"Missouri's Smooth Entry into the Cannabis Market" Nicholas Rinella, the CEO of Hippos Cannabis, a Missouri-based vertically integrated cannabis company joins Dan Humiston to provide Missouri cannabis market insight. He talks about Hippos Cannabis' production facility in Vienna, Missouri, and three dispensaries across the state. He also discussed the benefits of being located in The Ozarks and their plan expansion plans. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Hippos Cannabis - https://hipposcannabis.com/ Nicholas Rinella - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasrinella/ Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
"Missouri's Smooth Entry into the Cannabis Market"
Nicholas Rinella, the CEO of Hippos Cannabis, a Missouri-based vertically integrated cannabis company joins Dan Humiston to provide Missouri cannabis market insight. He talks about Hippos Cannabis' production facility in Vienna, Missouri, and three dispensaries across the state. He also discussed the benefits of being located in The Ozarks and their plan expansion plans.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Hippos Cannabis - https://hipposcannabis.com/
Nicholas Rinella - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasrinella/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00] The M Bulls Raising Cannabis Capital Podcast. We are joined by Nicholas, the CEO of Hippos Cannabis. Nicholas, welcome to the show.
Hey Dan. Thanks for having me.
Well, I appreciate being here. As we talked when we first started, you are officially the first. Missouri cannabis company that's been on the show at least since wreck. I can't remember back before then, but I think you are the first one.
So I have a lot of questions. And we, when we hear all these states, they're just fumbling their way through it and messing up one. I mean, Illinois comes to mind right away. It is so refreshing to see a state like Missouri just seems like just breeze right through the whole process. You guys are up and running.
Your sales are. Are incredible. The state's been just done great stuff as far as that goes. Well, you're there. You're on the ground. What was it like? Tell us about the process and just give us a quick [00:01:00] overview so understand.
Well, first I'm, I'm happy to be on here and I'm excited to talk about the Missouri market. Like anything, everything looks a little prettier from the outside. But it's been a great market. I've, I've operated in other markets, operated in California prior to this, and I'm originally from Illinois.
And I grew up in the beverage space, so I've been working in regulator markets really my whole life. It, it was a, it was a great transition. Part of the reason the transition was so smooth was because it was built into the regulations themselves. And so when we drafted the the ballot initiative that ended up passing that ended up in the Missouri constitution.
And so that's always, a nice thing when you're doing a ballot initiative is, legislators don't have a choice. They have to kind of do with whatever you've presented. And so they had a a short window of time, I believe it was either 90 or 60 days to implement the program, and that's what they did.
And so we were off to the races. As anybody [00:02:00] knows in the cannabis space, you have medical and you have recreational cannabis. And at the end of the day, it's the same thing. And so we don't have a separation of licenses. We have dual licenses in the state of Missouri.
So, that was also something that the state helped to make things easier as well, where if you were in good standing with your medical license, you were automatically granted your recreation license. And so there wasn't any additional red tape which made things a lot smoother.
That's great. I, I think I laugh when you say that because I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with people not in the industry. And they're like, well, I only use medical, medical marijuana. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, I don't touch that rec stuff. I'm like, ok. Alright, good. Well, let's talk about, let's talk about your business.
I, we jumped on, you mentioned started off by, it's integrated, so give quick overview of your operations and then we'll take it from there.
[00:03:00] Absolutely. So, like you said, we're a vertically integrated company. Our production facility where we cultivate and manufacture is based in Vienna, Missouri, which is in the heart of the Ozarks. A lot of people didn't know where the Ozarks were and then that show came out. So I'm A new age, Marty Bird over here.
You know what, I was looking, where I was gonna place our facility. I placed it in the center of the state. That way we can deliver to St. Louis or Kansas City within a day. I don't have to have extra drivers in, in order to facilitate that. So we looked at it from a distribution standpoint, and that's just, you, you looked through the lenses that you were given and that's kind of what I was given.
And it's, where you'll find Walmart's distributions facility? You'll find Amazon has a distribution facility, so it makes sense. We're also in the center of the country, so when federal Legalization C comes around, we're in a, in a, in a good part of the world to get our products to other states.
. So our wholesale brands, we have Sun's, one of our brands, I got my Sundre t-shirt on today. We. Manufacturer concentrates my lab director was actually the inventor of [00:04:00] live resin and the inventor of the active closed loop extraction device. So we have some, I have some real talent that's , working with us.
And then we have three dispensaries across the state right now. So we have one in Chesterfield which is a suburb of St. Louis. We have one in Columbia, which is where the university is Missouri is located, which is the only. School within the s e c that is located in a legal cannabis market.
