Pictured above from left to right: Owner of Genuine Grow, Andrew Marshall, and business partner Michael Sirianni inside Genuine Grow on Pine Street.
From Montclair High to growing cannabis on Pine Street, Andrew Marshall has transitioned his career from TV and Film production to opening Montclair’s first cannabis grow facility, Genuine Grow. On this week’s episode of the Montclair Pod, we dig into how Andrew got into the industry, the red tape around creating the facility and his plans for the future of Montclair’s cannabis industry. Read below for a truncated version of our conversation.
From TV Lights to Grow Lights
The Montclair Pod: Tell us the genesis of Genuine Grow. You wrote to us and said you’re the first facility here in Montclair. Tell us about the start.
Andrew Marshall: The whole process kind of started three and a half years ago in early 2022, a little bit after legalization. I’ve been working in the TV industry for several years at that point. At that point, I was just kind of ready to do my own thing. My dad has started businesses his whole life. One day I went to him and said, we should start a cannabis business now that we’re going legal. I started researching and I got really into the whole municipal guidelines, regulations and licensing process of everything since my background in TV production kind of revolves around compliance and paperwork. I dove headfirst into watching other companies try and get their license. I was watching a Hoboken meeting and I ended up hitting up an attorney who I was watching in that meeting and I was like, I want to do this and I asked him to be my attorney and just kind of went full gas from there.
It definitely took a lot. We had to secure a location. And that’s really what’s so hard about it in New Jersey is you can’t even start the process until you have a location in a municipality that is willing to play ball and has regulations that are open to it. They were allowing one license of everything and three licenses of retail. I knew already that retail was going to be really hard, politically way more cutthroat and competitive, so we thought why don’t we start from the ground up and build our own brand and build our own product and do it right here where we’re from.
We started finding locations and the building we’re in currently now had just recently been purchased by local developer David Genova and the Becker organization. I got connected with them and I was like, you know, this is it – this has got to be the spot. We locked in a letter of intent and had to work through the local licensing process for about a year and then really started going through it.
We had to apply for the license from the township. We had to go through the planning board and zoning process. Then I had to go back to the state and actually get the full license from the state. Then we had to get funding. We had to do construction. And now we’re finally growing legally three and a half years later.
High-Quality, Locally Grown
The Montclair Pod: How did you decide what kind of product you were going to grow? I mean, obviously there’s a gazillion kinds of strains of marijuana and in order to sell in the state, you gotta be growing stuff in the state or buying stuff that’s grown in the state. How did you decide what to grow? What is your go-to-market strategy in terms of retailers and things like that?
Andrew Marshall: At the time it wasn’t really what strains are we going to put out other than our whole thing was we’re going to grow the best possible stuff we can do and it’s going to be very small batch. It’s going to be local. It’s going to be limited. The whole idea at the time was kind of around the local guy at the farmer’s market.
We’re growing on Pine Street and then you can go down on Bloomfield Ave and actually buy it versus what I see in every other market is you go into a store and it was grown two or three hours away from who knows. Here we are actually in Montclair growing it for local retailers. Now we have our strains going and I actually just announced them on Instagram today, but our whole thing is just super high quality. You know, we’re running a very small room. We’ve got less than a hundred plants and flower right now, so we can really keep an eye on every single plant and really keep the quality in check.
My head grower, who’s also my best friend, he got an apartment on Pine Street. Every time he’s not there and he notices the temperature or humidity is a little out of check, he runs over there and he gets it fixed up. It’s the level of quality that it should be for the price.
Three Years to the First Harvest
The Montclair Pod : I know you talked about the process taking a bit of time going through the motions of it, when are you selling it right now? Or are you still perfecting it?
Andrew Marshall: No, nothing’s for sale right now. Like I said, we’re going through that whole growing process.
