#SmokableFlower #Hemp Market Analysis and Speculations

#SMOKABLE BRANDS - TRANSFERENCE

Two-hundred and fifty-five billion five hundred million -- 255,500,000,000), pristine, tube filled, filter tipped, powerfully branded tobacco cigarettes are sold in US markets each year. How many of those can be filled with premium CBD rich flower?

At an average price of 25 cents per tube unit, ($5.00 per 20ct Fliptop Crush proof Box, “FtCpBx” ), this US market segment of the tobacco industry generates $63B, sixty-three billion dollars each year over the retail counter.

35,000,000, (thirty-five million), Americans smoke pristine, tube filled, filter tipped, powerfully branded tobacco cigarettes which on average they pluck from a fliptop crush proof box, (FtCpBx), more than twenty times a day, touching and feeling the packaging, experiencing their brand of choice nearly exactly the same way every time.

A purchaser’s relationship with the FtCpBx developed over the years, (even decades), represents an intimate familiarity, a physical connection with the brand packaging before the smoker ever lights up to take the first hit; there is great expectation, a demand a brand must provide for flawlessly, every single time, especially if a brand wants to sit side by side on the retail shelf within a $63 billion dollar per year product sector market.

On average, smoking 20, 83 millimeter long, 8 millimeter diameter, (king size), units per day, the smoker’s hand expects the same tactile sensations when reaching for the familiar dimensions of their FtCpBx, every single time. The eight corners defining the familiar dimensions of the width, the height and the depth of the FtCpBx are caressed, the nearly sharp corners of the box are pressed into the pads of the thumb and fingertips stimulating the anticipation of the smoking pleasures in which they will partake; brand ownership is intimately transferred to the purchaser, twenty times per day, (and more).

The delicate, tightly stretched BOPP sealing film that protects their brand from becoming dry, brittle and harsh, or humid and moldy is stroked with the index fingertip pad, the tear strip tab sought blindly, fondled expectantly. The familiarity of the sealing film’s delicate structure is reassuring, the nose anticipating the release of well preserved, strong, pleasing, familiar aromas inside the FtCpBx. 

The eyes glance quickly to locate the tear strip tab, the brand and logo in sight, the sound of the tear strip assails the ears the light film crinkle-crackling audibly as it is torn from the FtCpBx, undressing it. The furtive search for somewhere to throw the top portion of the sealing film away begins, the ritual continues while the tactile anticipation of pressing the thumbpad under the lower edge of the fliptop, cracking the seal, builds. 

Exposing the lock shelf and the foil folded neatly over the ends of the filter tips, all lined up the same way, every time, pleases your brand’s admirer, its a familiar sight. The aromas are released, those terpenes; dark, smoky cherries and berries, orange peel, earthy mushrooms, the linger of terpenine gas, the tease of linalool’s lavender, green apple farnesene notes, bisabolol floral notes, cookies and rich #CBG cheese waft into the nostrils while the familiar fine muscular memory exercises the delicate motor skills to pull the foil away, to expose their brand, to uncover their discretion.

The nose rejoicing, the eyes narrowing, the fingertips tingling as they pinch the pliant filter to pluck the #SmokableHempFlower unit by its spongy, yet firm filter are actuated. Endorphins and hormones alert the endocannabinoid system. 

“Oooo, that smell”.

The pristine, tube filled, filter tipped, powerfully branded #SmokableHempFlower unit slides out, the physics replicated precisely, time and time again. Then liberated, freed from its perfectly imprisoned population in their FtCpBx, their treasure chest opened; “my fliptop crush proof box”, mine, and nobody knows it’s cannabis, yet.

The smokable tube unit is held, fondled delicately, used to gesture in conversation, a conductor’s baton packed rhythmically at the filter end on an adjacent surface, expertly, a tiny bit of flower flying from the tip, nobody looks, it’s just a cigarette.

The lips part to receive the filter tips familiar, smooth, dry surface. “Oh … that’s nice”. The lips caress the filter tip, wetting it slightly; so familiar, so intimate; the nose is in heaven smelling the high quality, perfectly dried and cured premium CBD or CBG rich #hemp flower ground to perfection filling the smokable unit’s tube.

The dry draw is pleasant, the thought of fire, the expectations alone bring relief. Tobacco is a distant recollection, perhaps repulsive in comparison.

The striker’s rough wheel is stroked with the calloused thumb, the piercing click, the blue-white spark of the piezo element … then fire … “ahhhhhhh”, immediate relief from the rich CBD flower; fire, cannabinoids flooding the bloodstream seeking the CB2 receptors find their mark nearly instantly, the overwhelming flavors and aromas from the premium, greenhouse, clean, organic, full panel #SmokableFlower is enjoyed.

The entourage dances.

The diameter of the filter held between their fingers is so familiar, so reassuring, the spot between the fingers worn, the tobacco stain fading, the pleasant, rich, hemp flower is so pleasing, so novel. The thumbnail presses into the rear of the soft filter catching there for a moment, they flick, and flick again, and then the lips receive, small muscles in the hand exercising, inspiring the release of the chemical precursors that will join with the smoke, the terpenes, the cannabinoids, the spectrum. 

They are pleased to have purchased in addition the new #CBG branded product; can’t wait to try it! 

Puff, puff, pass, the others are insatiably curious. They look just like cigarettes.

MARKET PENETRATION POTENTIALS

How many of these 35,000,000, (thirty-five million), cigarette smokers will try SmokableHempFlower in the next few years? 

Contrarily, how many of these cigarette smokers will purchase ochre colored, wrinkled #HempFlower #smokable units fitted with fawnky feeling cone filters,units rattling around in their packaging shaped like long, slender joints, shorties or fatties that scream perilous warnings in the many voices of the “Antagonists of Cannabis Stigma”?

Is your customer in a state with stiff criminal penalties for possession of marijuana, or even marijuana paraphernalia? Is there also no MED market in your customer’s state? Will they love your premium, smokable hemp flower brand in FtCpBx’s? Will their friends launch themselves to swim up the retail sales “curiosity curve”?

How many of these cigarette smokers can your “preroll”, joint style packaged brand convert? How will you battle cannabis stigma in states with no REC, and worse, no REC and no MED, or stalled MED markets, if you are selling “joints”?

Let’s dress for the party.

How much of your marketing budget will you spend to suspend the “Antagonists of Cannabis Stigma” to convert the cigarette smoker to cannabis social smoking practices? 

How will your brand satisfy all of the familiar habits the cigarette smoker enjoys, expects and demands, and at what cost?

Can you dress your A grade #Smokable #nug for the party? Can your brand be the life of the party; can it be the party?

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"Hey, can I bum one of those?”

•  “It’s flower, you smoke flower?”

“Is that weed?” 

• “Yeah, CBD rich, have you tried the CBG yet?”

“Whaaaat … yeah … I mean no … yeah … oh cool, thanks.”

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How much is the #CBD rich and now the #CBG minor #cannabinoid #Smokable market potentially worth at the retail counter in FtCpBx’s?

How much #SmokableFlower is required to support a national, US market that regularly smokes #flower? 

Purchased primarily in fliptop crush proof boxes; cigarette smokers buy brands; they don’t buy tobacco; they buy brands. They will buy your brand.

#Flower brands can compete with tobacco brands using the art of war, by dressing for the party appropriately, by capturing market share, by literally sliding into the slots of the behemoth machine to sell well within this $63 billion dollar retail product market sector.

What presentation and packaging will smokers find acceptable, attractive, safe and inviting? What can you do to relieve their antagonized cannabis stigma while still providing discreet hints of the contents that awaits them, their brand’s secret code, (the true branding).

What is the most efficient marketing approach to rapidly capture a significant percentage of this gigantic market? Is that approach already available and waiting to be capitalized upon?

What are smoker’s buying habits? What are their product expectations? How much change can they be expected to accept in order to smoke your CBD or CBG rich smokable hemp flower, how much change can you afford fighting a battle that is best won through competition that can produce a fast ROI, a battle that need not be fought at all, thus already won?

Are cigarette smokers more likely to try brown paper, natural hemp paper cone joints of #smokableHempFlower, or would they more likely buy a pack that presents similarly, or identical to what they have been smoking for years, decades, for most of their lives smoking pristine, white paper tube smokes with filters in fliptop, crushproof boxes?

