Medical marijuana business growing

“We’ve continued our growth in terms of continuing to add capacity to our facility, really, since we started,” Kessler said. “Our overall strategy has been to start small and continue to grow as demand continues to grow.”

The facility on Crescent Street received its certificate of operation in 2018 and opened in 2019 with two flowering / harvest rooms, and has tripled capacity since. The latest expansion of two grow rooms came online at the end of 2022.

“The market is absorbing those, but we have seen toward the beginning of this year a little bit of a plateau in terms of patient count,” Kessler said.

LEVELING OFF

The plateau was noticeable in December following months of steady growth, Kessler said, and it’s starting to affect market share as every month, more and more of Riviera Creek’s competitors bring additional capacity online.

Also, there’s more competition in the cultivating sector of the industry, he said.

When the medical marijuana program began, there were 12 level one cultivation licenses and 12 level two cultivation licenses, Kessler said. In mid-March, he said, 23 level one licenses have been given out with 19 having a certificate of operation and there are 14 level two licenses, 12 of which have their certificate to operate.

“There is almost double the amount of level ones than there were supposed to be and two more level twos, so the market has quite a bit of competition in it. It’s worth noting that this industry, unfortunately it took a long time for companies to get up and running, that’s just the reality of business … but at this point, with 23 and 14, the total number of cultivation licenses is 37,” Kessler said.

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Photo: Bianca Pressley of Youngstown removes buds from stems at Riviera Creek...by R. Michael Semple

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