The Cannabist Company Holdings Inc. (CBSTQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Cannabist launch conference call and webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Co-Founder, Nicholas Vita. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, Jessica. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us as we discuss the new launch of our retail experience, Cannabist. We are so excited to share this with you, and it's been a long time in the making. Since the company's founding back in 2013, we've been listening and learning about the communities, customers and stakeholders we serve. And time and time again, the market has been searching for expertise and trust. It's a uniform concern and criticism, and it's a uniform sort of gap in the opportunity set that we all face. Consumers wanted a cannabis to help them guide them through their journey. Cannabist was developed to redefine the existing dispensary concept. It was the storefront brand that represents, in our opinion, the next step in the evolution of the dispensary model and will become a national standard in the years to come. Since our founding Columbia Care has been synonymous with patient-centered service and the highest quality cannabis products in the market. This heritage, coupled with the passion each and every employee brings to the company are at the core of the continuous growth we've experienced year-over-year. The rate at which the cannabis industry is growing and that which states are legalizing cannabis use has meant that we've had to evolve as a company. We've recognized the need for a retail brand that reflects who we are as an organization as well as addressing the diversity of patients, customers and communities we serve, all the while, we wanted to remain true to what has made us so successful. Cannabist is that brand. It's that experience. And with that, let me turn it over to Jesse to share the presentation, which is also available on our IR website, and then we'll open it up for questions. Thanks, again. Jesse?

