It’s no secret: Business is booming at Colorado cannabis companies. The partners at Medically Correct, which produces the popular and well-regarded Incredibles brand edibles (known for their foil-like packaging and uncanny pot chocolate flavors), have a compelling story of growth.
“We grew over 1,000 percent from 2012-2013,” said Bob Eschino, a partner at Medically Correct. “We made more in the month of November (2013) than we did all of 2012. And in December (2013) we beat November by 15-20 percent.”
And it doesn’t stop there.
“In January (2014) we beat December (2013) by close to 40 percent,” Eschino continued. “And January was by far our biggest month ever. We had everybody switching over to rec and making the conversion and making these big orders — and then they still ran out in a day.
“They did their one-time transfer (from medical to recreational supplies) in hopes that the bars would last for a couple months. But then they lasted a day, since they were going from an average of 50-60 patients a day to 700 rec buyers a day. And from what they were telling us, edibles were flying off the shelves.”
It’s a convincing performance. And Incredibles would be selling even more edibles right now if the company could purchase enough trim (that they’d turn into THC oil) to meet the demand.
We visited Eschino and his modest office and kitchen operation in a west Denver industrial neighborhood to learn about Incredibles’ growth, talk about his frustrations with Colorado marijuana regulations and chat about the THC oil that is integral to his (and others’) way of life — a necessary ingredient that has skyrocketed in price as demand has grown unsustainably.
Cannabist: So how big is Incredibles in the Colorado market?
Eschino: We think we’re in the Top 3 as far as edibles companies, but we’re definitely in the Top 5. Nobody really talks numbers, so it’s hard to say.
Cannabist: And how many employees?
Eschino: We’re up to 30 employees right now.
Cannabist: In your opinion, why have edibles been so popular — especially since Colorado’s recreational marijuana stores opened up?
Eschino: They’re discreet, and it’s an easy way to dose the medication. Especially here in Colorado, where you can’t smoke in public, you can still medicate with edibles.
Cannabist: But I think that’s still illegal, if you’re ingesting pot in public.
Eschino: True. But if you’re breaking off a piece of a candy bar (in public), who’s going to say, ‘O my god.’ The day somebody gets arrested for breaking off and eating a piece of a chocolate bar will surprise me.
Cannabist: How many bars are you all making per day? Per month?
Eschino: We’re doing about 3,000 bars per day, when we do production days. And we’re getting really close to 40,000 bars a month, and we’re growing.
Cannabist: And for now you’re only making the chocolate bars.
Eschino: We’ve got other product lines we want to start, but we can’t do that because we don’t have enough oil.
Cannabist: If you had the oil, what would come next?
Eschino: The granola is the next one we have coming out. It’s on the table right now. And we’re doing more R&D for other things. We’ve got all the pastries in the world — cookies, brownies, carrot cakes — but we don’t know if we wanna bring those to market. We’d like to come out with gluten-free and sugar-free lines. But we don’t have the oil. We had somebody who wanted to come in and start a different line with us, but unless they’ve sourced their own oil we couldn’t do it.
