Not only did Benihemp make their pages earlier this week. MJ Biz thought the story important enough to lead with in their end of week roundup.
MJ Biz…Week in Review: CBD in gas stations, AG Sessions hints status quo for cannabis & Arkansas hits MMJ snag
Here’s a closer look at some notable developments in the marijuana industry over the past week.
Fill ‘er up
It sounds like a punch line, but there’s about to be even more cannabis at the corner gas station than there already is.
But that’s the potential offshoot of a California company’s announcement that it’s rolling out a line of low-dose CBD products designed for impulse shoppers at convenience stores.
The new line of Benihemp tinctures, topicals and edibles is coming from California-based Marijuana Company of America.
The products will be sold in one-, two- and 30-day supplies.
They aren’t the first cannabis-derived hemp products to show up in gas stations, and they won’t be the last, said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the Virginia-based National Association of Convenience Stores.
“Hemp has carried some cachet in the last couple years, especially to younger consumers,” he said.
“To younger consumers, this is new, this is hip, this is legal.”
Convenience stores are boosting offerings in health and wellness products, Lenard said, and it makes sense why.
Their margins on gasoline sales are as low as 5 cents a gallon.
“But when you sell a high-end bottle of a neutraceutical, the margins are much higher,” Lenard added.
For CBD producers, convenience stores represent an enormous new market.
Roughly 155,000 convenience stores operated in the United States in 2017 and only about 43,000 drug stores, according to the industry’s trade association.