As the newly appointed CEO of Heritage Cannabis, I would like to both introduce myself and provide some insight into our growth plans. After founding Premium 5 in 2019 and scaling that business to one of the first and largest in concentrate sales, I set out with my partners to find a platform that had the assets and people to accelerate growth.  Heritage was that platform, and after only six months since joining with Premium 5 the company has created a portfolio of leading brands and done incredible work to expand manufacturing and sales capabilities.  Before establishing Premium 5, my journey included 2 years as a senior leader of product development and project management at Aurora and as a founder of several successful high growth start-ups.

I believe that one of the best current indicators of any cannabis or consumer product company’s success is the ability to capture market share.  It is measurable and an excellent window into sales momentum and future growth.  This is also one of our key performance indicators, and I am happy to share that Heritage has made great progress in capturing market share from larger LPs in our key product categories.  Further details on our recent wins can be found in our recent press release.

The most recent market share data from Headset, Inc. shows Heritage is third in Canada in concentrate sales and 11^th in vape sales for the year – an incredible accomplishment considering we had almost zero in sales for January in these categories. Digging into these numbers further, we have seen tremendous growth in vape sales, expanding every month this year with June sales up over 300% from February.  We expect to see this growth continue as we successfully ramp up our listings in Ontario and have significantly added to our Alberta offerings with 21 new skus.  While many Canadian LPs have struggled to show sales growth in recent months, I believe that Heritage has the brands, product offerings and distribution to continue this growth trajectory.

A great deal of work has gone into this sales growth, and I would like to thank the Heritage team on these wins.  Product innovation has been the foundation of our success capturing market share, along with developing relationships with provincial buyers, retailers, and of course, our great customers.  My team at Premium 5 launched the first live resin dab and live resin vape in Canada.  At Heritage we brought consumers the Radsicle this summer – Canada’s first infused frozen edible.  Innovation is part of our genetic make-up, and we won’t stand still.  We have been busy in the lab, collecting feedback and analyzing market data; getting ready to drop new products in the coming months.  Our first flower products hit the shelves in BC last month, although only briefly before selling out.  Dried flower still represents 64% of the Canadian recreational market and we are excited to leverage our strong relationships and brand awareness to launch dried flower and pre-rolls.

The team at Heritage has done an amazing job to integrate new members, launch products and increase manufacturing all while keeping costs down.  We have faced challenges in recent months, particularly at our Voyage facility in the greater Kelowna BC area.  In June, a neighboring building under construction suffered a devasting and fatal crane collapse.  Throughout this summer the area and so much of BC has been overtaken by unprecedented wild fires.  While this has made production more challenging at times, it is nothing compared to the loss suffered by so many in our community.  Our thoughts are with the community and the families that are dealing with those losses.  Thank you to the wonderful first responders that continue to act bravely on our behalf everyday.   Our team has pulled together to raise funds and supplies and we will continue to help those in need.

This is the first of what is planned as a monthly update to our stakeholders.  The past six months have been extremely busy with a huge amount of value created behind the scenes.  We have built out distribution capabilities, expanded our brand portfolio, and remain focused on innovation.  I look forward to sharing more on what we have accomplished and connecting the dots between our strategy and future growth.