Deal Makes Florida Company Largest Marijuana Retailer

Deal Makes Florida Company Largest Marijuana Retailer

By Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Trulieve, the state’s largest medical marijuana operator, is now the nation’s biggest cannabis retailer, after closing on a $2.1 billion deal to acquire former competitor Harvest Health & Recreation Inc.

The transaction marks a major development in Florida, where Harvest held one of 22 licenses to cultivate, process and sell medical marijuana to a growing patient population, and in the nation’s rapidly expanding pot industry.

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers called the closing of the deal a “transformational milestone” in her Gadsden County-based company’s brief history.

“When we really started five short years prior, I wasn’t taking a salary and I was in the back making capsules and ensuring that shipments went out on time. Obviously, there’s been incredible growth. We started this company with patients in mind and with an absolute dedication to a steadfast focus on providing access and medical cannabis to patients in the state of Florida, specifically. So that mission hasn’t changed,” Rivers told The News Service of Florida in a phone interview.

Trulieve was one of the state’s first medical marijuana operators, launching after Florida lawmakers in 2014 approved non-euphoric cannabis for patients with severe epilepsy. The company blossomed after Florida voters in 2016 passed a constitutional amendment that broadly legalized medical marijuana.

Harvest, which got its start in Florida as Gainesville-based San Felasco Nurseries, was also an early entrant in the state’s cannabis industry, receiving a license from the Florida Department of Health in 2016 as the state geared up for the anticipated passage of the constitutional amendment.

With the acquisition of Harvest finalized, Trulieve will have 149 retail locations in 11 states including Florida, more than 3.1 million square feet of cultivation and just over 8,500 employees. Before the deal closed, Trulieve had 85 retail sites in Florida.

“We’ll have approximately 37 percent more retail locations than the next closest competitor and 50 percent more, or a million square feet more, cultivation than the next closest competitor,” Rivers said of Trulieve’s national footprint.

Because Florida law does not allow medical marijuana operators to hold more than one license, Harvest auctioned off its license to pave the way for its sale to Trulieve. Planet 13, which operates in Nevada and California, paid $55 million in cash for the Harvest license.

Meanwhile, Harvest’s 14 retail locations in Florida will be closed temporarily in October as they are converted to the Trulieve brand and Harvest employees undergo Trulieve training.

“It will be the same faces when they go back. We’re keeping all of those folks on board and welcoming them onto the Trulieve team,” Rivers said.

Trulieve is establishing a “a regional hub strategy” across the U.S., with hubs in Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona, Rivers said, to be better positioned as more states approve medical marijuana and others legalize adult recreational use of marijuana.

The regional focus should offset patient concerns about the “big boxing” of the marijuana business, according to Rivers.

She also said Trulieve — which operates in states where recreational use of marijuana is legal as well as others where marijuana is restricted for medical use — has a 75 percent retention rate among customers.

According to a news release issued Friday morning, Trulieve reported revenues of $215.1 million in the second quarter of 2021 and net income of $40.9 million, while Harvest reported revenues of $102 million. Combined, the companies — traded on the Canadian Stock Exchange — had the highest reported revenues among U.S. publicly reported cannabis companies, the release said.

The marijuana industry has skyrocketed throughout the country over the past few years.

But as other states move ahead with legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, such efforts in Florida have flailed.

The Florida Supreme Court twice this year rejected proposed constitutional amendments aimed at allowing people to use recreational marijuana. In April, justices said the ballot summary of a proposal put forward by the committee Make It Legal Florida would mislead “voters into believing that the recreational use of marijuana in Florida will be free of any repercussions, criminal or otherwise.” The conclusion of it being misleading stemmed from marijuana remaining illegal under federal law.

Supporters of recreational use have been pushing Congress to legalize marijuana, which would make it easier for states to authorize recreational use. But recreational use isn’t the only way for Trulieve and other marijuana companies to continue to expand.