POTENTIAL MARKET VALUATION

With an average price of .25 cents per retail cigarette unit, the cigarette market represents a US retail market of approximately $64,000,000,000 dollars, (sixty-four billion dollars). This figure does not include chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, loose tobacco and RYO tobacco products, cigars, snuff and vaping formulations, vape devices plus smoking cessation products and programs, (and more), almost all of which have extremely well defined market sectors with mature packaging presentations and well defined market shares.

Billions of dollars have been spent promoting tobacco over the decades, for centuries. The playing field is well worn and well maintained, where is our hemp team? Do you even have a helmet and pads? Do you have a brand and FtCpBx design ready for your farm’s flower?

Tobacco is a $100,000,000,000 dollar, (one hundred BILLION dollar), per year industry in the US and over 60% of that market is filter cigarettes sold in FtCpBx’s, (and many softpack and semi-hard pack brands).

If it is reasonable to suggest that 1 in 10 cigarette smokers will enjoy smoking properly dried and cured, federally compliant, terpene rich #CBD and #CBG rich flower, a market potential for CBD Rich SmokableHempFlower and CBG Rich SmokableHempFlower can be promulgated. And then blends of flower that are both CBD and CBG rich hemp, (the sky). 

If only 10% of current cigarette smokers were to smoke 10 CBD and CBG rich smokable flower units per day, (which is an ambitious market penetration), over the course of a year the market would demand 25,500,000,000, (twenty-five billion, five-hundred million), smokable hemp flower units. 

When we extrapolate the average price per retail cigarette unit onto the SmokableFlower market packaged in precisely the same manner as cigarettes, SmokableFlower is potentially a $6,250,000,000, (six-billion, two-hundred and fifty million dollar), market at a paltry 25 cents per retail smokable unit.

If only 1 out of 100 cigarette smokers were to smoke 10 SmokableHempFlower units per day at a retail price of 25 cents to 50 cents per smokable unit the market is potentially worth between three hundred million to over half a billion dollars per year.

What might a truly premium flower, expertly dried and cured, tube injected smokable unit demand at the retail counter, a fascinated, curious, hungry retail counter? Multiply each dollar in retail tobacco smokable unit pricing by four for a potential gross market value at the retail counter selling each hemp smokable unit at only $1 per unit. That’s potentially a $25B, twenty-five billion dollar market at the retail counter.

And again, 1 out of 100 smokers as retail market purchasers at $1 per smokable unit, $2.5B.

A one gram preroll cone joint of truly premium smokable flower can sell at retail in NON REC, NON MED markets for $7 to $10 dollars per smokable unit. That won’t last forever. Or will it last much longer than we might anticipate with flower production restraints imposed by the recent USDA Total THC testing requirements coming into play?

With the new USDA total THC rules and regs potentially limiting greatly smokable flower production, as the set of currently available strains and genetics of premium hemp flower cannot finish into flowering maturity as they will go hot, this is a big variable in the pricing equation.

The constraining of adequate SmokableHemp supply chain from growers and farmers under the new USDA total THC testing rules and regulations is a big reset for the #SmokableHempFlower markets, especially in 2021 when interim total THC regulations are in full force across the US.

How much premium SmokableFlower that is compliant with the total THC rules and regulations of the USDA’s interim rules and regulations was grown in 2019, or will be grown in 2020, in 2021? And will that have a nice terpene profile for Smokable? Yes, CBG will be a strong SmokableFlower play in the near future going forward, but have you actually smoked some?

Do you know what strain to grow to produce mature flower with a rich terpene profile for Smokable that won’t mature into “USDA” hot hemp? Do you have a deposit down for seed or propagule futures?

SUPPLY CHAIN REQUIREMENTS

Each smokable flower unit that looks, feels and smokes nearly exactly like a mass produced filter cigarette contains about .8 grams of dried, properly trimmed and cured, 2-way humidified, properly cut, (ground), flower. Each pound of dried flower can produce about 500 truly pure, seed, stick, stem and biomass free, well dried and cured flower smokable units.

