April 20, colloquially referred to as 4/20, is the cannabis industry’s most famous ‘holiday.’ Every 4/20, retailers across the US report a surge in sales. Though 4/20 originated from times when cannabis was illicit, the date is so ingrained in American culture that the legal cannabis industry has adopted it as ‘the day of cannabis’—a day of activism, recognizing industry pioneers, celebrating achievements—and partaking.
Under a new US administration and with cannabis regulatory reform advancing throughout Europe, this year’s 4/20 provides a unique opportunity to take a closer look at the cannabis industry as a whole and to share predictions of how the market may develop over the course of 2021.
Starting today and continuing for the remainder of the week, industry experts, insiders, and growers will share their insights on the cannabis industry, market trends, and regulations.
urban-gro, Inc.
“The European market is currently valued at $250 million, with estimates it will exceed $30 billion in the next decade,” Brad Nattrass, CEO of urban-gro, observes. The design and engineering company has specialized in the US indoor cannabis industry and now is poised to capitalize on the knowledge gained for the broader indoor Controlled Environment Agriculture market. A recent IPO listing raised capital to expand urban-gro’s solutions and services—with Europe a high priority on their list.
“We see the European cannabis market in a similar state relative to where the US market was five years ago,” comments Brad when asked about his perspective on the EU market. “Each country across the European continent will develop regulations geared toward their culture and consumers. This makes understanding the various regulations a critical component to cultivators’ success—something urban-gro has navigated for medical and adult-use states throughout the US. The benefit to the European cultivators is that we bring nearly a decade of indoor cultivation experience and engineering solutions to benefit what will be a rapid advancement of indoor cultivation facilities throughout Europe.”
“Additionally, with the pandemic highlighting the fragility of supply chains, not only is there a demand for indoor-grown cannabis products in Europe, we are seeing significant demand for turnkey, end-to-end building solutions to support local indoor crop production.”
Cannerald
“Back in 2017-18, everybody in North America wanted to grow,” says Levin Amweg, co-founder of Cannerlad, a Switzerland-based cannabis company. “Then, look at what happened. We are now at a turning point for the industry: all the small companies that didn’t care about quality and their customers won’t be competing anymore by next year. This is because the customer’s mindset has changed. In the past years, people bought everything. Nowadays, on the other hand, people want quality – and that’s exactly why we have set up our business model based on quality. Over the next two years, we will see a growing trend of quality over price.”
Switzerland has recently announced an adult-use cannabis trial, to better understand how a regulated cannabis industry can be managed, as well as its impact on the community. “I think it is really good that Switzerland is doing such a thing,” Levin says. “At the same time, I think the government should allow only GMP-certified companies to participate. We are talking about a regulated sector that people resort to also to medicate, and allowing everyone to participate is not the correct way, in my opinion.”