Thanks very much, Nick, and good morning, everyone. It's an incredible privilege to be able to share this work with everyone this morning as it's been an enormous labor of love for the team and our partners that helped to develop this brand. Before we kick off, I did want to just speak a bit to something that Nick just mentioned and tell a bit of a story as to how this came about. I think it's important to understand how we got here and then ultimately in going through the presentation, we can talk a little bit more about how this retail experience has ultimately come to life in the way that we're going to continue to innovate and adapt on this platform over the coming years. When I first joined Columbia Care as an organization, we were very much already in the middle of sort of the hunt for the new identity at a retail level, something that would help to tie together all of these different locations and teams across the country into a sort of a consistent united front that spoke more directly to where the organization was going and where we felt the industry was going. And as I traveled around the country and met with teams and spoke with patients, spoke with customers, depending on the market, there was one consistent theme to Nick's point that continually came up. When I asked people for the most part, what were they really looking for? Or why did they come to our Columbia Care location? The answer more often than not was around service and questions. And that was a bit of a phenomenon as I started to think about what does this world really look like over the coming years. We all know that the industry is -- for all intents and purposes large right now, but it's going to continue to grow, probably exponentially over the next 3 to 5 years. And that growth has been stated and we believe, will continue to come from people that fall in the bucket of CanaCurious as we refer to them internally. So people that are not regular consumers or buyers of products today that as we continue to see normalization, we'll want to integrate these solutions into their life. And the #1 theme with those users is that they're looking for trusted and consistent high-quality products that they feel good about putting into their body, but also buying them from someone that they feel is an expert in the space or that there's a level of comfort that can come from those engagements and those questions. And building upon years and years of data, arguably, I think, probably one of the most robust data sets in the industry that Columbia Care had, combined with my own personal engagements with these teammates and these customers and patients, it became very clear that the retail experience that we needed to build was one that was built around education and engagement and looking at ways to integrate things like technology into that customer experience. And that's ultimately how we landed on Cannabist and a little bit more about that as we go through. So as we thought about who these individuals would be? Who would be the trusted consultant that you returned to, to ask these questions. This concept of [indiscernible ] of wheat or of cannabis kept coming up. And as we sat together and we thought about, okay, what is that name? That name already existed and has been around for quite a while. People have been using the name Cannabist for someone who's an expert in the space for a long time. And I honestly couldn't believe that someone had not yet capitalized on the opportunity to make that part of the retail experience and to make that sort of the trusted ambassador of the products inside the 4 walls. Originally, we thought about, okay, we'll refer to the staff inside the 4 walls as Cannabist, and we'll invest in their ongoing education and training and make sure that we have that world-class operation. And then when we really thought about it and having heard the feedback from our customers and patients that our people and service were the differentiator as to why they even chose Columbia Care. To that point, it only seems logical to put that name on the door as well. So we're incredibly proud that the name that you see is not one that's based off of an abstract idea or color or thought. It's the people inside the 4 walls that you ultimately turn to the trust. And that, I think, is a differentiator for this experience. We refer to this concept as a higher experience. And on the slide here, you'll see some parallels that we draw so things like cigars and bourbon and even barbecue. And I think there's absolute relevance there when people are passionate about something. And when something becomes a subject matter where expertise is not only wanted but enjoyed by everyone in barbecue, right, everybody wants to continue to sort of perfect their craft and be able to do that at home, but still go to these temples of barbecue execution across the country to enjoy the best of what can be happened. And we believe that the Cannabist represents that intersection of medical and recreational cannabis users that ultimately come together with our experts to create a community of people that are incredibly passionate about the plan. And that is why we're so incredibly excited to bring this concept in this execution across the country to both our existing locations as well as new ones as we continue to build out. So the way that we think that this really comes to life is all in the title that it's an approachable space filled with passionate people, but we're unapologetic about what we are. One of the other things I think we've all taken note of and that we've heard time and time again is that a lot of the naming conventions and brands that are used in the space shy away a bit from what it is that we actually do. And we don't want to do that. We're leaning in completely to the fact that we are not experts in all plants. We are experts in the plant and that is cannabis, and that to us is what creates a Cannabist. And inside the 4 walls, the way that, that comes to life is through these 3 pillars: a higher standard, a higher knowledge and higher calling. Our goal is to always meet a higher standard, focusing on better products and better service. We will continue to strive to build opportunities to advance the education of the staff, which we believe is already among the most well-trained and highest level of expertise in the space, and we want to take that to the next level where when you engage with the Cannabist inside these locations, you really do feel like you're speaking with a trusted partner who understands the plant and the forms and formulations inside and out. And we think that there's an opportunity for a higher calling here as well. We obviously want to continue to inspire people to integrate cannabis into their life, helping whatever ways they're looking for, whatever outcomes they're searching for, but that we also want to be deeply rooted and engaged in the communities that we serve and find ways to make pledges and commitments to continue to advance that -- those deep roots in those communities. The next slide shows some photography that was shot about a month or 1.5 months ago or so. And what I think it really speaks to is a phenomenon that we've already alluded to in this intersection of medical and adult-use recreational to us and to me, those are artificial architectures on these audiences that exist because of regulatory reasons or because we, as an industry, have put those stamps or those labels. But if you walk into a bustling dispensary environment that is a co-located location where you have patients and customers coming in to interact, it's incredibly difficult to distinguish between those individuals. Everyone is in there for the most part, either buying something that they already know and trust or looking for something that can be incrementally better than what they're using today. We're trying to learn for the first time about the products and what they can ultimately do. And that's an incredibly important cornerstone of the way that we've built Cannabist is under discount of empathetic education. And that is on how you are, no judgment. It is built for all spectrum of price points. It is built for all spectrum of knowledge and familiarity with the plant and with the states. But the one thing that we will not ever waver on is the commitment to curating products that meet a certain level of quality and consistency. And that includes things like you see on your screen here with our own brands and brands that are yet to launch over the coming months. Seed & Strain and Triple Seven has now seen national launches. Press and Amber are also being expanded across markets. And coming this summer, you'll see the launch and expansion of plants like Classix and [indiscernible]. It also includes third-party products that come from fellow cannabis kind of source or herb nerds or however you want to look at it, people that are incredibly passionate about what they do and are producing really precise, really high-quality products. And there's plenty of them out there. We want to be a hub where no matter where you are in the country, you see that name, you know that you can pull over and you can come into that store and you can have a consistent interaction with those products when it comes to quality and the attributes that make them unique at a brand level. The other thing that we're really passionate about is innovation. I come from a technology background. And to me, when you say the word platform, usually, it means pulling a really solid foundations that we can keep getting better. Don't ever aim to do something perfect the first time. We aim to do something really, really well and then continue to iterate and adapt on top of that to create the best possible solutions for the people that we serve. And we see Cannabist in the same way. I think what we feel is that we've created a beautiful design language and a beautiful brand architecture that will be a rock-solid foundation of the platform that we can continue to grow on and innovate. And a couple of those innovations, some of which I'll speak at a slight higher level about as there are some upcoming announcements over the next month or so that speak more directly to them. But the intersection of technology, both in-store and in your home, combined with convenience of things like delivery platforms and rebranding and ultimately bringing to as many customers as we can where possible, the convenience of the industry's first and really only credit card as a new platform called Tetra, which will also house additional loyalty functionality and really serve as a way to cement that brand affinity and that brand loyalty across the national platform. Whether you are at home, trying to discover and learn and be educated about new products in a lighter way than what we see today with a lot of the more robust menu systems, which are really built for buyers, not shoppers or if you're looking to not leave the home right now as we still continue to move out of the pandemic or just for convenience using something like virtual care, which is still the industry's only enterprise-grade virtual shopping experience. Going into the 4 walls, there will be additional technology integrations, which ultimately aid in the discovery of products and engagement technology in that space as well as having that same technology available to you from a mobile point of view as you continue to shop outside or provide feedback to those products after purchase. And our goal and the reality of what we will do is we will execute across the country with a fully funded pipeline of over 80 new and existing locations over the next 24 months with the first phase rollout of the new pharmacy that some has probably already noticed in Springville, Utah, which the signage [Technical Difficulty] sales happened at the end of April. And then by the end of this month, 3 existing locations in Tempe, Villa Park and San Diego will also now carry this banner and will begin the process of learning and iterating upon this platform and preparing for the next phase of innovations that we want to roll out to this retail experience. The next couple of slides are just an environment, showing the way that we believe this brand ultimately speaks to our customers and patients outside the 4 walls of the dispensary. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Nick and open it up for Q&A as we look forward to opening minds across the country in cannabis locations soon.

