Shryne Group

Nov 30, 2022

Shryne Group Names Gregory Fink as Chief Financial Officer Fink, who previously worked at comScore and Fannie Mae, is responsible for streamlining operations to maximize Shryne Group's profitability. November 30, 2022 Los Angeles, CA - November 30, 2022 - Gregory Fink has been named chief financial officer of Shryne Group, Inc . As CFO, Fink is responsible for streamlining operations to maximize profitability as Shryne Group continues to build one of America’s leading cannabis companies. Fink joins Shryne Group after more than 30 years in finance across various industries. He most recently served as the chief financial officer, treasurer, and chief accounting officer of comScore, Inc. At comScore, he provided the executive leadership team and board of directors with key financial strategy, improvements in profitability, and building business partnerships with leading global banks. Additionally, he helped lead the reestablishment of SEC compliance and relisting with the Nasdaq stock exchange. "Shryne Group is one of the most exciting companies in the fast-maturing cannabis industry," said Fink. “Providing a strategic view as well as financial and operational discipline to the organization will allow the company to accelerate its growth further while maintaining financial stability, governance and compliance.” Prior to comScore, Inc., Fink served as the SVP - controller and chief accounting officer of Fannie Mae, where he was responsible for the majority of the corporate finance and accounting operations, overseeing more than 600 individuals. Before Fannie Mae, he revamped MCI Communication’s financial reporting and technical accounting department leading up to its acquisition by Verizon. Fink was also previously at Deloitte and is a CPA. Editor’s note: Cannabis Business Times’ November cover story examined the prevalence and problems of lab shopping and potency inflation in the cannabis industry. As part of that coverage, CBT asked Florida-based ACS Laboratory , which tests the state’s medical cannabis and has hemp clients in 48 states, more about what cannabis potency testing involves. Here, Roger Brown, founder and president of ACS Laboratory, delves into the process of how the company tests cannabis for THC potency. If you work for a cannabis or hemp testing lab, refer to your state’s testing regulations to ensure compliance. Figure 1. Step 1: Flower is ground and placed in a sterile cup for weighing and prep. Step 2: Sample is weighed and placed in a glass vial. Photo courtesy of ACS Laboratory Figure 1 Figure 2. Step 3: Solution is added, and the vial is sealed. Then the sample vial goes to a grinder for flower or a vortexer for derivatives. A grinder is specifically designed for vigorous up and down shaking to facilitate even distribution of the material. Vortexers or vortex mixers are a critical piece of laboratory equipment used to mix small vials of samples rapidly in a quickly oscillating circular motion. There are specific types of suspension that can only be done by creating a vortex, rather than just shaking a sample. For instance, a vortex mixer is able to mix viscous samples that would otherwise stay unblended. If you need to mix oil and water, a vortex mixer is the equipment you want to get the job done right. Photo courtesy of ACS Laboratory Figure 2 Step 4: For both flower and derivatives, the sample goes to a sonicator. Sonicators use ultrasonic frequency to help mix or dissolve samples during preparation. Step 5: After sonicating samples, samples are placed back in the vortexer to make sure analytes, or the cannabinoids being tested, are not stuck in the bottom or trapped inside. Step 6: Flower and derivatives go to a centrifuge. Centrifuges allow labs to separate samples quickly and accurately to maximize the efficiency of cannabis testing. A centrifuge is used to separate particles suspended in a liquid according to particle size and density, viscosity of the medium, and rotor speed. Within a solution, gravitational force will cause particles of higher density than the solvent to sink, and those less dense than the solvent to float to the top. Figure 3. Step 7: A potency dilution is made according to the testing panel requested and/or target range of values. Dilution, which makes a high-concentrated solution into a less concentrated solution, is a sample preparation step. Samples are diluted with diluent to the calibration range that instruments are validated for. Photo courtesy of ACS Laboratory Figure 3 Figure 4. Step 8: Liquid chromatography instrumentation is used for analytical testing. The lab creates a batch file, which is a sequence file containing information about samples, such as weight, dilution and identification; as well as quality controls such as the standards curve; and the curves’ positions for instruments that the lab uses. The vials/plates for the batch are then loaded onto instruments like the