And then , we are in Springfield, Missouri as well. So, and Springfield is a really a, a bustling town, so it's, it's been very exciting.
There's a lot there, but , you're based in the Ozarks then, so , your headquarters are in the Ozarks, and then, , your dispensaries are in different parts of the state.
Correct.
Not a bad place to be based.
I've never been there, but certainly watching Marty Bird running around it, it looks like a beautiful area.
it is a gorgeous area. Now, if, if you look at our I mean you can check us out on Instagram at OG yields. Our production [00:05:00] facility goes by OG yields. And if you know about the cannabis vernacular, OG stands for Ocean Grown. Well, we kind of stole that and we are Ozark grown, so, A little play on words there, but if you look at our Instagram OG yield at, at OG yields you'll get to see some of the, the surrounding areas and stuff, and it is a beautiful area.
Not bad. Not bad. Now, from an expansion standpoint, I don't know the rules in, in Missouri, but it seems like you are perfectly positioned to add more retail locations if that's allowed. Is that something on the, on the, on the radar for you or are we, are we good with three?
Well, we'd like to have a hundred if we could. But the, the state has limited the licenses which has really been one of the benefactors of all the licensees. Our licensees have been the benefactor of them limiting licenses. I mean, if you look at the states like California, you look at Colorado, you look at Oklahoma, although it's just a medical market , [00:06:00] the unlimited licenses, always lead to an oversupply and lead to people just losing money in their investments.
So it, it just never seems to play out the way that people hope that it will. Now as far as dispensaries, we, we do have a, a number of appeals out there, so, I actually have five appeals out there for dispensaries, so hopefully we get those. If we don't there's, there's different opportunities with mergers and acquisitions as well.
Oh, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that. So appeals would be almost like you want another license, , you're appeal the for another license. So that's one vehicle you for expansion. I didn't realize the other vehicle is, you could acquire somebody's license and take over.
That's that's an option for you as well.
Absolutely. And the state has been pretty, pretty good with turning those around. I mean, it, there is a process. It does take time. But, operators like ourselves we're known commodities to the state. And so that's just a, you're nearly rubber stamped. Now I say that obviously there's a lot of paperwork [00:07:00] that's involved and you gotta go through these things, but They, they know who we are.
We're already approved to operate in the state of Missouri and so that, the rest of this stuff is nearly formalities.
Well, that, that, kind of brings me, rolls me into the whole, one of the foundations of this show is, is, is raising money. , I could see in over time , if you were prudent about your expansion, you could be one of the. Almost have a, I don't wanna say this out loud, but a monopoly in the state.
, if you could make enough acquisitions where you would really have some at least, at least market share would be.
No, absolutely. The state does have some limits to that. So you, the way that the regulations are set up now, which, I think it's, it's great. It fosters competition, so it's, it's great for the consumer and it's, it's great for operators. You can own up to 10% of the license of the licenses in, in any particular category.
So there's 60 cultivation licenses. So you could own up to six cultivation licenses. There is a little over 200 [00:08:00] dispensaries, so you could own right around 20 to 22 dispensaries with common ownership. So, there is a upper limit to that. I think there's ways to get creative to get around some of that.
But that's k, that's kind of how they have it set up now and then, they, there is canopy limits as well within our cultivation. So you can have up to 30,000 square feet per license. We're currently operating at 15,000 square feet which we intend on expanding on that. And that's a process where you, again, you're letting this state know you're kind of showing them your plans, they give you their blessing, and then you move forward from there.
Okay. Well, the expansion on any level is always expensive, especially if you have to do some acquisitions. Is gonna be expensive. Will there be an opportunity somewhere in the future for investors to, to partner up with you, to part to, to participate in this potential growth?
I think that there's always opportunity. We've been blessed with a great capital [00:09:00] partner so far. But you know, I, I'm, I, I always come from the belief that, it's, it's better to fix your roof in the summer as opposed to waiting towards the winter when it's leaking and it's a bunch of ice on there and you can't really get up there.
So I think really for us, now is the time where we raise money and, and we kind of put those things to work before we actually are in dire need of anything.
That's a great strategy. I love that's an analogy. That's great. What I'll do is I'll put all the information in their show notes. So if there's somebody. Out there that's listening right now that really like to get their foot in the door in Missouri. I, I think I, , it'd be hard to find , an operation that's growing at this rate and really has planted their flag in Missouri.
Check in with Nicholas or somebody from his team, and I'm sure he'd be, and also if you live in Missouri, check out the, the dispensaries
Absolutely
Yeah. Nicholas, great having you on the show. I look forward to having you on a few more times as you start take over state. So[00:10:00]
appreciate you, Dan. Thanks for having me.