution, stopped chasing acquisitions all over the country. I said let's do what we're passionate about — profitability, discipline, systems, process. That became the foundation for what Grown Rogue is today: a high-quality, low-cost, extremely efficient cannabis cultivator. We spent probably two years really defining that — cost control, discipline, planning — and got Oregon and Michigan into very profitable operations with products customers really wanted. If we were a private company, I might have taken a break to collect the profits, but that's not my personality. I want to build the first nationally recognized craft cannabis company in the U.S. We're also public — we'd taken people's money, they expected growth. So the next thing to prove was, can we scale? That's what we set off to do starting in late 2022, early 2023, with our partnership with Goodness Growth — a test to see if our team could take on more responsibility, because it's all about your team. We then announced the New Jersey asset, which we're just about to turn on — we're through the final steps of construction for phase one. We subsequently announced an Illinois opportunity that's in design and engineering. Our goal now is to run and roll out one to two states a year within our business model, which is 1,200 pounds a month, and just start stepping these things out. We build them efficiently — sub-$10 million to turn these things on — so we're very capital efficient. We think that's the right size for a market to get the right scarcity for the customer, maintain quality, and get enough scale for cost efficiencies. We think we've got a bit of a moat — as much as people say cultivation is a commodity, very few people can do what we do, and we think there's actually a protectable moat because it's hard to replicate. That's the ten-thousand-foot view of where we came from and where we're at today. Kellan Finney: I want to stay with the decision to sell those assets and double down on cultivation — that must have been a very defining moment internally. I'm sure there were outside voices with opinions, maybe some people internally too. Take us through that conversation — was there difficulty internally, did you always know in your heart this was the right move, or was there doubt? Take us through that complicated and difficult decision that set you on the right path. Obie Strickler: I'll talk about how easy it was, but the reality is it was a super challenging time in Grown Rogue's progression. The first thing we did is anyone who didn't agree with that approach, we fired and got rid of. We cleaned house — people focused on capital markets and distractions, we said you're no longer part of the organization. That was difficult; these were people who helped us through the first few years, but you have migration in your team as the business adjusts, and they need to adjust with it. So those people left, and the people who stayed believed in the strategy and vision. The next thing we did, which everyone hated and I got yelled at for constantly, was we ignored all the capital markets noise. We told investors, leave us alone, we're not doing any more IR, no more marketing — we're only focused on building a sustainable business, and it's going to take a couple years, give us time, and if you don't have time, sell your stock. We took a ton of pressure. Most people believed in that and held, and they've been well rewarded, but those were the two big things. It wasn't easy, but it was necessary — especially when you look at California, everyone saying there are 38 million people there, it's the biggest market, why wouldn't you want to be there, just grind it out. But that grinding is crazy expensive, it burns people out. Bryan Fields: Did you have support from your board when you decided to trim the fat and go back to your North Star, or was there a journey of explaining yourself and how you came to that rationale? Obie Strickler: The board's been very supportive. There was dialogue and questions around philosophy and strategy, but hindsight's always easy — there's a ton of companies that didn't make the hard choices we made. We used to track a lot of the West Coast public companies — guess what, they're all pretty much gone. Halo's gone, Chalice is gone, Lowell's gone, I mean Glass House was kind of new, they're still here, but the ones that kept growth at all costs with no discipline, no financial management, no real business plan — how many companies do you look at and go, who are you, what do you do? That's the thing about Grown Rogue — we know exactly who we are and exactly what we're going to do. Either you agree with that or you don't, and if you don't, there are a thousand other companies to spend time with. The board bought into that, but obviously there were discussions, and it wasn't easy. As an entrepreneur, having to retrench and retract is hard — we're passionate, we all have egos, we all want to grow, we all want to be the biggest. That was a tough step in my professional development, but it was one hundred percent the right decision. Bryan Fields: I think seeing the competitive advantage your team has acquired