Divide the number of smokable flower units needed to fulfill a demand as outlined, divide by 500 units, each of those a .8 gram unit, to arrive at the number of pounds needed. 25,500,000,000 divided by 500 yields a figure of 50 million pounds of dried and cured CBD and CBG rich flower required to meet this potential, and ambitious, demand. Five million pounds is required if 1 out of 100 current cigarette smokers smoke 10 hemp flower smokables a day.

On average, (conservatively), outdoor hemp crops can sometimes produce as much as 500 pounds of truly high quality, “select” top cola flower per acre, (on average). Some crops produce much more, some crops produce less, some fail, some thrive, many in 2020 are going to be hot according to the new USDA rules and regulations. Much less per square foot is produced in greenhouses and indoor growing facilities when seeking to produce clean, CAE flower.

Is outdoor, premium top cola flower the highest quality smokable unit that could be offered, or will the greenhouse and even indoor growing sectors produce significant FtCpBx packaged smokable hemp flower offerings, and if so, how much will they command at the retail counter even if the market is flooded with outdoor flower of various quality designations?

A 50M pound supply chain of very good, properly harvested and processed, premium, top cola flower is required to supply the demand as outlined, (1 out of ten current cigarette smokers smoking 10 SmokableFlower units per day).

50,000 - 100,000 acres of hemp cropland that achieves a quality harvest is needed to supply only 10% of the cigarette smoking market with 10 smokable flower units of .8 grams in weight per day. This figure does not include non-tobacco using markets that already smoke cannabis or smokable hemp flower, ( for example the vape markets, which are huge and in distress).

Perhaps more than 500,000 acres of hemp or more will actually be planted across the US in 2020, and most importantly, survive to maturity, not be hot, and actually be harvested and properly dried, cured and tube injected.

How many acres of the potential 100,000 grown for, and specifically purposed for Smokable Flower products will make it to a DEA licensed and certified laboratory, the lines will be long, the labs few.

Perhaps only the finest flower, properly dried, cured, trimmed and manufactured into smokable flower will be allowed into the markets at the premium levels, potentially generating maximum revenues, and that will sustain a very lucrative margin for some time.

Will this be a glorious competitive arena within the hemp industry as well as function strongly in the extremely competitive cigarette markets? Do you have your FtCpBx art, design, brand and B2B supply chain in order?

#SmokableHempFlower Market Knowledge Test. 

1. Name three brands of #smokableHempFlower that are sold in FtCpBx’s..
2. What is the primary branding color used on those FtCpBx’s?

• What are the primary branding colors of the FtCpBx’s for Marlboro’s two flagship brands? In which colors are the American Spirit line of cigarette products’ FtCpBx’s produced?
• (Back to #smokableHempFlower brands).

1. What is the unit count in each of #1’s boxes?
2. How much do they cost per FtCpBx?
3. What is the shipping charge?
4. Are the #smokable units foil wrapped?
5. Is there a 2-way humidity maintenance packet in the FtCpBx’s box? 
6. Is the FtCpBx’ film wrapped? 
7. Does it have a pull tear strip?
8. Is there a COA available in, or on the box for the #HempFlower injected into those smokable tube units?
9. Is there a bar code or a QR code that resolves to a URL that displays the COA?
10. Is the COA full panel? (Cannabinoids, Terpenes, Metals, Pesticides, Herbicides, and more)
11. Is the product Δ-9 THC + (THCA x 87.7%) ≤ .3% TTHC, (USDA and 50 state compliant)? Or is it 2014 farm bill legacy D9 ONLY compliant flower?
12. Is the COA issued by a DEA licensed and registered testing laboratory?
13. What strain or cultivar is the hemp flower in those smokable unit tubes?
14. What was the cure time for the #Flower in those smokable units?
15. How was the flower initially dried?
16. Was it machine trimmed, or hand trimmed?
17. How is the dried and cured flower being stored for brokerage or later manufacture?
18. At what humidity?
19. At what temperature?
20. In what type of vessel?
21. Is the smokable unit terpene infused, or are the terpenes the original terpenes that came with the raw flower inside the tube? Is it kief fortified? Is the kief fortification at least from the same sugar leaf that was growing from the flower?
22. Is it certified organically grown?
23. Is it clean? (full panel)
24. What material is the tube made from? What taste does it impart to the smoking experience?
25. Is the tube branded?
26. Is the filter tip branded?
27. Is the filter tip hollow?
28. Is the dry draw easy, or difficult?
29. Is the dry draw pleasant, does the tube material and the filter impart astringency, bitterness, woodiness to the dry draw, how similar is it to a tobacco cigarette?
30. Do the terpenes of the flower overpower all tube and filter tastes on the dry draw?
31. Repeat 28-31 while lighting and smoking the tube unit.