Thank you, Jesse. Well, Jessica, why don't we open it up for Q&A and sort of get right to the questions from people on the line.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from the line of Vivien Azer with Cowen.

So exciting new rollout, brand looks nice, Nick. Just curious, with this new brand architecture, does it all inform when you guys think about your pricing relative to peers?

I think that -- I'm going to give you a very high-level answer and then I may turn it over to Jesse and David to really talk about pricing from sort of their perspective as well. From our view, we've always taken the barbell approach where even with the brands we've built internally, we really tried to define what medical is. And then with a lot of the consumer products and sort of adult-use brands, we're doing the same thing. We do have kind of that middle tier of quality and products that are priced accordingly. But the Cannabist, I think, opens the door for us to be positioned not necessarily as a premium -- a seller of only premium products, but where you go to find the right products. And so I think that the -- it's a little bit like Sephora where you get that very high-touch experience, but you can approach any kind of product that you're looking for and find the right answers to the questions that you have. And so yes, will we have a premium feel? Absolutely. But are we going to be limiting the number of price points we sell? I don't think so. We may position them differently. But the real key here is to provide that high-touch service no matter what price point you're looking for. But let me turn it over to Jesse, so we can give a bit more of a thoughtful answer. And then David, if you have any additional follow-up thoughts.

Yes. Thanks so much, Nick. Vivien, good to chat. I think that our approach to this is, again, the banner for the brand is approachable, right? We believe that the space is -- and I think you see that in the imagery coming out of Utah already are going to be a very high end, very beautiful spaces, but we want it to be approachable to the full spectrum of price points. And I believe that we can and we do currently provide really high-quality products at a wide array of prices, and that's going to continue to be the charge for Cannabist because we want all, right, all are welcome in these 4 walls. And so there needs to be something for everyone. But the one thing that we know that people are not willing to compromise on is that quality and that trust in those products that they're going to be putting in their body. So the brand promise is quality that elevated does not need to mean elite. So we are going to make sure that there is something for everyone from a price point of view as they enter the store, and there will be more premium brands. There are more entry-level and approachable brands. Classix, for example, is going to be a great everyday brand that's built for those price points. But we in no way whatsoever want to alienate any of the existing customer or patient base that we serve and definitely not the new entrants that are going to continue to flood in over the next 24 months.

