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Growing interest in Tilray’s beverages is driving the company’s growth.
In its earnings report, Tilray said its net revenue grew 26% last year, with cannabis revenue up 24%. This year alone, it expects net sales to reach between $950 million and $1 billion.
On Tilray’s earnings call last week, CEO Irwin Simon said the company’s work in beverages is transforming it into a broader business with broad expansion into new areas.
“Over the last five years, we’ve built something really exciting: a cannabis-focused lifestyle company that, of course, counters alcohol,” Simon said.
Tilray acquired eight beer brands from liquor giant Anheuser-Busch last August and is now the fifth-largest craft brewer in the U.S. with a 4.5% market share. In June, it also launched Runner’s High, a non-alcoholic beer brand that it promotes as a healthier alternative.
Simon said the company is focused on expanding its portfolio of craft beer and non-alcoholic beverage brands and hopes to cash in on the higher-margin cannabis beverage sector once legalization occurs, but in the meantime, the company is exploring other revenue streams.
“As we’ve looked at other categories and what else we should expand into and as we’ve progressed through our strategic plan, we’ve identified what lifestyle, what lifestyle opportunities we should bring to the Tilray brand,” Simon said.
The company’s efforts also include the launch of hemp delta 9-derived beverages, which are not derived from cannabis but contain THC. Simon said the formulas for these beverages are “finalized” and they can be sold as soon as they plan which markets they will be best placed in. The company could potentially start selling the beverages in Texas and New Jersey, he said.
in Yahoo!Finance Interview Simon noted last week that marijuana is now legal for recreational use in 27 states and that Gen Z and millennials are consuming marijuana more than alcohol, but he said he doesn’t expect marijuana to be reregulated under federal law.
“I don’t know, but I’m not optimistic either,” he told the outlet. “Something has to happen.”
Xochitl Hinojosa, public affairs director for the Department of Justice, told Food Dive in May that the department is interested in changing how the law treats drugs. The department is looking to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I controlled substance, the same as heroin, to a Schedule III controlled substance, the same as Tylenol. The department hasn’t said when it will make the change.
