Why MariMed Kills Cannabis Products Before They Reach Dispensary Shelves

Burn After Reading The 30-second intel for operators and investors ⏱ 0:30

MariMed rejects cannabis products that fail its commercial tests, even ones that score well on taste, to control innovation costs. Chief commercial officer Ryan Crandall says the rebuy, not the first purchase, is the most important measure of any product.

• Operators: Treat product elimination as seriously as launches. Size the category, set volume targets, and prove supplier technology against a baseline. New equipment is often the biggest cost, and it may need replicating in every state.
• Investors: Capital discipline in R&D matters. Multistate expansion can require new manufacturing partners or equipment in each market, so demand alone may not justify the investment. Repeat purchases signal product-market fit better than launch sales.
• Do now: Pull repeat-purchase data for your slowest-moving SKUs and set a minimum monthly unit target for each. Flag any product that misses it for review.

Short on time? You’re done. Want the numbers?Keep reading ↓

A cannabis gummy can score four out of five in a taste test and still never reach a dispensary shelf.

That’s what happened at MariMed, where rejecting products is part of controlling the cost of innovation.

“We’ve iterated on it a bunch of times. It’s not there. We’re not moving forward,” Ryan Crandall, MariMed’s chief commercial officer, told IgniteIt, describing the decision.

Crandall, who helped establish the company’s Betty’s Eddies brand, argues that cannabis operators must become as disciplined about eliminating products as they are about launching them.

“It’s very easy to add things, and it often is harder to identify what you need to remove to go faster,” he said.

The distinction matters in an industry where product development involves more than laboratory testing. Each new formulation can introduce additional ingredients, equipment requirements, manufacturing costs, and retail inventory.

The Economics of Saying No

MariMed draws product ideas from several departments, including marketing, sales, and research and development. Employees also contribute suggestions, while the company monitors emerging trends in conventional consumer packaged goods.

But ideas must pass a commercial test before becoming development priorities.

Crandall said MariMed evaluates the size of a product category, competitors’ sales, market rankings and the volume a new product would need to achieve.

“Are we going to sell 1,000 units? Are we going to sell 10,000 units a month?” he asked, describing the questions behind a potential launch.

The company uses market data to identify leading products and determine whether a new formulation could compete for their customers.

That analysis also applies to existing products. Once a brand has a successful platform, MariMed evaluates how to improve its position through adjustments to flavors, formulations, and other characteristics.

Crandall described SKU rationalization—the process of reviewing and eliminating underperforming products—as an important part of R&D.

The objective is not to maximize the number of products available. It is to concentrate resources on those with the strongest prospects for commercial success.

Why the Second Purchase Matters More Than the First

A successful launch can generate curiosity, marketing attention, and initial sales. None necessarily demonstrates that consumers value the product enough to buy it again.

Crandall considers repeat purchases a more meaningful test.

“Everybody will try something once. The rebuy is more important than the initial buy,” he said.

“The rebuy is the most important part of the way that we judge anything that we do.”

That philosophy shapes MariMed’s approach to product development.

Crandall said the company places considerable emphasis on full-spectrum cannabis formulations, which it believes provide a differentiated consumer experience. MariMed also experiments with additional cannabinoids and other ingredients to refine products.

Those preferences reflect the company’s formulation strategy rather than independently established evidence that every full-spectrum product performs better than an alternative.

For Crandall, the commercial test remains consumer response. A product must deliver an experience that earns repeat purchases rather than relying exclusively on advertising or budtender recommendations.

That makes repeat-purchase behavior particularly valuable when evaluating new ingredients or delivery technologies. Faster onset, higher potency, or a novel formulation may attract initial interest, but sustained sales provide a stronger indication of product-market fit.

How Betty’s Eddies Uses Limited-Time Products to Drive Repeat Purchases

MariMed’s Betty’s Eddies brand has developed another approach to product innovation: limited-time offers designed to attract new customers and give existing consumers a reason to return.

“LTOs have been an integral strategy in keeping the brand fresh and exciting for our loyal customers, attracting new customers to give Betty’s a try, and encouraging repeat purchases,” Ryan Crandall, MariMed’s chief commercial officer, told IgniteIt in a written follow-up.

The strategy began several years ago with a champagne-flavored chew celebrating Betty’s Eddies’ tenth anniversary. Since then, MariMed has expanded the program to include seasonal products such as pumpkin spice in the fall, strawberry and chocolate swirl for Valentine’s Day, and strawberry lemonade in the summer.

Unlike launching an entirely new product category, these limited-time offerings operate within the brand’s established manufacturing framework.

“The LTOs are handled the same as our evergreen SKUs in terms of production planning, inventory management, and manufacturing,” Crandall explained.

The challenge is timing. Seasonal products have a limited sales window, making delays in formulation or production particularly costly.

“The biggest challenge is ensuring we have nailed R&D and production in time to meet the specific time on the calendar the LTO is intended for,” he said.

Crandall pointed to Bundle Up Betty’s, a Valentine’s Day offering, as an example. Missing its January–February launch window would have affected sales, he said, although MariMed successfully met that deadline.

The strategy illustrates how cannabis operators can use existing product platforms to introduce new flavors and experiences without necessarily investing in entirely new manufacturing capabilities. It also reinforces Crandall’s broader argument that innovation should be judged by its ability to generate repeat purchases rather than simply expand the number of products on dispensary shelves.