We got the local license from Montclair in spring of 2023. From that point, we went and took another about six or seven months to get the annual approval from the state, which is the approval you need that says, hey, once you do construction, you’re basically one approval away from launching. Then we had to go and actually get the money to renovate this space. The space we got in our building was this piece of a building that was untouched for many years and at one point it was just one big massive plumbing supply wholesale warehouse. Now if you’ve driven by, the front of the building is now occupied by EMG, a wedding entertainment company. We’re in the back half portion of it. At the time it was just nothing but a vanilla space with rafters. We had to put in all new lighting, all new HVAC, plumbing, the whole works.
At the end of last year, we started actually getting work done finally after getting funding in. We did a power upgrade and then we got our permits in and then construction was fully done in the summer. And then you have to go to the state and get a final inspection and they come in and they look at everything and then they say, okay, you’re good to go. Then it takes about another month for every department at the CRC to sign off on the inspection.
I had to wait for the actual tags to put on the plants. Every single plant is tracked from seed to market basically, and it tracks it along the way. I couldn’t actually start growing until we got those tags. We got those tags and we started growing on September 26th. We’re now nearing day 30 of our flower phase and each strain is a little different, but it takes anywhere from 55 to 65 days for full flower. Some companies kind of cut them down early because if you come down early, then you can turn out more harvest year over year, but we’re focused on super high quality. We’re going to kind of push them a little bit longer to really max out the quality and our yield.
The Montclair Pod: Have you figured out all the packaging and what you’re gonna call it?
Andrew Marshall: The company’s Genuine Grow and a lot of these companies, they have 10 different sub brands under their umbrella. But for us, it’s just Genuine Grow made in Montclair. That’s going to be on our label and jars. I’ve been doing the packaging the last couple of weeks and I have to get it approved by the state before I even go and order it. I’m going to have the order placed by the end of the week and then we’ll have our packaging here and we’re looking to be shelves probably around post New Year’s Eve. The product will be ready and harvested the first or second week of December but it takes another two weeks to dry and then we’ve got to get it tested, cure it, package it and then get it onto shelf. That whole process will probably take another three to four weeks so we’re looking at around first week of January most likely with the holiday.
The Montclair Pod: Do you wish you could get it to market quicker? That three weeks a problem or is it fine for it to sit for three weeks?
Andrew Marshall: I waited three years, I can wait three more weeks for it to be perfect. You don’t want it to get out there too quick, because that curing process is important. It’s just like a fruit or a vegetable. We need it to ripen and then we need it to be perfect for consumption. So every step of the way and through the drying and the cure stage, the temperature and humidity have to be very ideal. Otherwise a whole slew of things could go wrong.
Grow house facilities
The Montclair Pod: So I don’t know anything about this, and so forgive me. And I guess most people don’t, if you’re not familiar with this. Like, you said it’s very loud. Like, what’s going on in there?
Andrew Marshall: There’s about 10 or 12 fans in that room that run 24/7. There’s like a massive commercial dehumidifier in there that’s running 24/7. We’ve got these odor and air sanitizing machines that are constantly cleaning the air from microbials and mitigating odor that also run 24/7. When you’re in there, it’s all just white noise. It’s kind of like you’re in an airplane almost. You just hear a lot of engines and it’s very bright. We’ve got the lights at about 85% right now. So, you look at the lights too long, it’s kind of like you’re looking at the sun a little bit.
There’s plants that we hand feed. There’s plants that get automatic irrigations, but we’re making new feed. We’re making new feeds by hand every day.
Montclair’s Cannabis Cash Flow
The Montclair Pod: Tell us about the potential is for those listening to this interview and thinking, hmm, maybe I should get into this industry and start locally. Can you kind of paint the picture of the economic potential of this?
Andrew Marshall: I’m certainly hopeful about its economic potential given I’ve put in, you know, six figures of my own money here.