high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection (LCUV) or liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LCMS). Step 9: The data is processed, the components of the sample go through the process of chromatography to separate them so the individual components, i.e. individual cannabinoids, can be measured and analyzed. The presence and amount of the targeted cannabinoid’s concentration is then identified and measured using a calibration curve. Below is an example of chromatography of a potency assay, which details the ratios and presence of active cannabinoids against a certified reference material. Certified reference materials (CRMs) are controls or standards used to check the quality and metrological traceability of products, to validate analytical measurement methods, or for the calibration of instruments. Photo courtesy of ACS Laboratory Figure 4 Figure 5. Step 10: A certificate of analysis (COA) is produced and verified by a trained quality control personnel before its release to clients. A sample COA: Photo courtesy of ACS Laboratory Figure 5 Roger Brown co-founded the first cannabis testing lab in Florida, ACS Laboratory. ACS Laboratory is ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited, DEA licensed, and CLIA licensed with the largest state-of-the-art facility in the eastern USA. The Most Trusted Cannabis and Hemp Laboratory in the USA™, ACS Laboratory has increased its reach to 50 states and Puerto Rico, and 16 countries worldwide. It’s nearly 2023, and by now, almost everyone you know is well-versed in digital communication and socialization platforms – be it video conferencing, social media, or the related. And as ‘Metaverse’ becomes an increasingly common part of our cultural lexicon, Highsman is planting its flag in the virtual reality landscape by creating Highsman House. Radbill Highsman House is a community-focused virtual consumption lounge that features a dispensary and merchandise shop, a full-sized football field, a swimming pool, games, and more. The platform is accessible through Oculus or a computer and was designed in partnership with Rocket City, a technology company focused on Metaverse and NFT experiences. The purpose of Highsman House, according to Highsman Chief Marketing Officer Lane Radbill, is to utilize modern technology to foster a cannabis community while educating consumers and building brand awareness. Visitors are even welcome to participate in virtual smoke sessions with other community members, including Highsman Founder and President Ricky Williams and other company executives. Highsman, which launched operations in 2021, started building its Highsman House at the beginning of this year and hosted its first virtual community event, a Monday Night Football watch party, in September. “The first conversation is very surface level. They're like, ‘Holy shit, I'm talking to Ricky Williams,’” Radbill says. “And then the second time they come back, they come back with [specific] questions and you see it start to happen; the curiosity is being fostered. That's a long road of education, but it seems to working.” Educational Experience Picture this: You virtually arrive at Highsman House and are greeted with your choice of cannabis consumption, be it a joint, blunt or bong. From there, you can visit the dispensary bar to learn more about and interact with Highsman products; engage in virtual smoke sessions with other community members; participate in community games or competitions, such as cornhole or football; or simply just hang out and enjoy the community aspect from the comfort of your own home. © Highsman The Highsman House features a full-size football field and other entertainment options for community games and socialization. “I was in there for the Cowboys game a couple of weeks ago, and you walk in and there's big screen TVs and you can even pick up a joint,” Williams says. “I was out on my patio, and I had a real joint in my hand, and [as] I was watching the game, I'm looking around with my Oculus and I'm in a lounge [with] people around talking, and it was trippy. I really couldn't tell that I wasn't actually in the lounge. We’re moving to create that [experience] in the three-dimensional world, but to have it in the Meta where people in their own home can experience our brand and what we’re putting out into the world is exciting.” Radbill says the Highsman House allows the company to create consistent experiences for consumers in adult-use and/or medical markets. . For example, Highsman debuted its brand in Pennsylvania , a medical-only cannabis state, earlier this fall. While the Pennsylvania market offers new opportunities for Highsman, it also creates new challenges for the company to market itself and educate consumers. “Pennsylvania being our only medical state right now that we're operating in, from a marketing perspective, it's much more difficult,” Radbill says. “There's a lot more red tape with our direct-to-consumer or