From 30 Gallons to 10,000: Testing a Beverage Before Scaling

MariMed’s development of a new cannabis beverage in Massachusetts illustrates how a product moves from experimentation toward commercial manufacturing.

At the time of the interview, Crandall described a process beginning with a 30-gallon batch, followed by a planned 300-gallon pilot and an eventual production run of approximately 10,000 gallons.

The initial batch underwent several stages of testing, examining perceived effects and taste separately before evaluating the combined experience.

The planned 300-gallon pilot was expected to produce roughly 2,000 to 3,000 saleable cans.

MariMed intended to compare the beverage coming out of the production tank with its previously tested samples, make adjustments if necessary, and then distribute the pilot cans through its Massachusetts dispensaries.

Consumer surveys would provide additional feedback before the larger production run.

The sequence reflects a fundamental principle of commercial R&D: a formulation that works in a small batch must still demonstrate that it can be reproduced at higher volumes.

It also shows why scaling is not simply a matter of multiplying the recipe.

Ingredient behavior, mixing, packaging, and the capabilities of a manufacturing partner can all affect the finished product.

The Technology Test: Prove the Improvement

Cannabis ingredient suppliers offer a growing range of delivery systems, emulsifiers, and formulation technologies intended to improve onset, bioavailability, or product consistency.

Crandall sees potential value in such technologies but cautions against confusing marketing claims with demonstrated improvements.

“I think understanding the science below is very important,” he said, emphasizing the need for technical teams familiar with food chemistry, cannabinoid formulations, oils, and digestion.

He argued that operators should establish a performance baseline before evaluating a supplier’s proposed improvement.

Among the available approaches are conventional emulsification systems, formulation adjustments, and engineered lipid-based ingredients.

Alianza’s DynaLipid technology provides an example of how ingredient suppliers are attempting to document improvements in cannabinoid delivery. In a 14-participant crossover evaluation of two 5 mg THC gummy formulations, the company reported a mean perceived onset of approximately 11 minutes with DynaLipid compared with 52 minutes for the control.

Alianza also reported a narrower range of onset times, suggesting greater consistency under the study conditions. The company distinguishes perceived effects from cannabinoid absorption measured in the bloodstream and acknowledges that its findings do not replace larger clinical studies, but rather complement them with meaningful evidence that advances the technology and consumer experience. It says customers conduct additional evaluations as they integrate the technology into their own formulations. For operators, the critical test seems to be whether those improvements can be reproduced commercially and justify their incremental costs.

Why Scaling Across States Changes the Calculation

MariMed’s beverage development also highlights a structural obstacle facing multistate operators: manufacturing capabilities cannot simply be centralized and distributed nationally.

Crandall said MariMed was working with a contract manufacturer in Massachusetts because it did not own the necessary beverage production equipment there.

Expanding the same product into Maryland, Illinois, or Delaware would require identifying additional manufacturing partners, negotiating agreements, and validating production in each market.

The equipment itself can vary considerably.

Some facilities have canning lines, others bottle products, and pasteurization capabilities are not universal.

For more specialized edibles, those differences can become even more consequential.

Crandall said new equipment is frequently the largest expense when a company introduces a product that cannot be manufactured using its existing infrastructure.

A new capability may have to be replicated in every state where the company intends to sell the product.

The result is a difficult capital allocation problem: even if consumer demand exists, the investment required to serve several markets may exceed the expected return.

The Cinnamon Candy That Went Wrong

Not every failed experiment involves expensive machinery or complicated delivery technology.

Crandall recalled an early attempt to expand Betty’s Eddies beyond its original fruit flavors.

He wanted to develop a cinnamon-flavored fruit chew with the spicy character of a red-hot candy.

The company’s fruit recipes had used citric acid to sharpen their flavor profiles. Crandall carried that ingredient into the cinnamon formulation.

The result was unpleasant.

“It was like I poured acid on my tongue,” he recalled.

He said he never investigated the precise chemical explanation for the sensation, but the experience illustrated how a familiar ingredient can produce an unexpected result in a different recipe.

The lesson extends beyond confectionery. An ingredient that works well in one formulation may be unsuitable for another, even when the manufacturing process appears similar.

Testing those combinations before commercial production is one of the costs of developing products that consumers never see.

The Next Big Cannabis Product Might Not Be Worth Making

Crandall sees opportunities to expand cannabis edibles beyond gummies and chocolates, particularly as conventional candy manufacturers experiment with increasingly sophisticated formats.

But he is skeptical that every consumer trend deserves an equivalent cannabis product.

MariMed experimented with freeze-dried candy, for example, but did not see enough commercial potential to justify bringing it into production.

Crandall also discussed infused cooking ingredients, such as butter and olive oil, as products he would like to see become more common.

The difficulty, he said, is not necessarily manufacturing them. It is finding sufficient consumer demand.

That distinction captures the commercial discipline behind MariMed’s approach to innovation.

A product can be technically feasible, interesting to consumers, and attractive in a prototype without becoming a worthwhile business investment.

For operators, successful R&D requires more than finding the next formulation. It requires knowing which ideas to abandon, which technologies to validate and which products deserve the capital needed to reach commercial scale.

And ultimately, it requires convincing customers to come back for a second purchase.

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Disclosure: This article is part of an IgniteIt editorial series supported by Alianza.

From R&D investment and product commercialization to capital allocation and regulatory uncertainty, the decisions shaping cannabis profitability will be central to IgniteIt’s Capital & Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., on November 18. Join executives, investors, and policymakers for a discussion of the financial and operational priorities defining the industry’s next phase.