What “brand” will be purchasing your dried and cured flower from your storage facility, from your drying facility, from your brokerage’s warehouse storage? What does that brand want? Can your flower provide that?

How much of this market can you capture without a well developed brand?

What retail price per smokable unit will markets support for the finest smoking #hempFlower, the “cream of the crop” packaged professionally, dressed for the party?

What do the finest cigarettes sell for in the most expensive markets? Should you know this if you are growing, drying and curing premium flower for the smokable markets? 

What price do the finest cigars command?

Is it reasonable to suggest that the novelty and curiosity surrounding #smokable, premium, true top cola flower that is dried and cured with OG SOP will command a much higher price than .25 cents per smokable unit as the market begins to scale?

What kind of margin can you expect to realize wholesaling your flower wet from the field to a broker that harvests using his team and labor and writes you a check, (is that a unicorn)? What does the brand for which they fulfill supply chain, (demand from the flower they seek)?

What margin can you expect to generate by selling your dried and cured flower to a broker?

What margin can you expect to generate by tube injecting your dried and cured flower, packing it into foil lined, film and tear strip wrapped, FtCpBx’s that are well branded with professional level art and design and then wholesaling to retail downline distributors with multi-unit, year over year contracts?

And if you retail the product yourself, what can you expect for a margin after shipping if you are purely an ecommerce startup, (with shipping, (wink, wink)), adding to that the expenses of potentially supporting a retail outlet in addition to online sales?

Who really thinks about any of this? It’s not like we are funding the development and birth of Duke University, right?

How much #smokableFlower is required to supply your potential market with enough flower to sustain a supply chain where your launched brand will not be snuffed out due to supply chain issues, (going dry for any length of time and changing the strain in your FtCpBx’s)?

Will one out of ten cigarette smokers be purchasing rolling papers to roll their #SmokableFlower? Will 3,500,000 people in the general population be seen smoking brown, cone joints, “prerolls”, or will they seek a discreet packaging that avoids the “Antagonists of Cannabis Stigma”, the generational cannabis stigma that our #hempCommunity has not only psychologically mitigated, but takes for granted its defeat, a stigma of which the general population is just beginning to come to grips?

SUMMARY

When #smokableflower is tube injected and appears exactly as a cigarette looks and feels the “Antagonists of Cannabis Stigma” are transferred into the long standing market acceptance of tube injected cigarettes, the ACB, “Antagonists of Cannabis Stigma”, are defeated in large part, especially if your product is well branded.

Existing cigarette markets are an incredibly powerful tool to utilize to reach mostly ready-made markets for smokable flower.

Hundreds of millions, billions of dollars have been spent by BIG TOBACCO marketing the “tube injected”, or tube unit filtered cigarette. Duke University was funded and built by one of the first Americans to manufacture and market “cigarettes”, selling that product to wholesalers and retail markets.

Many laughed at James Buchanan Duke. “People just roll their own cigarettes” it was said, they love the freedom, the challenge of rolling up in a 20 MPH, ice cold wind blowing through the window of their bumpy carriage.

The #smokableflower markets have an incredible opportunity to capitalize on the brand development and marketing structures that have already been put in place by tobacco, that have matured literally into historical icons.

Marlboro man, meet the Lifter lads, move over.

You can bet BIG TOBACCO will leverage the branding and marketing that you may have already paid for dearly by smoking their products.

Hemp is a gamechanger, but at what cost to change "their game", and is that even a consideration?

We don’t need permission to be on the rack.