Nevis Brands (CSE:NEVI) is bringing its flagship cannabis beverage Major to the state of Missouri through a licensing agreement with Stash House.
CEO John Kueber joined Proactive’s Steve Darling to discuss the milestone and the company’s plans to bring Major into additional US states, aiming to expand into a new state every month or two for the near future.
Proactive: Today’s news was another significant step for the company but first, tell me about your brand Major which is starting to move its way around the United States.
Kueber: Nevis owns several leading cannabis beverage brands led by our flagship brand Major. This 100-milligram beverage delivers effects in 15 to 20 minutes, and we’ve sold more than $50 million of Major in retail over the last eight years. So, it’s a very successful, lasting brand.
Our model is to license this brand to other successful producers and distributors and allow them to bring this great product to lots of different states across the United States. We’ve grown our footprint from five states to nine states in less than seven months.
Today you announced that you are moving into Missouri, an interesting and big market.
Missouri has been steadily growing. It’s seeing sales, not comparable to say California or Michigan, but when you factor in the population of Missouri and the sales of cannabis, it’s actually one of the most exciting markets in the US.
They have a great regulatory market. You’re not dealing with a lot of illicit products that sometimes crowd on people’s margins.
We’ve found a great operator with Stash House, which is very successful with different lines of edibles and we’re actually the first beverage they’re going to be delivering to the market.
Stash House has been looking for a beverage to add in Missouri – how is that beverage market?
There are a couple of beverages on the market and we typically see that when we go into a new market. But when you have Major, a drink that tastes as well as ours does and delivers the effects as quickly as we do, we really tend to differentiate – that’s what Stash House saw with our product. That’s why they thought it would be a success.
It's the nature of cannabis being in growth that there’s enough room for multiple brands to play. We’re not going in there to own the entire market – we’re going there to augment the market.
We’re here at the beginning of 2024. Will we see you moving the product as much as you can to get that penetration into all of the US?
Since we listed in July, we were active with about five states. In the early months, our business has been about making sure those operations are going how we wanted them to and getting a little bit of organic growth within those existing states.
The strategy that we continue to execute is to go into new states at the rate of every month or two. We’ll continue to do that for the near future and have some great new states in the pipeline that we look forward to talking about soon.
Quotes have been edited for style and clarity