“We’re thinking about how the landscape is today as well as where the landscape potentially will go in the future. We try, of course, to stay one step ahead of that. But I think it’s important to note that there are a lot of states surrounding the state of Florida that are just now onboarding medical programs. So we do think that there’s a significant runway ahead on the medical side, as we look at the Southeast,” Rivers said. “So, the landscape across the U.S. is going to continue to evolve as it has for the last several years, kind of regardless of what happens in D.C.”

13 Responses to "Deal Makes Florida Company Largest Marijuana Retailer"

  1. You know, I have to say, some of the ” contributors” above a quite misinformed.
    There’s been one death in history attributed to marijuana.
    The case being a fungus on the cannibals that infected the lungs, and the result was death as the proper treatment wasn’t available.
    As far as tobacco and distilled spirits along with alcoholic beverages, accidents, medical maladies, overdoses, poisoning and of course violent actions I’d have to say that if you look at the mortality rate of tobacco and maladies, and alcohol you will find that over a half of a million a year isn’t a nice number.
    Example, use of cocaine, alone one effect, use of alcohol another, use of both at the same time creates a entirely different drug with a different outcome. Usually not very acceptable to the user, the human body, nor the family and friends when they see cessation of breathing of their friend or lived one.
    Simple rules.
    Moderation, nothing in excess.
    Crossing cannibals with anything even alcohol will give a different effect just as taking any medication and crossing it with another.
    Simple fact.
    Nicotine is a drug.
    Sugar is a drug.
    Caffeine is a drug.
    Alcohol is a drug.
    Why are they legal?
    TAX MONEY. ITS ALWAYS ABOUT MONEY.
    IT WILL ALWAYS BE ABOUT MONEY.
    Your paying your own health insurance and they will still tell you what’s safe
    Interesting, Marijuana is legal in the nations capital, hey they tell you what is good for you , but it doesn’t apply to them.

  2. I do not believe that corruption is a politically partisan issue in this county. We have non-partisan offices locally and the Republican/Democrat label seems fairly meaningless at this point. We citizens should all unite around what is corruption and fight to end it without blaming it on one party or the other.

  3. So when is it going to be legal, Florida? Its gonna happen. We are missing a Financial bonanza here! From Tourism alone…

  4. Meanwhile people are still arrested everyday for possession and trafficking charges. This whole thing is a sham – just legalize it already!

  5. I hate that place so now they will monopolize pushing their sprayed with chemicals weed. These comments are priceless …pass the popcorn ask about their higher than normal turnover of staff. Awful customer service and orders constantly wrong as employees brag about buying up everything with their discounts doing deals in the parking lots um no thanks

  6. I can’t grow one plant in my backyard but Kim Rivers, her criminal husband, Nikki Fried and Halsey Beshears can make billions of dollars growing acres of the stuff and then selling it at black market prices. They are all criminals and we know it

    It just stinks to high heaven and everyone knows it. Those people are the most odious, wretched people I have ever been in contact with. You need a shower just being in the same room…

  7. Kim needs to make lots of money and make lots of “medical” maryjane so she can supply all the sick inmates in the prison where JT will be housed. I’m sure she doesn’t want hubby to be in a “car accident” while in prison.

  8. Lets take a moment to observe how leftist media protects their agenda of weed for everyone in the near future.
    Had the weed industry not been an agenda item for the leftist leaning Florida giant “The News Service of Florida” we would have been treated to the rehashing of the Tallahassee corruption trial and pending sentencing of Kim Rivers husband J. T. Burnett.
    However weed for all in the near future is a leftist priority agenda and therefore we get the shuffling dance around the J. T. Burnett entire connection to weed queen Kim Rivers by the leftist media giant.

    Hey just want to be sure such an important aspect of the article above which you just read did not pass you by.
    You are welcome.

  9. Keep’em stoned, dumb, and malleable… it makes them easier to control.

    … it’s the SPDC (Social Progressive DemoKKKrat Communist) way don’t ya know

Leave a Reply to Stoned Associate Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.