B2C (business to consumer) marketing assets [and] the way we speak about the brand. Even when doing activations at dispensaries, you have to do them outside in the parking lot; you can't have anybody inside the dispensary. … So, what are we going to do? Ask people to get bundled up and stand in a parking lot underneath a popup tent and say, ‘Yeah, this is the Highsman experience,’?” As a solution, the Highsman House provides a “dream space,” Radbill says, for Highsman to circumvent each state’s varying regulations and duplicate brand experiences across markets. But even then, challenges persist. Properly educating cannabis consumers, both new and experienced, is a continuous pursuit, and Radbill says industry terms such as “cannabinoids” and “terpenes” can often be confusing jargon for consumers. Highsman, by utilizing the Highsman House, is able to simplify the cannabis education process by leaning into its athlete-inspired brand story, according to Radbill. “If you're trying to go after the masses, that messaging is often too heavy for them,” Radbill says. “What does resonate is if it's good enough for professional athletes, it's probably good enough for me. … If we can get people to buy into Highsman, whether it's for the community, the products, the lifestyle, [etc], that's the beginning of that education process.” As part of that virtual educational experience, Highsman House visitors can interact with Highsman products to learn more about cannabis’s unique properties, including THC percentage, cannabinoid content, terpene levels, and more. “It’s a tool to help educate cannabis consumers,” Radbill says. “An example of that is to have more 3D renders of our flower, for example, that you could come in and you could grab it and you can zoom in on it [and] see the trichomes. You can click a trichome and an infographic will pop up and it'll give you more information about what's going on there.” Radbill adds that Highsman is working towards providing a direct-to-consumer platform where consumers can interact with Highsman products in the Metaverse before purchasing them in reality. Beyond educating just consumers, Radbill says Highsman House can also serve as a teaching tool for budtenders and industry stakeholders to learn about cannabis and Highsman products, specifically. “Our vision is to have that evolve into being a training environment for budtenders and for salespeople,” Radbill says. “I've seen this recently with surgeon training for doctors, where they can take the human body and they can study anatomy and they can remove organs, and then they can see what happens. And I thought, why not do that with marijuana?” Furthermore, Radbill emphasizes the importance of touch and feel – even if just virtually – when it comes to educating both consumers and budtenders about cannabis. “I remember being a kid, you pick up everything and you taste it, and you play with it, and that's how you learn,” Radbill says. “As adults, we're children with marijuana. If you take time to play with it, I think that relationship is made stronger, and then your curiosity develops and then you start realizing this isn't all about THC percentage, this is also about terpenes, and terpenes are cool because I had this experience with it and I can feel that.” Walking the Walk   The Highsman House also helps Highsman distinguish itself from other cannabis brands, particularly celebrity or athlete brands in the space, according to Radbill. Williams “Lots of brands that call themselves a ‘lifestyle brand’ talk about community a lot,” Radbill says. “Basically, we’re doing what we’re saying we’re doing when it comes to community building, and that’s where I think we set ourselves apart. We’re not creating these superficial platforms to get followers and put shit up there. This is all about being able to have conversations and touch people.” When building Highsman House, Radbill says the company took note of similar technology platforms that allow for direct access to celebrities, such as Cameo, and implemented accessibility and transparency as defining elements of Highsman House and the Highsman brand as a whole. In addition to Highsman House, the company regularly conducts meet-and-greets with Williams in dispensaries across the country and hosts weekly hangouts on Discord, a voice, video and text social messaging platform, to further connect with the industry. “We're a celebrity cannabis brand, but our founder, Ricky Williams, is not your typical celebrity. He is as authentic as it gets, he is as OG as it gets, and he’s been preaching about [cannabis] prior to its popularity,” Radbill says. “Ricky would much rather spend his time on these Discords, in the Metaverse, or in person talking to budtenders and customers than he would be in front of 50,000 to 100,000 people all clapping for him. It’s about that small, grassroots, one-on-one interaction that people don't believe they're ever going to get.” And given that