TLRY - Mario Naric On Canada's Shakeout Phase

2024-04-30 14:30:00 ET

Summary

• The Canadian cannabis industry is in a shakeout phase, with poorly run businesses struggling and the industry maturing.
• Motif Labs is a successful extraction-focused licensed producer in Canada, specializing in vape products and infused pre-rolls.
• CEO and Founder Mario Naric on the Canadian landscape, using the right metrics and exploring international markets and partnerships in the U.S.

Listen here or on the go via Apple Podcasts and Spotify .

Mario Naric, CEO and Founder of Motif Labs, discusses being in the shakeout phase of cannabis in Canada (1:00). Staying private while public companies suffer (5:25). How to grow market share in Canada (12:53). Near-term reality for big Canadian LPs like Tilray and Canopy Growth (18:00). Different products for different markets within US and Canada (23:20). How investors should in this space (40:40).

Transcript

Rena Sherbill: Mario Naric, welcome to the Cannabis Investing Podcast. It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.

Mario Naric: Thank you so much for having us. Appreciate it.

RS : Yeah, absolutely. So you founded Motif Labs in Canada, a country that we used to talk a lot about, don't talk so much about anymore. Enlighten us on what Motif Labs does and a little bit about the Canadian ecosystem these days.

MN : Yeah, thank you. I'm glad we're talking about Canada again. There's lots of exciting stuff happening up here. So at a high level, and I'm sure we'll get into it more, but Motif is a extraction-focused licensed producer up in Canada. We're the largest in Canada, and we're also a brand house.

So we have five brands in market, Boxhot being the star of the show, the #1 vape brand in the country, top 3 infused pre-roll brand in the country. We as an LP are the #1 vape producer, owning almost 20% of the market. And we're also climbing the ranks very quickly on infused pre-rolls any given week or second or third in the infused pre-rolls segment. So we manufacture these products, we build the brands in-house, we ship nationally and it's been very exciting.

In terms of Canada, I mean, much like probably the States, there's a lot going on. I mean, the industry is extremely dynamic, it's very fast, a lot of innovation, a lot of brands launching, a lot of SKUs launching. It's pretty chaotic and it's quick. But if you just zoom out and kind of think about the typical cycle of a new industry, Canada is kind of firmly in that shakeout phase, right?

The growth isn't exponential anymore, all the speculation is behind us, right? Poorly run or poorly positioned businesses are starting to struggle a bit. But it also means that the industry is maturing and the good operators have great opportunities in front of them to really kind of stabilize their position. So lots on the go, very dynamic....

For further details see: