When it comes to chocolate, there are many classic pairings, like peanut butter, mint or marshmallow. At Inclusion Gourmet, the magic ingredient is cannabis. Based in Fairfield, the company is one of the first independent processors of cannabis-infused confections in the Garden State.
Through its Jersey Canna brand, Inclusion Gourmet supplies more than 65 dispensaries across the state with high-quality cannabis chocolate. Its lineup ranges from full bars to bite-sized cubes to sidecar accompaniments for drinks. Jersey Canna’s offerings also feature proprietary blends that seek to provide energy and focus, and encourage sleep.
Other products include a four-pack of microdosed cubes in New Jersey’s finest fruit flavors (blueberry, raspberry, peach and caramel apple) and a sugar-free chocolate cubes option made with 100% all-natural leaf-based Stevia sweetener. The chocolate is also gluten free, non-GMO, vegan-friendly and plant based.
While cannabis-infused sweets are still a relatively new item for the state’s legalized market, following the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s decision to allow for an expanded group of edible products, Inclusion Gourmet enters the landscape with more than three decades of experience.
Founded in 1992 by David Little, Inclusion Gourmet designs, creates and manufacturers high-quality chocolates and edible nutraceuticals made with special recipe premium Belgian and American chocolates.
When Little, a former certified public accountant, left the corporate world to become an entrepreneur, he initially focused on developing and distributing edible products for top brands like Starbucks, Ghirardelli, Kraft/Gevalia, Keurig and Christian Dior.
From there, he and his team of chefs and food techs progressed into making chocolates infused with vitamins, herbs and minerals to act as sleep aids, assist general eye health, boost energy levels, provide antioxidant support and strengthen immunity.
Now, Inclusion Gourmet is taking its experience into cannabis, combining its know-how in chocolate-making with a commitment to sourcing the highest-quality cannabis.
“When you have a small business, you have to continue to find where the opportunities are and make sure that you can do them and make a profit at it. It’s not like we’re just continually rolling Oreos off a production line here,” Little, the company’s CEO, told NJBIZ.
“We took our knowledge dealing with nutraceuticals. It only made sense for us to deal with cannabis. It was just the stars aligned in New Jersey and there really weren’t any people who had any experience in what we had making some of the alternative cannabinoids and looking in nutraceuticals,” he said.
Functional indulgence
Edibles are considered a fresh way to attract new consumers who might otherwise shy away from cannabis because they are intimidated by trying to use a dab rig or properly rolling a joint. They are also popular with those who don’t want to inhale smoke and find edibles easy, discreet and convenient.
Besides giving the cannabis industry a chance to diversify with new, flavor-forward edible products, infused sweets give adults a new way to consume marijuana.
Compared to candy (78%), pills (6%) and beverages (6%), cannabis chocolate represents 7% of overall sales, according to market research firm BDSA. However, sales in the chocolate category are dipping, BDSA found, and that’s prompted manufacturers to innovative around minor cannabinoids, flavors, doses and portion sizes.
Considering Inclusion Gourmet’s background in the fast-growing nutraceuticals space, company executives believed it was perfectly positioned to capitalize on the trend. Thanks to increasing health awareness by consumers and an aging population, the $712 billion global industry is expected to jump 8.4% by 2030.
Dan Silver, Inclusion Gourmet’s vice president of marketing, said, “As the market is heading down and sideways with dispensaries opening and closing, we are trying to swim upstream by making our product useful, healthy and flexible for a variety of people to try … We’re trying to innovate in this area with our product. We’re listening to our customers and sellers and trying to appeal to different specific segments.”
Since Inclusion Gourmet’s background is in chocolate rather than cannabis, Silver thinks the company’s well-suited to produce a great tasting, consistent high-end chocolate product that is not “overpowered or underpowered.”
“Obviously we use machines, but we’re not using mass production. We use machines and then people. We also understand how to infuse the product based on nutraceuticals that we’ve been developing in the past,” Silver said.
“If you’re making a chocolate bar and it’s got 20 pieces and you’re putting 5 milligrams of THC in each, you want to know that there’s 5 milligrams of THC in each. That’s not necessarily easy to do. The regulation says it has to be 90% of whatever it’s supposed to be in every part of the bar. We’re generally between 95% and 96%, which is a very high level of consistency,” Silver said.
Little explained, “We take our formulation from the nutraceuticals and we bring them into the cannabis industry. We know what works and we know what ingredients work, and then you add cannabis and some other cannabinoid and bingo, you have a better product.”
He went on to say, “Very few people have that experience, nor do they have the contacts in the nutraceutical industry. That’s what sort of sets us apart. Also, being what’s called a micro, which limits the amount we are able to manufacture. So, we might as well not try and please all the people all the time. But, if we can please enough of the people all the time, they’re going to keep going back to those stores saying, ‘That was really good chocolate.’”
“We’re hearing this now and they’re removing some of our competitors’ products because the customer really thinks the taste does matter and so do the packaging and concepts,” Little said.
