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He always does business in a black long-sleeve T-shirt or sweatshirt paired with matching black denim jeans. A gold chain hangs from his neck, and he occasionally throws on a white San Francisco Giants jersey for good measure. Rock solid, he\u2019s clean shaven on top, but rocks a scruffy goatee on his face. It\u2019s easy to mistake the world\u2019s most successful cannabis entrepreneur for a villain from the Marvel universe, but Cookies founder Gilbert Milan, Jr., (Berner), is anything but that. He\u2019s the legal industry\u2019s shining example of how to do weed right.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started this brand to have fun with it and just have access to medicine,\u201d the San Francisco Bay area rapper and cannabis entrepreneur says, referring to his company\u2019s cultivation, dispensary and popular apparel brand, Cookies. \u201cWhen I look at it now, it\u2019s kind of unreal, really hard to believe sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Launched seven years ago in San Francisco, Cookies got its name from the popular strain Girl Scout Cookies\u2014a favorite for its high THC content and smorgasbord of rich terpene offerings. The essence of the then-32-year-old\u2019s new cannabis brand was his undeniable passion for genetics and breeding new strains that produced flavors unlike anything American consumers had ever tried before. Berner had arrived.<\/p>\n
He says Cookies sourced from across the world\u2014Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, The Netherlands, Spain\u2014to produce groundbreaking strains such as Huckleberry Gelato, Powder Sugar and Undertow. The brand\u2019s cult following buys apparel and paraphernalia to the tune of millions of dollars each year and the baby blue-colored Cookies logo is ubiquitous in legal states: 52 dispensaries and counting across the country. But the heart of the 39-year-old\u2019s passion project is in genetics.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\u201cMy goal has always been to make sure there\u2019s good weed around for the next generation,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of people out there growing terrible weed, but we\u2019re growing very precise genetics. We want the world to taste these genetics we\u2019re putting into the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berner\u2019s empire has hundreds of employees working across dozens of dispensaries, farms and apparel stores. But he\u2019s not just sitting back and watching. In fact, the 39-year-old billionaire still regularly puts in 18-hour days\u2014remaining as involved in Cookies as ever. His latest mission? Expanding the brand internationally.<\/p>\n
The clothes are already there: Cookies fans in Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia wear Berner\u2019s apparel religiously, as if they were family. Fans from Ireland, Scotland, Spain and Italy covered in tattoos of the Cookies logo surrounded him at the large cannabis conference, Spannabis, in Barcelona before the pandemic. Excited customers in Jamaica implore him to speak at their smoking clubs and treat him as nothing short of a national hero from the moment he touches down on the Caribbean island nation.<\/p>\n
Cookies SF just launched its first store in Manhattan to great fanfare.<\/p>\n