Yes. And Vivien, if I could just piggyback on that. When we think about sort of the complexity of the problem we're trying to solve, Columbia Care was a great medical name. It was great for regulators. It was great for early on in the industry. It's not so great today. And now that's something that we've been aware of for a long time, and we've been looking for the right name. We've probably almost rolled out 5 or 6 different naming conventions. And of those 5 or 6 different naming conventions, each one of them involved -- a search that involved hundreds of alternatives. And we use multiple sort of creative agencies to help us think through that. Ultimately, what guided us was the consumer. It's a little bit like when you want to find the path of least resistance, you pour water down the hill and you see where it flows. And that's what we did. And so when you look at the sort of the -- even the photographs that we've included in here, that is illustrative of the data sets that we pulled from, right? That is the feedback we got. We have people, my parents age, we have people, my brothers age. We have people -- we have men, women, we have everything you can imagine coming through our stores. And so the question is what becomes the type -- what becomes that DNA that actually binds everybody to the same concept. And it really came down to trust and it really came down to expertise. And by the way, even if you're a cannabis kind of sore, that doesn't mean you're not interested in another opinion if you respect that opinion. And so for us, it was as important to find how we position ourselves relative to the sort of the customer journey as it was for us to understand who it is we're serving, why we're serving them. Because I think that there were a lot of really kind of cute cliché names we looked at. There were a lot of sort of symbolic names we looked at. But ultimately, the thing that was lacking was how do we answer that fundamental question, which is, who do you trust? And you trust the expert, right? There's a reason why people go to an Apple store and go to the Genius Bar, right, instead of going to the AT&T store around the corner where there's no line. And so it's just one of those things when you look at the proxies. And by the way, Sephora is another great example. People go to the Sephora, imagine anything more personal than something that's going in or on your body. That is precisely what we provide access to. And so making sure that we can sort of define what that means to ourselves and to everyone else in a way that's relevant. And not relevant today or tomorrow, but relevant over the long period of time, that's how we try to create kind of a real sort of equity in the relationships and the trust we've already built. But David, let me answer -- let me see if you have any additional thoughts.

Yes. Nick, the only thing I would add is, Vivien, I think we've talked about this on the last earnings call, the number of new customers coming into dispensaries over the next 5 years is significant, and we wanted to make sure that it's very clear that we can be a destination for people to come and to become educated. And to figure out how best to incorporate cannabis into their life, whatever form they might take. And so I do think it's an approachable brand that should allow anyone to feel comfortable walking in. And and our goal here is to continue to bring a full portfolio of products across the line and across the SKU categories so that people are going to become educated.

Our next question is coming from Aaron Grey with Alliance Global Partners.

Nick, congrats. First question for me is just on maybe the planned transformation from existing stores where consumers have grown familiar with, whether it be the Columbia Care brand or The Green Solution brand just to ensure it's a smooth transition for those that have grown on ENVY to those dispensaries that are aware of the getting same service even better now with the Cannabist?