through this process is powerful, when so many peers do many things but nothing amazing. Let's stay with ripping up the states and figuring out efficiency and profitability. You decided to let go of assets and double down on cultivation, wanting to understand from a profitability standpoint where all the holes in your process were. Was that a 360-degree view, did you have a team go through it and figure out where the leaks were? Take us through that process of understanding your strengths and weaknesses internally and how you fortified the moat. Obie Strickler: We had the right pieces — when we refocused the business we got a lot of alignment on our team around being a cultivator only, which simplified things, but it was a grind. There was a period where I was so far down in the day-to-day operations, literally going line by line through inventory, figuring out how we manage and sell it, because inventory is death — if you stack it, you're not monetizing it, and you can still report good EBITDA but your inventory is growing and you're a cash company. I focus on cash. I went deep personally — I wasn't really a CEO at that point, I didn't care about expansion or growth, it was about building a business no longer dependent on outside influences. That's what we have today, and it's incredibly rewarding to be self-sufficient. We may not be the biggest or grow the fastest, but we're not dependent on outside cash or influence. I just saw this morning the Viridian Credit Tracker — we've been the number two credit rating for years, this tiny little company, and we're not so tiny anymore, people are starting to recognize it. That discipline has been a really important part of our mantra ever since we redefined who we wanted to be. And with that comes passion — I'm not even a huge consumer anymore, but we all love weed, we love flower, we love watching it grow, we love our genetic planning, seeing new stuff come through, and our team is fully aligned toward that. Working with a lot of other companies, I don't see that same alignment — you can't fake passion from the top, and a lot of really good teams don't get the support they need. I think one thing that made Grown Rogue unique is our operations teams — our cultivators, our fertigation and post-harvest people — know my commitment and Sarah's, my wife's, commitment, and the support we have for the product. We prioritize quality over almost anything, and there's a lot of respect from the legacy side of the industry. Grown Rogue has been great at professionalizing a very robust legacy market, empowering growers who say, "I could never get an interview with a big MSO because I don't have a college degree," and we say, I don't care if you have a college degree, you're a savage in the grow room, that's what I need — great growing results. They feel that, and you can't fake that piece. I think we have a lot of authenticity as it relates to the legacy and history of this industry, while simultaneously getting our team aligned that this is a business — we do have to make hard decisions, we do need to worry about cash. It's been a really good balance. Kellan Finney: Do you think getting so deep into the weeds of day-to-day operations really helped refocus the culture and all those items you touched on? Obie Strickler: A hundred percent. Culture is a great buzzword and everyone talks about prioritizing it, but my office is in the grow — my team sees me every day. I talk about "presence" all the time. It's easy to talk about doing events or a pizza party, but what people really want is to look through a window and see the leader of the company working his ass off — that motivates them more than anything else I could do. That focus and commitment has driven the global commitment our company has to be excellent, and it transcends from leadership all the way down to the techs working in the grow rooms — that pride and passion to bring the best. We are really good, and that's rewarding — they see the excitement, the quality, the market share we get, and that gets people excited that they're part of building something real. It demonstrates how challenging the cannabis industry is, and having your hands in the dirt, fighting every day, people down the chain respect that, and it translates through to doing things the right way. Bryan Fields: It seems like your team understands the intricate details and importance of efficiency and expertise, in an industry where it's easy to cut corners. Do you think those small details are underappreciated by the outside industry, in terms of recognizing how critical operational expertise is for long-term success? Obie Strickler: Yes, I don't think most folks appreciated that this is a manufacturing industry. This might come off a little politically incorrect, but I don't care anymore — you had a ton of very smart Harvard-educated attorneys, MBAs, super smart folks who looked at the illegal cannabis sector and saw "dumb hippies." They thought, look how much money this person's making without a college degree, they don't seem sophisticated — and they took a spreadsheet and said, if they have ten lights and do twelve pounds, we'll