In Pursuit of a Bettering Edible Experience

The Bettering Company is a Chicago, Illinois-based manufacturer of high-quality, hand-crafted, vegan, and gluten-free edibles that recently expanded operations into New York, with more states on the way. Currently available in about ten stores in the Empire State, Bettering gummies – which are “nano-emulsified for a more rapid onset and are crafted with real fruits, herbs, teas, spices and jams, all while being consistently infused with unparalleled precision” – will be sold in dispensaries across New York City, Long Island and upstate New York, said the company, with chocolates planned for later this year.

One of the few LGBTQIA+-founded cannabis companies in the United States, The Bettering Company was started by Mark Cozzi and Drake Nickell, who completed a series of capital raises in September 2023 that brought in over $11 million in total funding over 16 months. “The core of the company’s mission is crafting luxury-quality cannabis edibles,” said the company at the time, “but The Bettering Company’s vision extends so far beyond the products it makes — prioritizing health, social responsibility and environmental consciousness.” With its move into New York underway, Cannabis Business Executive took the opportunity to speak with Mark Cozzi about his entry into a segment of the market that is highly competition but always open to new innovative players.

“We launched sales with gummies last fall, in October, and then chocolates this past February, and then some new SKUs in April, May and June,” said Cozzi about the initial rollout. “We’re in about 75 dispensaries in Illinois.”

The SKU-count is a fluctuating dynamic at the moment. “We have four chocolate SKUs right now and we’re going to introduce some new ones in October,” noted Cozzi. “We launched with six original gummy SKUs – six different flavors – and we sunset one of those, the Fennel Fig. It was the old 80/20 rule, but in reverse in a bad way; twenty percent of the consumers loved the product and 80 percent did not.

“Then we have two Macro Mango SKUs, single-serving, 25 milligrams and 50 milligrams,” he added. “We have a Pride Pack, where we took our six flavors, created a variety pack, and used our different colors to create a pride flag; and we have some other 10-milligram, 10-piece pouches and so on.”

Was the idea to create a luxury brand for a target demographic in terms of price, quality, or both? “We had a vision to launch premium gummies,” replied Cozzi. “I don’t know if the market exists for luxury. Some people do describe our products as luxury, but I think they’re premium because we’re using real fruit, minimal ingredients, and in Illinois, we individually wrap the gummies. All of that requires care and love and labor and higher raw material costs, and we think all of those things together create a premium offering.”

The launch came with an inevitable learning curve. “We quickly learned that with our lower-dosed products, people like them,” said Cozzi, “but when we asked one budtender how things were going with our launch, he said, ‘I love the flavor, I love the packaging, but I consume 100 milligrams in a single sitting, and I can’t eat 20 of your gummies to get what I need.’”

They listened and adjusted the dosages. “We launched with two-and-a-half milligrams per gummy and five milligrams per gummy in 20 packs,” he added. “After we received consumer feedback, we launched 10 piece 10-milligram packs and five piece 10-milligram packs. We continued to receive requests for higher dosage, and that’s when we launched Macro Mango at 25 milligrams per piece and 50 milligrams per piece, and those have been selling incredibly well.”

The company’s manufacturing and formulation process is geared toward quality, noted Cozzi. “We used a local chef who had worked with a large MSO, left the MSO, and was a consultant to us and created the flavors,” he said. About the infusing process, he added, “It’s interesting how traditional gummy batches are infused. It’s not all that scientific. We took it a step further, which is not a hard step, but you just have to take the step. So, we think our dosing is more accurate, and then as important is the quality of the distillate. We’re seeing distillate that’s 90 percent pure plus or minus a smidgen, is odorless and tasteless, and provides a high for consumers that I think is a pretty magical high.”

Did he mean in terms of there being no cannabis aftertaste? “That’s right,” he replied, “and because the distillate is so high quality, I think that lends itself to a better high, more blissful and intense, in a clear and clean sort of way.”