Sure. Why don't I start off with a very high level sort of comment. And then, Jesse, I'll turn it over to you. I think that the reality is -- I mean, I can say this because I was actually the guy that came up with the name Columbia Care. And I'm not -- for those of you who know me, I'm not the most creative guy in the world. I just work really hard. And I love Columbia Care for what it stood for and what it did in terms of helping us establish a foundation but its relevance really has seen its best days. I mean most of our markets are now adult use. Most of our -- or there will be in the next, let's call it, 24 months. Over half of our revenue comes from adult-use products now. And so the key for us wasn't necessarily to sort of transition away from Columbia Care. And I'm going to really address the Columbia Care side before I hand it over to Jesse, it was to find a way to leverage what we had built, right? People came to us, a lot of non-cannabis people came to us because we were the experts. A lot of cannabis people come to us because our products are just really good. I mean you think about the type of feedback we get in places like Illinois, which is a very competitive market, we have the best flower in the market. You go to a place like Maryland where we're under-scaled, when you look at the demographic, it's coming, it's people who are trying to understand the market. And I think that -- and those are just kind of really kind of sort of examples that are quite essential because they are places where all we have is our name. We don't really have that much infrastructure. I mean that changes when G Leaf comes online. But the fact is that we needed to find a way to make ourselves relevant in the marketplace, not only to sort of the demographics that already trust us, but the demographics that are going to trust us in the future and the demographics that are familiar with the marketplace. And so we actually think having Columbia Care products in a Cannabist, it makes all the sense in the world. But you also have to have other products, and you also have to have other expertise. It can't just be a data-driven medical conversation. It has to be a really fundamental experiential conversation. It has to -- you have to be able to empathize and really understand the whole range of consumers that you're providing access and service to. And so actually, we think it's going to be a very natural progression on the Columbia Care side. And I think -- we actually think it's going to be very well received because it's -- Columbia Care is a bit stiff. And I think it was time for us to find that next step and the way to kind of redefine the customer experience because ultimately here, this isn't just about the 4 walls and the products. This is about the way we're layering technology to move the 4-wall and experience beyond those 4 walls and to really keep that continuity of access and continuity of relationship over a much longer period of time and in a much more durable way. And so the whole idea is that this is, yes, a change to our 4 walls sort of naming convention. But what it really is, is a completely differentiated and distinct way that consumers will not only be engaged with, but how they will engage with us. So let me turn it over to Jesse.

Yes. Nick, I think you hit on a lot of really important points, but I will say the 1 thing, right, just coming from my seat as much nervousness as there is any time to present work like this to a group like you guys. The one that I was most nervous about was presenting it to our colleagues, right, across the country because we really did design this with so much feedback from them as well. Could be something that we wanted everyone to be able to rally around and be universally proud to represent. And it was so well received, and there was so much positive feedback and there's so much momentum internally and excitement that I really think that the transition for the customers in these markets is going to be aided by 2 things. Number one, we're trying to create really thoughtful campaigns and in-store interaction to speak to the transition from the legacy brands to Cannabist, which will help people understand what are we doing? We're not giving any ground away. So what are we doing to get better, right? How is it that this is ultimately going to make their experience or their products even better. The other side of it, I think, is the people that you engage with, the single most important part of all of this is our associates that you engage with in the spaces. And I feel like if there's a genuine and authentic excitement on their part and a pride about this brand and about what it represents and how it more closely aligns to who we believe we are as an organization and a combined national platform now across all of the names on the door. That's going to bleed through. And I think that our customer and patient base is going to react incredibly positively to that because they're going to they're going to appreciate that energy, and they're going to see that pride from the teams inside the 4 walls. So I think that's the one piece that is outside of just the brass packs and why we do believe that this is a logical sort of step forward in innovation across the board, I think our colleagues are the ones that are going to make this change, the most impactful.

All right. Great. That's super helpful color. And then just a second quick clarification question. So just on the product side, do you also plan on phasing out the Columbia Care brand on the product side? I don't believe I saw it on the slide. And then will you be having a cannabis product brand as well? Would that be exclusively for the retail banner?

Nick, I'm happy to jump in on this one and answer real quick. So first with the Cannabist, we do not see cannabis as a product brand right now. We see it as a retail brand, and I think that, that's incredibly important because we do plan on continuing to curate products from third-party partners that map to our sort of viewpoint on quality and consistency and people that are really passionate about the plant. So I think it's important that, that retail banner does not clash or compete in that world at a product level. The product brands that we have built internally, those architectures, are meant to continue to augment and build upon the existing. So they will cannibalize some of the existing brands, mainly the house brands and some of the more local brand architectures that were spun up across the country. Columbia Care will continue to exist, not only at sort of the parent company level, but also in conjunction with a lot of what we do from a medical point of view. We think that there's an enormous amount of trust and equity in the name Columbia Care, especially when it comes to medical products, and we think that there's a great opportunity to continue to expand upon that trust as we move more and more medical forms and products under that name in convention. So that's the plan right now is to continue to lean into Columbia Care in medical and complement that on the adult-use and recreational side with more of the consumer-facing brands that you see on Slide 6 in the presentation.