do ten million lights and look how this scales. That's not how business works. It's not software, it doesn't scale like that, and they forgot there are steps in the process. When we reentered focusing on tribute to the operational work, I remind my accounting and finance team, you all work for the grow team — the only reason you're here is because they produce stuff you have to account for. Don't think you're all high and mighty. I prioritize the operational side much more than the business side, and most companies don't. We are a cultivation-operations-focused business, and our whole team gets that. Kellan Finney: Why do you think it doesn't scale as easily as that Excel spreadsheet example? Obie Strickler: We're starting to prove maybe it does once you have the right systems in place, but I think it's because we're manufacturing, and there's an artistry to what we do on the cultivation side. You can scale distillate pretty easily — think of a Select, it's a chemical, a molecule, THC. But the artistry around high-quality flower production, which is our niche, takes years of experience. You can't just work in a company for five years and think you've got it. My national director of cultivation has been in this industry a long time — he's good because when he was growing, it was his livelihood; if he screwed up and the crop didn't work, he might not eat or pay rent. That intensity is hard to replicate. It's also a lack of understanding of what the consumer really wants. New Jersey has crazy pricing for terrible weed — in an early market you can put anything on a shelf and charge that price and not know any different. We're in Oregon, where people have been smoking weed a long time, and there's product here you couldn't sell that would sell fine in these early markets. That creates a different knowledge base and sets habits, and once established, habits are very difficult to break. Bryan Fields: Let's talk about payback periods — I really appreciate how clear that is in your business. Combining your expertise and efficiency, take us through how you come to those payback periods in markets like New Jersey and Illinois. Obie Strickler: It depends on the market and pricing, but a good example specific to Grown Rogue: we spent about $5 million total in Michigan to get to size, plus some upgrades — a bit of HVAC, adding a few things. Michigan will do about $6 million of EBITDA this year, so on $5 million of capex we're already ahead — we did $4 million last year. We measure paybacks in these markets at definitely less than two years, probably less than one. Something we don't talk about enough operationally — you can see it in our financial reporting, our margins, our cost per pound of production is really good, we've hit below $600 a pound adjusted, which is close to perfection and hard to maintain in perpetuity. We're targeting sub-$700, trying to get into the $600s and extend how long we can operate at peak performance. On capital invested, most projects we look at cost around $300 a square foot as the standard, and I've been trying to figure out why, because we built Michigan — granted with some improvement — and we have 50,000 square feet operating for $5 million, so that's $100 a foot. Jersey is a brand-new build, a little more sophisticated — better HVAC, panels instead of drywall, a fancier fertigation system — that'll probably be $160-170 a foot, so still $100 cheaper than standard. That makes our payback shorter because we're not spending as much cash. Jersey is a 50,000-square-foot building, sub-$10 million to build, probably 8,000 pounds a month, though we think we'll hit 12,000 — using 10,000 pounds a month for easy numbers, at $3,000 a pound that's a $36 million top-line business. Even conservatively at a thousand pounds because we're not as efficient out of the gate, that's $2,000 a pound of profit — we're paying that back in less than a year, maybe six months. The economics are insane. I think that's why you're seeing the performance in our stock — we've proven a model, and if Grown Rogue can execute and pricing holds, which we don't expect to last forever, but New Jersey looks pretty strong, the economics are ridiculous. This is what people thought cannabis should be, and I think we're about to embark upon delivering some of those things everyone was hoping for. Kellan Finney: How much of that cost savings per building is attributed to going back to focusing on operational efficiencies, versus other organizations including a lot of extra accessories just in case? Obie Strickler: Great question, one I've wanted to answer for the last year, and we're getting closer as we do more sophisticated builds and talk to more contractors and other companies about spending. I think it's two things. One, we don't over-engineer anything — we do a lot of internal work rather than paying a contractor to design something, so maybe half the savings come from little things, saving two or three bucks a foot here and there because we grind on it. It's easy to spend someone else's money, and a lot of this money is ours, so I look at every dollar like it's my own. The other thing is, because