cannabis is a social elixir of sorts, it only makes sense that Highsman House has an open-door policy. “It’s about the people,” Radbill says. “So yeah, we built this house, but it's no good unless the people are there. It's no fun unless the people are there, and it keeps growing because every time we have one, more people come. And when they come in there, we're not preaching the brand. We're not trying to sell shit in there. Yeah, you can do that if you want, but it's not about that.” New visitors are always welcome, and those interested in virtually visiting the Highsman House can learn more at Highsman’s website or via the company’s social media. The company’s most recent event was a Nov. 7 Monday Night Football watch party, but rest assured that more virtual experiences from Highsman are on the way. “We’re building a community with Highsman House, so please bring your authentic self, energy, positive vibes and idealism,” Williams says. “Through the Metaverse, we continue driving societal evolution forward while having fun and making new friends.”   The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently invited agriculture producers across the U.S. to respond to the 2022 Census of Agriculture by Feb. 6, 2023. The Census of Agriculture is a survey collected every five years by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) that “highlights land use and ownership, producer characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures,” and other topics, according to a press release . Between census years, NASS looks at emerging trends and changes in the agriculture industry and updates the questionnaire based on its findings. With the last Census of Agriculture taking place in 2017, this is the first year the USDA NASS will be including hemp production data—as industrial hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill. NASS also revised the survey to include questions regarding precision agriculture, hair sheep, and updates to internet access, according to the release. “The 2022 Census of Agriculture is a powerful voice for American agriculture. The information gathered through the ag census influences policy decisions that will have a tremendous impact on ag producers and their communities for years to come,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “I strongly encourage all farmers, no matter how large or small their operation, to promptly complete and return their ag census. This is your opportunity to share your voice, uplift the value and showcase the uniqueness of American agriculture.” Farmers can complete the 2022 Census of Agriculture at agcounts.usda.gov . Green Wednesday cannabis sales rivaled the likes of 4/20 and the Friday preceding July 4, as U.S. customers stocked up on non-inhalable products ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, according to cannabis data and research company Headset . The day before Thanksgiving, known as Green Wednesday in the cannabis industry, featured a 48% sales increase compared to the three previous Wednesdays in November for retailers in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, Headset reported Nov. 28. That uptick makes Green Wednesday the third-highest grossing day of cannabis sales so far in 2022, bested only by April 20 and Friday, July 1. Headset’s three-day analysis also revealed that Thanksgiving Day sales fell 65% compared to a normal Thursday while Black Friday sales increased 1% compared to a typical Friday—the busiest day of the week for most cannabis dispensaries. Overall, inhalable product categories experienced the most significant dips during the three-day holiday stretch, including concentrates (-11.4%), flower (-10.8%) and prerolls (-6.4%), according to Headset. More discrete product categories like topicals (15.3%), beverages (13.2%) and edibles (6.1%) experienced the largest sales growth during the holiday stretch. While Headset’s data came from a seven-state analysis, figures directly from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) revealed an even greater uptick for Green Wednesday, when licensed adult-use retailers in the commonwealth recorded nearly $7 million in sales. That benchmark represents an 85% increase compared to a typical Wednesday from five weeks of data Cannabis Business Times collected from May 30 to July 3 of this year—when the average Wednesday brought in nearly $3.8 million in sales. Fridays were the busiest day of the week for Massachusetts retailers, representing 18.8% of sales, followed by Saturdays (16.9%), Thursdays (14.8%) and Wednesdays (13.1%) during the analysis conducted by CBT. But with the Thanksgiving holiday shuffling things, Green Wednesday accounted for 23% of sales among Massachusetts retailers last week, followed by Black Friday (20.9%), Saturday (15.6%) and Tuesday (14.4%). Thanksgiving Day, when adult-use customers spent $337,502 at Massachusetts dispensaries, accounted for 1.1% of sales for the week. Day