Our next question is coming from the line of Matt McGinley with Needham.

This is such a new industry. And many of your dispensaries are pretty new to begin with, but what's the typical remodel cycle that you have on your dispensaries? And what would the build cost be for remodeling this to get this rolled out to these 80 units and I guess, what do you typically spend on a new build versus a remodel at this point?

So Jesse, why don't you comment on the retrofit aspects? And then David, you can comment on the -- sort of the new build component.

Sure. Thanks, Nick. So speaking more to just sort of the process and what the cycle looks like. So we did an enormous amount of work with our partners, both on the architectural design side as well as the internal infrastructure team to ensure that we could do these executions in a way that truly was a retrofit. So taking advantage of a lot of the fixturing and sort of moments in the space that were already there and building upon that. So our goal was always to take as CapEx-light of an approach to these retrofits as possible while still making significant meaningful changes with regards to not only the aesthetics, but also the retail flow. One of the things that you'll see is sort of a mainstay in these -- in a lot of these retrofits and redesigns, is this addition of a bar space. We see that as a flexible retail opportunity that's depending on the market. Can be used for anything from express self-service in-store order SOPs to just a place to feel comfortable, right? There's nothing more social or comfortable for adults than a bar. Have somewhere to go and sit down and be able to engage with the Cannabist and ask questions. And so all of those changes, we've tried to take sort of the path of least resistance for the most part to leveraging the existing infrastructure and fixturing and really trying to be creative. We had another partner -- a national partner, ZenGenius from a merchandising point of view, who's helped us to really navigate that as well. So the short answer is the retrofit cycles can be pretty efficient now that we've really crafted this playbook and sort of this order of operations in the way that we approach this, reusing so much of the millwork. And a lot of the spaces that were sort of built and finished over the last year or so have been done knowing that these changes were ultimately going to come so that it makes it even easier on those spaces. So David, I'll turn it over to you if you want to add anything with regards to that process or costing or anything else?

Sure. Yes. I think to answer the question regarding life cycle and the dispensary, we do try to build these to be somewhat future proof so that we can continue to have sort of slight modifications as either regulations loosen and we can use more of the space. For example, you have to have the same security components in a medical market that you then have in adult-use market, you have some flexibility there. And we're just now revisiting some of our older dispensaries in markets that have been open for quite some time. Arizona comes to top of mind right now where we've got 2 locations, one of which is going through renovation. It's probably 4-plus years old. The new builds, we continue to -- and part of the effort around the Cannabist is to standardize the componentry, the millwork, so that not only do we try to pull in time lines, given the challenges in the supply chain right now, but we're also lowering the cost on a per dispensary basis. And I don't think we've given specific average build cost for new dispensaries because they do range in a fair amount depending on the market that we're in and the regulatory constraints and the viability of commercial locations. Clearly, we've got a couple of builds that are from the ground up, from dirt, which can be more expensive, all the way to slightly modifying an NCAP location that's 4,000 square feet, and we can turn relatively quickly. So they do vary across markets, but we've continued to over the last 36 months, build at a lower cost per square foot through standardization and optimization. And the renovations we're going through now as it relates to the Cannabist is not only to make sure that we're consistent from a branding perspective, but we're also adding incremental point of sales that can drive throughput. So markets where we know we have definitive documentation like a Massachusetts or in Illinois, where that adult-use conversion showed a significant uptick in traffic. We've got the metrics to basically land the plane on how many incremental point-of-sale stations we need to bring in, new dispensaries into retro to existing locations.

Got it. And on the map that you presented with the national retail ecosystem, you didn't include Colorado on that map. What will be different about the branding in Colorado versus what you aspire to have across the rest of the country?