Under state regulations, ingestible cannabis products – such as drinks, pastry-style treats, butters, jams, chocolates and drinks – must have clearly displayed nutrition information, warning labels and expiration dates, along with child-resistant packaging that doesn’t have any imagery or names that could pique kids’ interest.
The goods cannot contain any alcohol or nicotine, must be ready to consume and manufactured by staff trained in food safety.
Additionally, edibles will be limited to 10 milligrams of THC per serving, while drinks will be capped at 5 milligrams.
‘Our way…or the Parkway’
Compared to multistate operators – which Little believes are “out to maximize their profit and make a product that they can sell for the least amount of money to the most amount of customers” – Inclusion Gourmet is taking another route.
“It’s our way … or the Parkway,” Little said, referencing the tag line for the Jersey Canna chocolates brand.
“We’re not looking to the college student that’s looking for an inexpensive way to get the psychotropic effect. That’s not a loyalty builder,” he said. “We’re looking to work on products that help people stay healthy as opposed to just getting high.”
In the emerging market, Little says he hears from dispensaries about the need for more artisanal products that are better quality and independently produced.
As “head chocopreneur,” Little works on development and formulations of new products based on that feedback, as well as trends in other states where cannabis is legalized. “Coming from nutraceuticals, I know that we’re sort of aiming at an older crowd with functionality,” he said, “We know because we’re old, we know what older people need in their life. They need to reduce pain, they need to increase their sleep, they need to increase their energy.”
We’re looking to work on products that help people stay healthy as opposed to just getting high.
– David Little, Inclusion Gourmet founder and ‘head chocopreneur’
“It’s sort of easy for us to chart uncharted territory. And we also do get feedback that our clients are looking for this, our clients are looking for that. We can turn on a dime very quickly here — subject to the CRC’s approval.”
After receiving a license from the state in July 2023 to manufacturer cannabis-infused edibles, Inclusion Gourmet needed to get its formulations cleared and have its facility inspected for compliance. That process took about six months.
Little said, “We also had to deal with our town, which had its own set of criteria. So, January we got everything approved. By February, March, we got our act together and started producing. We delivered the very end of March and we’ve been doing stuff since.”
As part of state regulations, Inclusion Gourmet must obtain CRC approval for all recipes, designs, packaging changes, white label products and any type of retail item.
Of the company’s eight products, the best-sellers so far are the Wind Down (Sleep) dark chocolate cubes and dark chocolate bars followed by the dark chocolate CannaJolt energy bar. After that, Inclusion Gourmet’s milk chocolate cubes are popular with consumers, Little said.
At Camden Apothecary, owner and operator Anthony Minniti said his budtenders have sampled each of the chocolate brands carried by the dispensary and all agreed Jersey Canna “has the best taste and consistency.”
“Particularly for those who want a product that tastes more like a confection and less like cannabis,” he said. “My understanding is that Jersey Canna was a confectioner first, so they have developed methods that offset some of the ‘weedy’ taste of the others. I can say that our guests agree.”
“We don’t sell an overwhelming amount of cannabis infused chocolates, but Jersey Canna definitely sells through better than the others,” he said, noting that the top products from the brand are its sleep promoting chocolate, milk chocolate cubes and dark chocolate quattro pack.
What the customers are saying
Matthew Sirois, who opened Mount Ephraim-based dispensary Brotherly Bud with his brother last summer, said customers find it to be a “very high-quality Belgian chocolate” that offers a “good mellow high” and is “great for a social setting with friends.” They also say it has “no cannabis taste at all,” he said.
At Molly Ann Farms in Haledon, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Gian Lombardi said, “The quality of their [Inclusion Gourmet] chocolate is outstanding, so they are doing well despite the competition from Verano and GTI in the infused chocolate category. Some of their form factors are a bit more of a novelty, like the champagne flute sidecars, but the chocolate bars and cubes are definitely a hit.”
When it comes to the challenges of being a micro manufacturer, Silver said managing the production and delivery schedule have been the biggest.
“Being a micro, having 10 people who work for it producing 20,000 chocolates a week, is a big stress on things – especially when you have seven, eight different products,” he said.
Little agreed, saying, “If you look at an MSO, they’ve got like 30 people doing what we do. They have order pullers, delivery people, etc. … We have many hats here.”
At Inclusion Gourmet, Little’s small team includes a chocolate chef and cannabis expert. He also has a varied list of consultants he can call upon, such as lawyers, scientists and compounding pharmacists.
“You’ve got to really like challenges in your life to be in this business,” he said. “You’re working in a really interesting environment that’s constantly changing and tightly regulated … There’s also cashflow issues, town issues, state regulation issues. All kinds of issues that pop up in this business that don’t exist anywhere else.”
Little said, “We bring business skills into the cannabis world and you can throw most of them out because you’re not dealing with people who have a business background or they’re younger. I run into this all the time – I make the mistake of treating people like I’m a CPA and I have to forget that. It’s a different kind of mentality, but it’s sort of fun.”
H/T: njbiz.com