With edibles, the source of the distillate is obviously not a consumer priority. “I don’t want to say no one, but very few people ask where we source our distillate,” said Cozzi, who added that anecdotal feedback is nonetheless plentiful. “We do get many comments like, ‘Wow, these taste great, and the high is pretty spectacular.’ And a very good friend of mine here in Chicago, he, his wife, and some friends consumed our two-and-a-half milligram Watermelon Chili gummies –now these are experienced cannabis consumers – and they said the high was so great that they weren’t sure if they were the two-and-a-half or five [mg gummies]. Those are the comments that I want to get.”

All of this love and individual wrapping does come with a cost of course. “In the spectrum of gummy pricing in Illinois and in New York, we are towards the top in terms of pricing,” said Cozzi. “We think our products warrant that pricing, because we do think they’re better products, and the ingredients are more expensive, the labor is more expensive for dosing, and we have fold wrap packaging machines, which takes labor and are more expensive, so the inputs cost more.”

Creating Velocity Through Partnerships

With not yet a year under its belt, I asked Cozzi how it’s going in terms of growth and adding new doors. “I would say we’re learning,” he said frankly. “We’re making mistakes, for sure, and we’re learning that it’s not the number of doors that you’re in, it’s the quality of the relationship with the dispensary and the partnership that’s created. And so, in launching your brand – and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a cannabis brand, potato chips, or snack bars – you have to generate velocity, and you have to work with a dispensary to create a plan together. And frankly, we didn’t quite realize that as well as we should have when we launched here, and now we’re doing that, and that’s working in the dispensaries where we’ve created this sort of partnership.”

So, what is it about edibles, and gummies specifically? “I’m a student of history and economic history,” explained Cozzi. “I looked at vodka, which started around 700 or 900 AD in Poland and Russia and has continued over the course of time right through the end of prohibition in the 1930s and the proliferation of brands in the last 30 or 35 years, with the arrival of Absolut and Grey Goose and Tito’s. We looked at that and felt that the edibles market and gummies were like vodka or craft beer, where you can innovate, and the market is there. You just have to be patient and make great products that that market wants.”

Patience was certainly a factor in The Bettering Company’s entry into New York. “There was definitely a long on ramp,” said Cozzi of the effort. “New York was always near and dear to my heart, and we weren’t sure if we were going to enter it or New Jersey next, but we met a really great co-manufacturer in New York very early this year, and we also saw that the New York OCM realized the issues surrounding licensing – that they needed to license dispensaries more quickly, and they needed to shut down the bodegas – and those three factors led us to enter New York before New Jersey. I also have lived in New York four times, and even when I wasn’t living there, I travel there all the time, so I know the city and the boroughs quite well.

“So, we began working on this in January, working with a co-manufacturer who has been an excellent partner, and we created five SKUs,” he added, noting that speed is not of the essence. “Unlike Illinois, where it was a race for us to be in so many doors, it’s just the opposite in New York. We targeted 17 or 18 dispensaries that we wanted to partner with and activate with and we will be in 14 of the targeted dispensaries by the end of by the end of July, first week of August.”

Speed may not be a priority, but intensity of purpose is. “We’re intensely focused on these 14 dispensaries, and we’re running a digital marketing, social media campaign surrounding many of them,” stressed Cozzi. “And talk about mistakes made. We were working with a digital media agency to run our digital media programs. We weren’t happy, so we brought it in-house and now we’re infinitely happier. Now, we’re going to use some of the campaigns that we’ve run in Illinois that have been so successful with dispensaries and do them in New York.”

The types of partnerships vary. “With one dispensary, they’re very active philanthropically, and we want to be a sponsor with them for different events in New York,” explained Cozzi. “Another dispensary is very big on budtender training, pop-up sampling, in-store assets, so we’ve provided exactly what they want. And then with some of the dispensaries, we want to run geo-targeted Meta ads to drive consumers to their dispensary to hopefully buy our products, but in any case they will be going to their dispensaries, and they really like and appreciate that.”