we own our process, we're willing to take a more aggressive approach. We're not a consultant — I was a consultant for years in mining, and as a consultant you have a professional responsibility to over-engineer to ensure something works, and a lot of them still aren't perfect. Companies overdesign — with HVAC, for example, we'll do a bottoms-up, first-principles analysis, decide we need a certain number of tons, and if operations show it's not quite right we'll add a bit more. A consultant will say thirty is probably okay but we'll give you fifty just in case, for that one day in summer when it's 110 degrees. We don't care about that one day — we'll be a little hot in the room. So instead of spending $10 million on HVAC, we'll spend four. That's where I see the big cost differences. We also don't overcomplicate things — people have been growing weed in basements a long time, we don't need anything fancy. A great example: Acreage is going through challenges right now, and we bought one of their Oregon facilities — they paid a lot of money for a control system from a local company that had never done one before. The first thing we did was disconnect it because it didn't work. That probably wasn't a huge number, three or four hundred thousand dollars, but that's money we don't waste. Bryan Fields: How do you choose new states to expand to, Obie? Is it about population, or specific cities — walk us through those decisions. Obie Strickler: We're a little opportunistic about it. We've talked internally about getting more process-driven, but the industry is too fluid to just say we want to be in a market and go find it. We have good relationships — Jersey came through a good friend of mine who used to work in Oregon, Illinois came through one of our investors. We have some criteria and want to get more structured as we start turning these on more methodically. We want markets that are either early adult-use or transitioning — I wouldn't want to go into a market like Minnesota five years ago and fight medical-market challenges. We think the inflection point from medical to adult-use is a great time to enter, and we want markets with a more limited-license component, so Jersey and Illinois we love. Going forward, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri are still interesting; there are new markets turning on that we'll watch, but they're a little too early for us since we're really a recreational adult-use company. We get tons of inbound from places like Massachusetts, but that market's kind of past the curve for us. There's only so much we can execute on, so we're thoughtful about bandwidth. We're patient — if we say we want a market or two a year but don't get one, that's okay, we won't force it. As people find cultivation very hard, Grown Rogue has access to cash, and there's not much cash in the market right now — our balance sheet is strong with internal cash. That's made us a preferred partner, and we're a good partner too — we do what we say, we're transparent, we communicate well, and we've proven that in Michigan, Jersey, and Illinois. People want to work with us. Kellan Finney: Take us through the complicated balance of entering new states while bringing the right flower genetics for those states, given consumer preferences and education levels vary — a consumer in Oregon likely doesn't have the same preference as one in New Jersey. Obie Strickler: We definitely see that, so we run a very decentralized organization, pushing decision-making down to the state level with leadership who understands the market. There's a lot of crossover, but nuances within each market too. We look at genetics like fashion — a flower company, people don't want the same Starbucks coffee every day, they want variety, but there's crossover. It's not that complicated — they want color, like purple, which is very popular; in Oregon if it's not purple it's hard to sell. They want it to smell good and have decent to high potency, so a lot of characteristics are similar, but leadership prioritizes certain genetics through a very disciplined genetic-planning process — every two weeks our team meets to go through what's in the lineup, what's selling, what's growing well, and makes adjustments. Diversity is critical — we like to keep everything under about ten percent, six or seven percent of total production, so with a thousand pounds a month we don't want more than sixty to a hundred pounds of one strain, even if it's running away as a leader, because people get tired of seeing the same thing every day — they want the new tennis shoe, the new t-shirt. We cycle through genetics fast; a good genetic might last a year, but occasionally you get an outlier, like the Blue Runtz in Michigan, which is maybe twenty percent of the business and we can't keep it in stock. I pushed to put my national post-harvest director into that planning meeting, and even he said, "are we growing too much of this?" and I said you're late to the party, I've been saying this for a year, they cannot get enough Blue Runtz. Meanwhile in Oregon people like it but we're taking it out of the lineup — every now and then you get an