Photo | Courtesy of Ethos Cannabis
Alex Hardy, president of Massachusetts for Ethos Cannabis
November 3, 2020
Q&A: Ethos Cannabis will connect customers to cultivation
Photo | Courtesy of Ethos Cannabis
Ethos Cannabis in Fitchburg
Pennsylvania marijuana company Ethos Cannabis opened its first recreational dispensary in Fitchburg on Halloween, colocated with a cultivation facility. Located at 20 Authority Drive, the company plans to offer limited tours to customers interested in seeing how a cultivation facility functions. Alex Hardy, president of Massachusetts for Ethos Cannabis, spoke with WBJ about why the company set up shop in Fitchburg, as well as why they plan to let customers get a glimpse of their cultivation facility’s inner workings.
Why was Fitchburg the right place for Ethos to jump into the recreational cannabis market?
We are thrilled to be in Fitchburg. The location is great, and the city has been good to work with. Geographically, being right in the heart of the state, this is a great location for our product distribution. Our particular location is directly off Route 2 at the junction of Route 31. We are so close to the highway you can see our building as you drive down the exit. We have been able to secure a large building with lots of parking to accommodate both our retail and cultivation operations.
How will the customer experience differ for medical and recreational clients?
Right now our Fitchburg dispensary is for adult-use only. We have a very wide selection of products including over a dozen strains of flower from some of our favorite wholesale partners, and our employees have had extensive training to allow them to help customers find the right products for them. Medical patients are always welcome in Fitchburg, and our large selection allows us to guide patients to the right products. Our Watertown facility, which operates under the trade name Natural Selections is medical and will soon be licensed for adult use as well. In Watertown, our employees have extensive training on medical-only products, and we have a strong reputation for our product knowledge and ability to help patients who are new to cannabis and don’t know what questions to ask.
Why is Ethos providing facility tours and what might customers see on those tours?
From a practical standpoint, we can only offer a very limited number of tours in special situations but we are proud of our genetics and our processes. We believe you can see the quality of the product by witnessing its health, environment, and care during the cultivation process. In the near future, we will begin offering opportunities for customers to interact with and ask questions to our cultivation team directly both online and in stores. Our company is based on three important fundamentals: expertise, empowerment, and experience. We believe by sharing our expertise, we can empower people to make their own choices about how they want to feel, and we want to provide an experience where everyone is comfortable making those choices.
What makes Ethos different from any other recreational dispensary in Central Massachusetts?
In addition to the benefits provided by having cultivation and retail under the same roof and the visibility we can provide customers into our process, some of the things that excite me are our accessibility and our selection. I drive to Route 2 every day to come to Ethos, and I never get over the visual of pulling off the highway and seeing the building staring right at me just a few feet from the exit. I am also very proud of our selection. We pride ourselves on our wholesale partnerships. We carry some great products you don’t see anywhere else around us in Central Mass., and next month when we introduce our own flower, our customers will get to see some exciting strains our growers brought with them from Colorado. And again, because our cultivation site is housed in the same building, we will be issuing special limited edition strains only in this store, such as our Captain Hook Cookies.
How does Ethos plan to make a positive impact on the community?
Ethos plans to be part of the Fitchburg community for the long haul. We are in the process of establishing a community relations board to include a number of persons from not just Fitchburg, but other communities in North Central Mass. This group will lead our efforts to make sure we give back to the community as much as this community has given to us so far. It's also been fun and interesting to see how engaged our employees are in the greater community. The vast majority of our employees are from Fitchburg or neighboring communities such as Westminster, Leominster, and Gardner. Each has brought their own personality and special interest causes to the table.
What are your best-selling products?
Flower is always a big seller, and we are really excited to introduce our own strains in early December. Based on what we have seen so far at our sister site in Pennsylvania, strains such as Alien Nightmare and Pura Vida, and Purple Reign, which are not common in this market, will likely be big hits.
Is there anything else new and exciting coming down the pipeline for Ethos in Massachusetts?
This flagship Fitchburg location is really the tip of the iceberg for us. We are excited about opening our additional stores in the next few months. We will be opening a medical-only dispensary in downtown Boston, an adult-use location in Lynn, and adding adult-use sales to our Watertown location. It's going to be an exciting couple of months for us and we are thrilled to start the process in Fitchburg.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Staff Writer Monica Busch.
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