And the company brings much more than marketing initiatives to the table. Bettering has pledged a portion of all New York proceeds to LGBTQIA+ charitable organizations in New York and Illinois, including the Howard Brown Foundation in Chicago. “A product of two LGBTQIA+ founders,” The Bettering Company does not shy away from what makes the company different but embraces it,” said the company in announcing its expansion into New York. “In addition to being proudly LGBTQIA+ founded, TBCo. is employee-owned, giving each employee a sense of ownership in the collective mission to always be ‘bettering.'”

New York and Beyond

The New York launch is underway as we speak. “We’re on shelves in 10 dispensary now. One dispensary had our products on their shelves three weeks ago, and they just placed a reorder two-and-a half weeks after our products arrived on their shelves. Of the remaining four dispensaries, three will [have product] on the shelves in a couple of weeks, and we’re targeting late August to jointly launch our products with the fourth one.”

The gummies The Bettering Company will introduce at launch in New York include Blood Orange (10mg THC + 15mg CBD), Blackberry Lemonade (10mg THC Slumber), Midnight Cherry (10mg THC + 10mg CBD + 5mg CBN), Raspberry Mandarin (10mg THC + 2mg CBG), and Lemon Zest (10mg THC + 5mg THC-V).

Chocolates will be added to the New York menu lickety-split. “We’ve gotten lots of requests for our chocolates, which will launch in New York in October,” said Cozzi. “Chocolate does melt, unfortunately, and the city is sweltering, so we’ll launch chocolates in the fall. Also, our gummies are individually wrapped in Illinois, and the machine is custom-made, so it takes a long time to get them, but we hope to have that machine in New York around October or November, and then we’ll start individually wrapping there, too.”

The company is entering the New York market through retailers that include The Travel Agency (NYC), Housing Works (NYC), FlynnStoned (Syracuse), and others. In a press release announcing the NY launch, the company proclaimed, “Bettering Company’s mission is to bring much-needed quality and clarity to health-conscious consumers who are interested in the cannabis space but may not know where to start, as well as to experienced enthusiasts who value the care of craft.”

I asked Cozzi about that challenge to well-established gummy brands in multiple states. “There are really great products out there for sure that consumers love,” he said. “We are just providing a different spin on what’s available, and much like Grey Goose or Ketel One, there are amazing vodkas out there; Absolut, Tito’s. But different consumers want different experiences, some consumers may consume our goods and may consume competitors’ goods, and in the same way I don’t consume the same craft beer or the same wine all the time, there’s a lot of room for success. We just have a different take on how we want to consume edibles. We don’t code in sugar, we’re not adding any artificial or natural coloring or flavoring, and we’re using real fruit to make our gummies.

“The goal is to build a national consumer packaged good,” he added. “One of our investors is Peter Rahal, who is the co-founder of RXBAR, and he’s been immensely helpful to us in thinking about how you create that durability, and in many ways, we’re taking notes from the RXBAR playbook. You use clean, minimal ingredients, you’ve got packaging that’s interesting, and you create a consistent product in different markets. There are gummies that are spectacular in one state, and then you go to another state and they’re not, and I guess if we’re trying to solve for anything, it’s that inconsistency in different states.”

I clearly had no idea why those gummies in the other state were lousy, but I suggested that it probably had something to do with quality control, because something was off. “It totally is,” agreed Cozzi, “and that’s why we obsess over the co-packing partners that we use. We really, really like our New York co-packing partner, and in New Jersey, we’ve identified a partner that is A+. We haven’t started the Ohio process yet, but I want to avoid the mistakes that other brands have made where they’re utterly spectacular in one state and kind of terrible in other states.”

With New Jersey moving forward and Ohio on his radar, was there another market Cozzi was particularly interested in exploring when the opportunity presents itself?  “For sure,” he said without a beat. “Florida, absolutely.”