Marijuana Business Magazine - Issue 09, Oct 2017

lN FOCUS ¬ t’s no longer enough to simply grow and sell marijuana. As the industry has exploded – in popu- larity and legality across the nation and the globe – growers and retailers have begun focusing more on quality. That’s where nutrient and soil com- panies enter the picture. Their prod- ucts help bolster cannabis potency, flavor and crop yields, and these businesses have become a virtual necessity for professional growers. Many of the sector’s industry leaders are easily generating tens of millions of dollars or more in annual revenue – think lawn and garden care giant Scotts Miracle-Gro. But ¬ndustry Snapshot: Nutrient and Soil Companies Data, trends and challenges by John Schroyer even some of the newer players are already making a killing as more niches are explored. Take Australia-based S.J. Enterprises, producer of the Cyco Platinum Series brand of nutrients. The company’s top-selling cannabis nutrient product, Ryzofuel, is booming in popularity with growers because it utilizes Tasmanian kelp instead of Norwegian kelp, said Deonna Nieves, one of S.J. Enterprises’ U.S. sales representatives. She said the latter is used in most other common MJ nutrients. “The difference is ... it has more natural growth hormone than Norwe- gian. Five times more,” Nieves added. As a result, the company’s nutri- ents are now carried in roughly 800 hydroponic retail stores in the United States, according to Nieves. “We’re talking over $1 million a month in sales, easily,” she said, emphasizing that’s an estimate for only one of the company’s seven U.S. sales representatives. S.J. Enterprises is far from the only nutrient or soil company riding the green rush, especially because large- scale commercial grows proliferate around the United States and Canada. Advanced Nutrients, based in Abbotford, British Columbia, is among the oldest and most established Loaders pull raw ingredients for bulk soil blends at Sanctuary Soil’s production facility in California. Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Soil 104 • Marijuana Business Magazine • October 2017