I think what separates New Jersey from other markets is how they set up the licensing process. Naturally every single market gets the price compression. And that usually happens within three to six years of the market maturing. We’ve seen it in California, Colorado, Oregon, Michigan, basically happens in every state. It’s not happening in New Jersey right now because there is a crazy imbalance between the amount of retailers and the amount of people like myself. When I came online in September, I was the 57th licensed adult use cultivator in New Jersey compared to I think 280 retail stores and we’re now nearing 300 with one or two more cultivators having come online.
When you compare that to other states, California had at one point several thousand cultivators. Colorado also same thing. And the difference in these states were the pockets of populations in my opinion. So in Colorado, you’ve got a few big cities with a lot of population, and then you’ve got all these other places with not a lot of people, but you’ve still got hundreds of growers and hundreds of stores.
In New Jersey, we’ve got the most densely populated state in the country and not that many growers. So my outlook for the next few years is that it’s high.
Can I say in 10 years, will the price compression happen? Probably, but I don’t think it’ll be catastrophic like in other states. It’s too hard to open up in New Jersey. Not that I’m gonna deter anyone else from doing it. I myself, I’m still trying to get other licenses. We have high goals for this company and this business and our roots in Montclair.
The Montclair Pod: Are you taking investors?
Andrew Marshall: We’re a micro business, all of the ownership has to be from, 100 % of the ownership of micro businesses in New Jersey has to be New Jersey residents. And then half of the business, 51%, have to be including employees. They have to be residents of the town that you’re in or bordering town. So until we expand out of the micro business, I couldn’t even take on an equity investor from, say, New York if I even wanted to.
That being said, I own 100 % of the business at the moment. My dad will be an equity partner down the line once we expand.
New Jersey, it’s a great state right now for the market, but in terms of getting in, it’s very hard. If you look at a map of available towns, it’s about, I think, 30% to 35 % are in or opted into sales. Even fewer opted into cultivation and manufacturing. It’s all down south in South New Jersey, near Atlantic City, Philadelphia border areas, the Burlington County area. Those counties are the highly concentrated areas of cultivators. I’m thinking maybe one of five cultivators up here in North Jersey, in like Hudson, Essex, Passaic County and Bergen.
I’m the only Essex County grower. And the real issue has been the real estate. And so if you can even find a town that has an available license, then you’ve got to find a building that’s in the allotted zone that permits whatever license class you’re looking for, right? So for Montclair, it was the C2 zone for my business, which encompassed the block I’m on. And it encompasses kind of the Walnut/Label Street, North Willow Street area. It couldn’t be on Walnut Street, so it was very limited to what buildings you actually could be in and that sentiment is basically the same for every town across the state. It’s a little bit easier for retail because there’s retailers, you know, there’s storefronts all over. But once you look at what’s actually available and then you go through a town’s guideline process, it’s very hard and cutthroat to get through and obviously thankful to being here right now.
Montclair High (No pun intended)
The Montclair Pod: We’ve been covering a lot of the schools, obviously. Talk about your time at Montclair High. I mean, you’re not that far removed.
Andrew Marshall: I’m 12 years removed from it now. I mean, at the time Montclair High was great for me. My sister started out at Montclair High when things started to kinda go downhill. The stairs were crumbling when she was there. I didn’t have that issue, I liked Montclair High.
The Montclair Pod: But in terms of your education and just access and readiness, preparedness for what came next, you felt like you got a good education.
Andrew Marshall: Yeah, I did. I don’t think at the time I knew I was going to own a legal weed grow down the street. I didn’t know what I really wanted to do.
The Montclair Pod: What was the light bulb moment for you to open this company?
Andrew Marshall: I think just at the time I was a consumer. I knew that it had gone legal. I was like, well, if I’m a consumer, my best buddy had kind of always been in the legacy market, making stuff at home and growing stuff. I thought, you know, I could probably go out and get this license and he can be my grower.
