Phinest Cannabis announced plans to expand their breeding, seed production, and clone production capabilities to satisfy increasing demand from California cultivators.
This fall, the company is set to open its first dedicated breeding center. Located in Sacramento, the facility will enable Phinest to significantly broaden its phenohunting and seed production capabilities and will provide space to work with other leading breeders. "Phinest has bred or partnered on famous strains such as Chauffeur, Ze Chem, Lemon Ghoulie, PB Souffle, and Crostata," said Matt Wich, COO for Phinest. "Now, as we expand our relationships with elite breeders, it's imperative for us to have a facility with advanced tools to take our breeding and collaboration game to another level."
In addition to breeding, the new facility will provide space for Phinest to propagate vegetative clones. "For top commercial cultivators, it's mission critical to have early access to new strains before they become widely available." said Mr. Wich. "By producing small batches of traditional asexual clones for new genetics as we develop them, we will provide key cultivation partners a chance to hit the market as much as six months ahead of competitors."
Beyond the expansion of its breeding and commercial nursery capabilities, Phinest also announced changes to its retail branded product programs.
Due to the unprecedented slowdown in retail dispensary sales statewide, Phinest is shifting from a traditional distribution strategy where its packaged cannabis flower, pre rolls, concentrates, and edibles are always available in more than 100 stores across California—to a pop-up retail model, according to Fred Barnum, CEO of Phinest Cannabis: "Phinest was named one of the top five cannabis brands of the year in 2021 by High Times. We have a large, loyal following, and it's extremely important for us to continue exciting and delighting our customers. By pursuing a pop-up retail strategy, we will make our newest and most exciting genetics available to our true fans, but in limited quantities and for a very limited time through a handful of retail partners, announced exclusively via our social media platforms where we have >90k followers. This allows us to keep our customer connection strong while avoiding the devastating financial losses currently being suffered by other packaged goods brands as they fight for survival in a constricting retail environment."
Further reinforcing its strategic focus on the wholesale nursery channel, Phinest Cannabis recently announced the opening of North America's largest cannabis tissue culture nursery in Sacramento, CA. Developed at a cost of more than $12 million by GCI-Green Capital Investments. LLC., the parent company of Phinest Cannabis, the state-of-the-art 40,000 square foot facility is capable of generating 18 million fully-rooted tissue culture cannabis clones per year. Phinest produces "generation zero" TC clones—meaning every clone is micro-propagated directly from tissue culture in the laboratory, vs. being cut from a tissue culture mother plant ("generation one") as many nurseries practice. "Gen zero" tissue culture plants are never exposed to vectors for potential pathogens and, thus, are delivered to farmers 100% disease-free.
The tissue culture nursery and new breeding facility are important pieces of a long-term development masterplan for Phinest Cannabis that includes multiple indoor and mixed-light cultivation facilities in Sacramento and Yolo Counties, as well as a large new mixed-light nursery facility currently awaiting final planning department approval.
"MJ Biz estimated U.S. cannabis sales at $27 billion in 2021, forecast more than $33 billion this year and more than $52.6 billion by 2026," said Mr. Barnum. "Few other markets have this massive scale combined with tremendous growth potential. Our strategy is to continue investing prudently where we see greatest current return while taking advantage of market weakness and accumulating assets in preparation for the inevitable resumption of consumer spending growth in the retail channel."
For more information:
Phinest Cannabis 
www.phinestcannabis.com