outlier, but generally a strain lasts six months to a year and then you move to the next thing. We do some internal breeding to get proprietary genetics, and one of our goals for the end of 2025 is to get our breeding program more robust. Our national director of cultivation is tied into what breeders are doing, so we get early access to hot new genetics with the right characteristics. You have to stay on point with genetics, because if you go stale, consumers move to a different producer very quickly. Bryan Fields: It's got to be an extremely complicated balance given all those factors from a timing and state standpoint. Obie Strickler: It's just good planning, and maintaining the disciplines that got us to this point. As things get better and feel more sustainable, we can't lose that — it's like getting in great shape, you have to maintain the discipline of going to the gym every day; it's easy to lose and hard to get back. That goes to our background — my wife Sarah was a D1 athlete, one of the most disciplined people I've ever met. That percolates down through the business. We just had a meeting yesterday about a reorg — I promoted a new GM in Oregon because I was the de facto GM but my bandwidth is limited now. We need a new org chart on paper, job descriptions for new roles — it's the little things we do every day that create the business that looks great from the outside but takes a lot of work inside. Kellan Finney: Who is a Grown Rogue customer? For someone listening who's never tried the brand, maybe an East Coaster looking at the New Jersey opportunity — who is this person, what elements would make them interested in your products? Obie Strickler: We're definitely a flower company, so this is a flower consumer, and our target is younger — you kind of age out of cannabis a little. When I was young in college I could smoke and be fully functional, play basketball, get great grades; now if I smoke a joint I need a couple hours. I think it's a younger, hip consumer who cares about flower quality and is price-conscious. We're probably not attracting many 60-year-olds — it's 21-plus, but the core is probably 18 to 30, where the majority of our consumption happens. They're heavy consumers. Early on, everyone wanted to target the soccer mom with disposable income, and beverages might finally be the product that reaches that consumer, but my sister-in-law is a heavy executive with disposable income who smokes weed — I visited her in Portland, went to a fancy shop, thought the product looked like garbage, and she was impressed by a $600 light fixture. I asked how many vape carts she smokes a week, and she said maybe one or two a year. That was a realization — she's not really our customer, I might make twelve dollars off her a year. Our customers are heavy, functional consumers — not stoners laying on the couch all day, but people for whom it's part of a lifestyle and experience. One of our taglines is about enhancing experiences — going to the river, hanging with buddies, mountain bike rides, the Redwoods. It's an experience-based enhancer while maintaining functionality — not the typical stereotype of someone baked on the couch all day. Bryan Fields: How do you balance your time between the new states coming online and maintaining operations in Oregon? Obie Strickler: No boundaries, I guess — a lot of firefighting. As we've scaled and gotten more competent across the business, it's given me a lot of confidence in our team's ability to take on projects. We've done a fair amount of reorganization in the last year — retrofitted our accounting team, got a new controller, a VP of business analytics role we built for a candidate we liked so much we created a role for him, plus internal promotions. I'd actually say I feel slightly less busy today than I did a year and a half to two years ago, when I was so far down in the business, some of that stress being around cash. My core focus is ensuring our current states stay on the path — Q1 was fantastic, we reported a 37% EBITDA margin, I think the best Q1 EBITDA margin of any public cannabis company, in competitive markets, during traditionally slow months, with record revenue. A lot of my time right now is on Jersey — I've got five things on our board's list for goals: Jersey execution, cost control, yield, sell-through, and culture. Then expansion, and I'm becoming more of a true CEO with more strategy and deal structure work, negotiations across the business, more capital markets conversations — talking to more bankers, though I try to minimize that. I was on with another outlet yesterday, doing this with you guys today, telling our story a bit more as we get more secure in who we're going to be. But I try not to get carried away — we have to maintain operational focus, and a lot of time goes to cash. I still review almost all of the AP every two weeks. I've been trusting the team a lot lately, and they're crushing it — I couldn't be more proud to go to battle with them every day. Kellan Finney: What is the most popular or most recognizable brand for Grown Rogue nationally? Obie Strickler: You mean which strain or brand is most popular