I’ve been in the TV industry for 10 years. I don’t want to do this forever. It’s 12 hours a day of my life every day that I’m not getting back. And so, just thought, wow, and I just work for myself and make my own hours. And now that I’m actually, when I go there and I look at it, I’m like, this is pretty crazy that I’ve made it this far. I wonder if my teachers would have, if they knew that, if they would understand or believe that as well.
The Montclair Pod: You would be the best attended assembly in the history of Montclair High if you went in and did like an alumni day.
Andrew Marshall: Do you think so?
The Montclair Pod: You would have a record-breaking number of sign-ups for go to work with an alumni day. You can’t have an internship program. I don’t think, yeah.
Andrew Marshall: Right, we’ll go to work with a cannabis farmer day. Yeah, that would do numbers in Montclair. I had my fair share of hiccups in Montclair High School. I was in class with all my friends. There were plenty of times we were goofing around. But Montclair is great. You know, it’s the only town where you can go and you can walk out for lunch and get a bagel or slice of pizza. No other town lets you do that.
From pine to table
The Montclair Pod: So when you think it’ll start hitting shelves in local stores, like next month?
Andrew Marshall: Probably beginning of January.
The Montclair Pod: Do know what’s the first strain that’s gonna hit the stores?
Andrew Marshall: We’ve got four strains that we’re launching with two of them. There’s two others, but they’re so limited that it’s not even worth announcing. We’ve got one hundred plants going right now. And when we first started, you can start with clones. The state lets you get an initial inventory of clones.
And we unfortunately only had a certain amount of clones for each strain. Some strains we had more clones of others. And now we are creating and growing bigger mother plants of some of these strains. And so that’s how we kind of keep the genetic going. And we basically just, you grow the plants out, you keep it in a vegetative state.
Then you cut a clone and that clone becomes a new plant that you can then flower out. And so as long as you keep the mother or clone around, you can keep that same genetic profile around. So we’re launching with Golden Goat, 8-inch Bagel, Tropicana Cherries, and Mercy. And then the two other strains that are super limited to start are Super Boof and Mule Fuel.
The Montclair Pod: You’re like if Supreme had a cannabis line.
Andrew Marshall: If I could be Supreme, that would be cool. But also, they’re small batch, but Supreme is also like, if you can’t buy this in the first five seconds we sell it, you’re not gonna get it. And then you’re gonna have to pay $2,000 for it. And I’m not gonna do that, obviously. You know, like we wanna make products that people can get, but only in the amounts that we can grow it.
The Montclair Pod: I mean seriously, you make a small batch.
Andrew Marshall: The small batch thing is kind of attractive for certain people who know that if they’re getting smaller, if smaller quantities are available, more care and thought are going into each quantity versus, let’s just grow 2,000 pounds of Blue Dream and throw it in a machine trimmer. Like, no, me and my buddy and my dad, we’re going to be in there hand trimming every single bud. I’m gonna be like this with a microscope on every single one looking for anything I can find, making sure everything’s perfect. And yeah, you haven’t heard any of those strains?
The Montclair Pod: I’m so old school, I’ve just got a very few that I remember at this point.
Andrew Marshall: Golden Goat’s a little bit of a classic throwback strain. Yeah, the other strain though I’m really pumped about is 8-inch Bagel. And so for Jersey, Bagel, it’s like a bagel strain. I think it’s gonna be a great strain. I’m thinking about, you know, with some of my local retailers partnering up with local bagel shop, like Hot Bagels Abroad, and saying, hey, if you go and buy a Genuine Grow eighth of 8-inch Bagel, you can get a free bagel from Hot Bagels Abroad.
And then I’ll go and I’ll pay the tab on everyone who goes and gets a bagel.
The Montclair Pod: That’s genius. You should do that. Are you going to be at the farmer’s market? Can you be at the farmer’s market?
Andrew Marshall: No, we can’t sell at the farmer’s market, but we’ll be there. We might be there to promote and give out some stickers and merch and whatnot.
The Montclair Pod: My gosh, there’s gotta be a loophole.