Nick, this is Jesse. I'm happy to speak to that. So we have every intention of continuing to expand the brand even into states like Colorado, what we wanted to display in that map was the immediate transitions that are going to happen the quickest. I think Colorado is a bit unique for us and the fact that we do believe that we have a nice brand execution in TGS that has significant brand loyalty and affinity. So I think the plan is in that market that there will be a slower transition to select locations for Cannabist. But we will continue to see a pretty significant brand presence for TGS in that state. So that's something that we continue to sort of plan and work through. Colorado will absolutely have Cannabist locations in the coming years. But I think it's just a more methodical approach there as we believe that we do have a really significant brand equity position and awareness position with TGS.

Our next question is coming from the line of Graeme Kreindler with Eight Capital.

I just wanted to discuss that in the press release, you mentioned you're going to have a rebranding of the credit card. And I was wondering if you could provide an update in terms of the initiative there, the rebranding, how that fits in line with the retail rebranding? And at one point, there was a discussion of a potential spin out of that card business. Given the overall backdrop here on what potentially could happen from a regulatory picture. I'm just wondering how Columbia Care continues to think about the positioning of that business line and what its future might hold?

Why don't I start it off, Jesse, and then I can turn it over to you? I think that the rebranding was something that needed to happen because it's not going to simply a Columbia Care platform going forward. It's going to be rolled out on other platforms as time goes on. The card for us has been a very, very successful launch. And we don't know what the timing is going to be for sort of the introduction of other cards -- of other credit cards, whatever it may be. But it still has relevance today and it has relevance in the foreseeable future. And so for us, making sure that the ecosystem is complete, we have the ability to transact either on-site using electronic means or remotely for automatic fulfillment or as an enabling factor for things like Virtual.Care or Columbia Care At Home, all those things require -- are facilitated and improved through an electronic consumer credit-driven transaction. I would also say that the new sort of the new branding for the card is important for B2B relationships, particularly in markets like California where we have such a constrained and strained sort of working capital environment. And a lot of companies are generating a ton of EBITDA, but they're losing cash flow every month. And so finding ways to help our partners on the wholesale side actually address some of the issues that they're dealing with on a real-time basis, that never loses its value. So it's something that we think is going to be -- it's going to have relevance today. It certainly has a relevance today. It's going to have relevance in the near term. We hope that we see some sort of federal movement that opens the door for other types of consumer credit opportunities. But from the standpoint of bottlenecks and from the standpoint of actually solving problems for consumers and business partners, it is a really important piece of the puzzle. So let me turn it over to you, Jesse.

Yes. And Nick, I'll actually probably tag David in here a second as he's so close to the program. I'll say just from a branding overall point of view and and the transition, the one thing that was really important to us, we wanted to create a naming convention that could stand on its own, that represented not only the existing program. But also, again, provide a platform that we could really expand upon. We've done a lot of work behind the scenes to continue to streamline things like what the web presence sign up experience will look like in store sort of interactive engagements for the Tetra program as well as mobile application payment and gateways and things like that to really try to make it no touch, super seamless as easy as possible to leverage, so it's important to us to really work on sort of the branding and the aesthetics as well as those technology execution on the back end prior to launch. But again, I'll let David speak more to sort of the program as it exists today and what that looks like moving forward.

Sure. Thanks, Jesse. So we continue to roll this platform out to our existing dispensaries. We're in all of the markets, except for 2 at this point. And expect to have those completed by the end of Q3. We did hear from potential partners as well as patients and customers that a rebrand made sense when we evaluated a number of naming conventions for this. And we also heard it from our employees. And so it does need to stand on its own from a branding perspective. And as we were moving away from Columbia Care, as a brand at the retail level, we knew we needed to go through this rebranding exercise, and we wanted to time it with the launch of Cannabist. We've also been working behind the scenes. And I think most importantly, for the Tetra card is the loyalty program that will be built around that, that is tied into the technology that Jesse has built to be plugged into Cannabist as we roll this out this year. So there's been a lot behind the scenes. That's why we've not been bringing it to the surface and talking about as much as we have in the past because we've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to prepare this for a bigger launch, not only within our company, but potentially with partners as we move through this year.

And Graeme, to the extent that it gets spun out, I mean, that's something we always reserve the right to do. Today, there is just -- there's been so much innovation around it that it's being woven into that we think actually creates more value. So it was our view that, that now is not the right time.