for us? I'd say the Blue Runtz in Michigan, just because it's maybe twenty percent of the business out there, so that's one we've definitely built a reputation on. Bryan Fields: Which strain do you think is the most underrated? Obie Strickler: I very rarely get a question I don't have a good answer to, and that's one of them. Underrated strains happen mostly because the smoke is really good — when we evaluate a genetic we look at appearance, smell, bag appeal, potency, and we smoke it. Sometimes something smokes really good but doesn't have the other characteristics, so no one wants to buy it — those are the underrated strains, unfortunately we don't grow many of those because the consumer is who we work for. As for brands, we're kind of a single-brand company — Grown Rogue is the brand. We recently launched a brand called Yeti, which has really good packaging and balances quality and cost for pre-rolls. It's exceeded expectations — we launched it in December in both markets and are already selling a couple hundred pounds a month combined. That product can scale faster than Grown Rogue because Grown Rogue is a flower brand you can't just license — the quality has to be so tight. Yeti as a pre-roll has more ability to go into a new market, using smalls, without being quite as strict on quality since it's more of a price play. We're happy about that brand, but we don't want a bunch of brands — we want to build the Grown Rogue brand and think there's plenty of opportunity to keep pushing that rather than diluting focus with new brands. Kellan Finney: Dream smoking session, three people, dead or alive? Obie Strickler: I've never been asked that. Luca Doncic, because I love what he's doing right now and he'd be fun to smoke a joint with — that's number one. I've got to put my wife in there, Sarah, because if I smoke I need her with me, she's amazing. And I'd love to smoke a joint with Elon Musk. So Luca, Elon, and Sarah — that's my trio. Obie Strickler: What's your three? Bryan Fields: That's fair, I've never been asked that back either. Derek Jeter, Mark Cuban, and — I've thought about this a million times and never landed my third — maybe Kobe Bryant. Obie Strickler: Kobe would be an amazing one, though you said they had to be alive — but good answers. Bryan Fields: What question do you wish more people asked you? Obie Strickler: In interviews with salespeople, I ask what color car they drive — the point is to gauge how well they listen, since it's surprising how many say what kind of car it is but don't register the color. It reminds me of that. I don't think people ask enough about culture and how critical it is to a successful organization. People want to talk about operational efficiencies, stock, financial performance, strains — not enough about the engine that drives this business, which is our people. There should be more emphasis on great leadership and operational management teams, because a lot of companies have gotten in trouble by outgrowing their talent — plenty of cash, no talent. More questions about the team would be good for people to focus on. Bryan Fields: Prediction time — what is your vision for craft cannabis in ten years, and what new advantages will consumers experience? Obie Strickler: I think you'll see a small component of nationally recognized craft cannabis companies, probably ten or fewer, with true national recognition around brand, quality, and consumer loyalty. Ten years is realistic — we're still early on consumer preferences. I think beverages will be huge, though not direct competition to the Grown Rogue model since they're different experiences. I think you'll see slow socialization and mainstream acceptance of marijuana, THC, whatever you want to call it. It needs to be regulated better — I don't like the hemp loophole where there isn't much age restriction or testing; that wasn't the intention of the Farm Bill. Think about alcohol versus THC at a bar or a basketball game — I see THC beverages being a big part of the evolution of recreational consumption away from alcohol in the U.S. and the world over the next ten years, which I think will be fantastic. Bryan Fields: A hundred percent agree, and I think consumers are going to expect high-quality products at fair prices, consistently delivered, and what your team is doing is on the right track. As the shakeout continues, I expect more consumers will have expectations around products like yours, and I'm looking forward to watching your team grow. Obie, for our listeners who want to get in touch and learn more, where can they find you? Obie Strickler: Our products are in the markets we operate — Oregon, Michigan — and you can probably find some in Maryland and Minnesota right now; Jersey's coming soon. If you want to learn more about the company, go to our website, invest.growrogue.com, or send us an email. Jake, who runs our IR, does a ton of work for us and is great to talk to. We're happy to talk to folks — reach out, that's the best way to track us down. Bryan Fields: I'll leave it there — thanks for taking the time, this was a lot of fun. Obie Strickler: All right, thanks a lot, appreciate it.