Gummies overtake chocolate in Colorado cannabis edibles space

Cannabis gummy firm Americanna is taking advantage of the soaring infused gummy market and is set to dominate the edibles space in the future. 

BDS is a market research firm for the cannabis industry that tracks adult-use sales in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, which represent about 50% of the national market.

Last year, gummy candies only made up 13% of the total edibles sales compared to the 26% owned by chocolate bars, according to BDS data.

“2016 is looking like a great year for edibles,” the market research firm said.

Cannabis gummies are not functional gummies

In July 2016,Americanna was the best-selling cannabis candy brand in the Colorado’s recreational channel, according to BDS GreenEdge data. The company has captured nearly a 10-point share of the entire edibles category since its launch in January this year.

Americanna started its business by making concentrates. After it repositioned as a cannabis gummies maker about six months ago, Americanna has seen “tremendous” month-over-month growth, the company’s president Dan Anglin told ConfectioneryNews.

“While we do still sell some limited amounts of concentrates to meet the demands of some customers, 99.9% of our business is gummies,” he said. “We anticipate 10-fold growth every month for the next quarter… and then stabilizing in the spring with a 20% overall growth month-to-month from there.”

Anglin said cannabis gummies are not part of the functional gummy category.“I would love for the National Confectioners Association to recognize the hard work we have done, but that will take years," said the company president.

Self-controlled supply chain

Americanna has been cultivating its own supply of cannabis in order to ensure the quality of raw material, according to Anglin. In contrast, typical edibles businesses buy cannabis on the wholesale market.

Additionally, Americanna has two of the largest candy manufacturers in the world that help it produce gummies, Anglin said.

“We have a specific recipe, and we own the shape of these gummies, but we must purchase in large volumes in order to maintain that control over the supply chain. This was a very large risk at the onset of the business, but it allowed us to come into the market at $2 less per unit wholesale because of our volume supply. Coupled with our control over the cannabis, we are able to meet the demand for our product while keeping the costs controllable and affordable for our consumers.”

Americanna believes that gummies became the leading edibles partly because of its entry into the market.

“We are the fastest growing brand in the industry, and one of the top three edibles companies by sales overall,” Anglin added. “Our goal is to overtake the gummy space, and to dominate the edibles space in Colorado and beyond.”

Similar trends might be seen in other states

“In Colorado, year-over-year growth rates by month have increased steadily since the adult-use market kicked off in January 2014,” co-founder and CEO of BDS, Roy Bingham, told ConfectioneryNews.

“From January to July this year, the Colorado gummy market increased 150% compared to the same seven months in 2015 across the medical and adult-use channels combined. By contrast, that period in 2015 grew 68% over the same period in 2014,” Bingham said.

However, it is difficult to say if other states will see similar trends in edibles with historical data available for adult use in Colorado only, he added.

The edibles industry expects to see patterns in other states where consumers start with the product they are likely most familiar with, and then move to edibles and concentrates as those products gain acceptance and more brands enter the marketplace, Bingham said.

“With both monthly sales and the rate of growth increasing as the market matures, it is clear that gummies have a good, reliable upside in Colorado, and there is no reason to think that it won’t be the case as additional states legalize recreational cannabis, provided regulations allow for the sale of the category.”