Understood. Appreciate that. And just one follow-up. Do you have any -- or you disclosed any metrics regarding what percentage of Columbia Care's patients or customers are currently on that card platform and where that might head as you enact the rebranding of both the retail and the card level and then start to integrate the 2 of the -- 2 of those platforms into one another?

So I don't think we've given that on a national basis. Lee, I don't think that you've -- correct me if I'm wrong, but let me circle back to see what we have said. And then find out what we can say on a national basis. I mean David, if you have any thoughts that you'd like to share, feel free, and we can just make sure that, that gets disseminated to the sort of the public. But I don't think that there's anything that is that we've disclosed that would answer those questions directly. But David, what would you want to share, if anything, or should we just go back to [indiscernible] and just make sure we're telling the line from a compliance perspective.

Yes. I don't think we've disclosed much. I think the data points we've shared previously are around basket size increases, but that's the only data point I think we put out there, which we continue to see. So I think we can hop up internally.

Our next question is coming from Eric Des Lauriers with Craig-Hallum.

Congrats on the rebranding, looks very exciting. I was just hoping if you could expand a bit more on the technology front and what you guys have in store here. You mentioned the credit cards, consumer insights and sort of teasing a bit of an omnichannel approach of sort of getting these -- the educational aspect beyond just the retail store. So I was just wondering if you could elaborate on that a bit for us and understand where your technologies come into play here?

Jesse, why don't you want to jump into that?

Yes. No, I'm happy to. So I think, obviously, without giving too much away about the technology, which we do have an upcoming announcement towards the end of the month. We wanted -- it's been something that we've been working on for quite a while behind the scenes. And what we wanted to do was we wanted to build connected tissue that we really felt brought both the out of store and in-store experiences to a bit more of a 360 service level. And it was really built off of a couple of concepts. Number one, as I mentioned during the presentation, I really do believe that there's a lot of great technology available for buying. And we partner with a lot of those technology platforms across the country right now when it comes to online menu systems and things of that nature. But when it comes to solution discovery, at sort of a higher level and a little bit more of a fun approach and something that aligns more closely to the way that we can asked questions in the dispensary. So when people come to us, what are the first things that they ask us. That did not exist. And so what we decided to do was build something on our own that ultimately would be a platform that we can continue to invest in. To meet those needs, to help to answer those questions initially. And that experience will both be fully interactive inside the 4 walls as well as the mobile web application for a go anywhere. I think that, that -- from a customer level, gives us an incredible amount of power to be able to help people discover things from a -- selfishly on the back end as an organization, I think it gives us a unique data set that doesn't exist for us in our ecosystem right now. And that is that most of the data that MSOs operate off of is in arrears, right? We use point-of-sale system. We use as much as we can with regards to top of funnel intent for contextual and behavioral data. But what don't have is if everything was available, anything and everything was available, what is it that you would have picked or that would have been matched for what it is that you're looking for? Having that data set will enable so much more power for us as a vertically integrated provider in all aspects of the supply chain and ultimately will provide an incredible benefit to customers and patients because we will be cultivating and manufacturing and ultimately, retailing, the products that they really want and that they need based on the things that they're looking for. And so for all of those reasons, we thought it was really important -- it was almost a responsibility to build something that could speak directly to that gap that we saw. And so that is ultimately the technology that we will be launching and be iterating and building upon. But the [ V1 ] version of the platform and the announcement will come out at the end of the month.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. So I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Vita for any additional concluding comments.

Yes. Thank you very much, Jessica, and thank you to the team for bringing Cannabist to life. I cannot tell you how excited I am as not only the first employee and one of the Co-Founders, but as a person at Columbia Care, to see the way we have evolved and continue to evolve in a really intelligent and thoughtful manner. For me, this is -- this answers the most important, most fundamental aspects of how and why -- the sector will grow and why the company will grow in a disproportionate way relative to the sector growth. And so we would be delighted to make ourselves available and sort of showcase new facilities as they come online. So let us know how we can really share in the excitement and the experience. But thank you all for your time today. It was great to catch up.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. We thank you for your participation, and you may disconnect your lines at this time.