Starbucks executives told a nation of curious cannabis enthusiasts last year that the company had no interest in getting involved with the cannabis trade. But now, it appears the coffee giant is reconsidering that hardline stance.<\/p>\n
In response to a question about whether the nation\u2019s largest coffee chain would ever produce a cannabis-infused brew, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Bloomberg that a product of that nature was \u201cnot anything we\u2019re considering or pursuing.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson went on to say that the concept of selling THC drinks didn\u2019t \u201cfeel accretive to our brand and kind of what our brand stands for.\u201d Yet Johnson concluded by saying that Starbucks would \u201cmonitor and watch what happens in the industry as we always do.\u201d Overall, it was a statement that oozed of,\u00a0hey, we\u2019re not going to sell anything weed-based products until the plant is completely legal<\/i>.<\/p>\n Fast forward several months and now investors are being told that Starbucks will likely be the first national fast-food chain in the United States to enter the marijuana game. However, the company will probably go a different route than Constellation Brands and\u00a0Molson Coors<\/a>, who partnered up with cannabis firms to create lines of Canadian cannabis beverages last year.<\/p>\n A\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from Wall Street\u2019s Cowan suggests that Starbucks will most likely move into the\u00a0CBD<\/a>\u00a0market and capitalize on the non-intoxicating hemp-derived cannabidiol products. The company will do this to avoid missing out on a sector that Cowan believes is destined to hit $16 billion by 2025.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t any sort of wizardry that led Vivien Azer, Cowan\u2019s senior research analyst specializing in the beverage, tobacco, and cannabis trades, to draw this conclusion. She didn\u2019t just gaze into a crystal ball in New York and see Starbucks executives launching CBD-infused macchiato double espressos in the near future. All she did was take a look at the attention the compound is attracting right now \u2013 CBD is now an ingredient in everything from beard balms to coffee (that one might have tipped her off) \u2014 to see that the most likely scenario for Starbucks was in this general direction.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our monthly proprietary consumer survey, we were surprised to see that nearly seven percent of respondents in January 2019 reported using CBD as a supplement,\u201d Azer wrote in the report. \u201cThis strong consumer interest is validated by the growing number of brands and form factors that are now available through increasingly diverse retail channels, including Amazon, Sephora and Neiman Marcus.\u201d<\/p>\n As always, the only real snag is the federal government. Although Congress\u00a0passed a law<\/a>\u00a0last year that gave hemp-derived CBD products a new lease in the grand scheme of American commerce, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration came in soon after and confused the matter. CBD food products are considered a bit of an outlaw substance. Local and state jurisdictions are now\u00a0banning the sale of food items that contain CBD<\/a>\u00a0until the FDA provides more precise guidance on what is allowed and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Although FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said recently that the agency was looking into \u201cpossible alternative approaches\u201d to regulating products made with CBD, nothing is yet on solid ground.<\/p>\n Cowan believes the FDA\u2019s position on CBD is \u201cdelaying adoption from major coffee players like Starbucks in the near term.\u201d But it is just a matter of time before it unfolds, according to Cowan analyst Andrew Charles, because the corporation is \u201cthe most forward-thinking\u201d of the major coffee slingers in the United States. Charles admits, however, that Starbucks \u201cwould need to gain clarity around potential liability this entails around selling cannabis-infused beverages before introduction.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of what Wall Street is saying, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson still maintains that cannabis beverages are not in the cards \u2014 at least not at the moment. Last month, he\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0CNBC that \u201cWe\u2019re well aware of what\u2019s happening around CBD,\u00a0THC<\/a>, and all the trends in the industry\u00a0 . . . Right now, that\u2019s not on the roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, would you buy CBD coffee from Starbucks?<\/p>\n The post Starbucks is the Coffee Chain Most Likely to Enter Cannabis Market<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Starbucks executives told a nation of curious cannabis enthusiasts last year that the company had no interest in getting involved with the cannabis trade. But now, it appears the coffee giant is reconsidering that hardline stance. In response to a question about whether the nation\u2019s largest coffee chain would everContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,136,8092,6795,99,8093,8094],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33228,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33227\/revisions\/33228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}One Venti CBD Frappuccino, Please!<\/h4>\n
Per Usual, Feds Drag Their Feet<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Starbucks is the Coffee Chain Most Likely to Enter Cannabis Market<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"