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A large majority of cannabis business owners who responded to a survey reported they’re seeing supply shortages – but expect that to improve – in a major reversal from the oversupply issue that plagued New York cultivators for about two years.
The Cannabis Association of New York this week released results from a survey of the group’s members – ranging from cultivators and processors to distributors and retailers. The survey, which was conducted the week ending June 21, found 78% of dispensary owners who responded said they’ve often heard from suppliers in the last three months that they’re limiting the amount of product that will be shipped.
In addition to dispensary owners, the survey found 66% of processors have often been told by cultivators that they were limiting their shipments, and 53% of cultivators said they’ve been unable to meet order requests in the last three months.
But these concerns also coincide with results showing 48% of survey respondents reporting an increase in sales over the past three months, and 71% saying they expect sales to increase over the next three months.
Brittany Carbone, co-founder of cultivation/processing company Tricolla Farms, said the survey results match what she’s seeing on the ground, as some cultivators are having to turn down retailers because they don’t have the capacity to supply the amount of flower needed.
“I’ve been hearing from retailers who have been open for a while that they’re having a very hard time securing flower,” Carbone said.
As anyone who’s been following the issue knows, cultivators licensed under the Adult-Use Conditional Cultivator program may have endured the most prolific sequence of setbacks. Regulators issued New York’s first marijuana cultivation licenses in April of 2022, but a slower than promised retail rollout in 2023 left most of those farmers sitting on thousands of pounds of product with nowhere to sell it.
Because so many growers and processors used a lot of that flower to make biomass, there seems to still be plenty of edibles, vapes or other types of value-added products available for retailers, Carbone said. But high-quality flower – the biggest seller at many dispensaries – is hard for new retailers to come by, she said.
“Flower … seems to be the biggest issue, there’s really not as much of an issue with securing vapes and gummies, or the type of product that would be made from the glut of biomass that was leftover after the first growing season,” Carbone said.
While the lack of flower can create frustration among retailers, Carbone said the shifting situation has greatly improved morale on the supply side of New York’s legal cannabis industry.
When Carbone was still on CANY’s board of directors, she was often getting calls from distraught people who were considering bankruptcy after putting their life savings into a cultivation company. Today, people are calling her, wondering how they can raise their production levels to meet rising demand.
“I have fielded much, much fewer phone calls and messages saying ‘oh my god, this is terrible’ … I was fielding a lot of those previously,” Carbone said. “The demand is finally here … it’s more excitement and optimism, even if it’s a bit stressful.”
CANY’s survey comes a few months after the group penned a letter urging state officials against issuing too many cannabis licenses – which, they said, could risk flooding the statewide market.
In a statement about the survey results, CANY President Damien Cornwell – who also owns and operates Just Breathe, a licensed dispensary in Binghamton – said New York’s cannabis market is trending in the right direction, but that stakeholders should take supply concerns seriously.
“These issues underscore the need for the state to undertake a data-driven process that delivers licenses to the market in a way that provides for sustainable growth and a thriving market,” Cornwell said.