Custom Cones USA CEO Harrison Bard On $3B Pre-Roll Industry

The cannabis industry is forever evolving… but it seems like pre-rolls have officially taken over.

For stoners worldwide, the pre-roll offers consumers the easiest, most convenient way to consume: by simply picking up a joint, lighting it, and letting the flower do the rest. But what most people may not know is that the pre-roll industry is experiencing exponential growth, currently valued at a whopping $3 billion.

Custom Cones USA: The Cannabis Industry's Leading Supplier Of Pre-Roll Papers, Packaging And Manufacturing Solutions

Insert Custom Cones USA, the leader supplier of pre-roll papers, packaging, and manufacturing solutions for the cannabis industry. Their most popular products include pre-rolled blunts and joints with wood and glass tips, showcasing their commitment to excellence. Alongside their latest venture DaySavers, Custom Cones is also one of the only companies who routinely test their products for contaminants — heavy metals, microbes, and pesticides — commonly found in other mainstream papers and cones.

Custom Cones USA Co-Founder And CEO Harrison Bard On The Company's Pioneering Work In The Cannabis Industry

Honeysuckle spoke with Custom Cones USA co-founder CEO Harrison Bard to discuss his entry into this booming sector, and their vast contributions as a whole.

SHIRLEY JU: Where are you from, and how'd you get your start in all this?

HARRISON BARD: I'm originally from Miami, Florida. I got my start in the cannabis industry in 2017 by trying to make the world's first weed derived blunt wrap. So instead of a tobacco paper, a weed paper. I invented that with my business partner, Fredrik. We partnered with a licensed producer processor in Washington so we could legally manufacture it. We started making it in a licensed facility. When we pitched it out to companies, the common feedback was “This is really cool. I could sell it flat for people to roll their own, but if you want to make joints with it, I need [it] to be in a cone shape. A pre-rolled cone.”

We learned about pre-rolled cones. We started looking [into] “How do we turn it into a cone? Let's buy a cone rolling machine.” It turns out that cones are rolled by hand, so there was no way we [could] get a cone rolling machine. An Indian cone manufacturer taught us that: “Listen, there's no such thing as a cone rolling machine. Give up on that, but you want to help us sell cones? You guys seem smart, we need help selling cones in the U.S.” We said okay. We had to quit our jobs at Amazon. We were running out of money at this point, developing this weed paper for over a year.

We launched a second website called Custom Cones USA; that's how we got exposed to pre-rolls. We slowly grew that business to only sell custom branded cones, to sell unbranded cones, to selling hemp wrap cones, to selling grinders, cone filling machines, sifters, and then packaging. Now we have hundreds and hundreds of different pre-roll types, sizes, shapes, filter tips, etc.

What were you doing at Amazon?

It was a general business role, a good entry level job for college graduates that were interested in business. You’d get paired up with a large vendor on Amazon. I was specifically in the power tools and home improvement category. We’d help these big vendors who were doing hundreds of millions of dollars on Amazon, with in stock management marketing, special Amazon programs and services. Educating them, signing them up, making sure they were doing it properly. Merchandising their pages, getting them set up in deals, anything and everything for the business.

It’s crazy the cannabis pre-roll industry is valued at $3 billion. What role do you play in this?

We really think that we've helped grow the pre-roll category. When we first got started, pre-rolls were not very popular. They were viewed as an afterthought. A lot of people were putting shake and trim in the pre-rolls, they were a low quality product. Eventually, customers started asking for more pre-rolls, and farms started creating higher quality pre-rolls. We really helped with that by finding and selling the best quality grinder, then different cone-filling machines.

Everyone had been using the Bump Box or the Knockbox. We helped find and introduce better pre-roll machines which were cheaper and more efficient, which helped reduce the cost for a company to manufacture a pre-roll, so companies were able to create better quality pre-rolls for cheaper prices. We introduced ways for companies to make multi-packs cheaper. We have these things called designer cones, which have colors or designs on them. That way companies make multi-packs at a more affordable price.

Same thing with our glass wood and ceramic tips. Before, that would be something totally custom, really high orders, very expensive. We made it in stock so you could buy one box for a really affordable price, and gave pre-roll companies of all sizes access to create these unique products. We helped launch the first automated pre-roll machine as well. We've always been on the cutting edge of pre-roll technology, pre-roll trends and products. A lot of the paper products, designs, filters, we’re the first ones to make. We're really innovating and creating new types of pre-rolls that companies are able to make.

What can you tell us about your latest venture, Daysavers?

We realized through Custom Cones USA, that all the different states and Canada have different testing regulations. In order for our products to be safe everywhere, we have to test them all to the strictest standard. Canada might test for ten extra pesticides, California’s testing to a higher level for heavy metals. We take the strictest and [highest] number of contaminants and test to that, so we could sell it everywhere and not have to worry that it's good in one place and not in another.

We realized that none of these regulations or testing measurements exist for consumer products. We learned this when we started selling palm leaf blunts. We started selling bulk palm leaf blunts to companies and they were constantly failing for heavy metals, pesticides, microbials. We constantly were getting new shipments in, testing it before we would sell to our customers and they were always failing. How is a company like King Palm or Zig-Zag selling these palm blunts? The truth is, there's no testing or regulation. They don't care, no one's measuring it. For companies, they care because they don't want their products to fail and they're going to get tested. But for consumers, no one's looking out for them.

We said this isn't right. Consumers deserve the strictest, safest, most compliant tested smoking accessories. We took all of our rolling papers, our filter tips, our blunt wraps that we sell to our business customers, that are already being tested to these high levels, and packaged them up under new brands. We created Daysavers, which is our main website, then we have Fill-a Blunts, which is our blunt focus brand, and Smoke Temple, which is our high-end and more ornate brand. The first product for Smoke Temple is a cross joint. You can make your own cross joint, just like Pineapple Express, and smoke it at home.

That's been really exciting. We just got two items in Urban Outfitters. You can get the Perfect Pack machine, and the 10-pack of the Artisan tubes is available for sale online and in store in Urban Outfitters. It quickly shot up to the #3 best selling smoking accessory. If you go to their website and filter by best seller, it's the third item right now.

How was it getting it into Urban Outfitters? That's not easy!

They found us. I'm not exactly sure how they found us, I think it was through this Art Basel special edition we did. We partnered with five different artists based out of Miami during Art Basel, which is a big art fair week in Miami. It also takes place in Switzerland and Hong Kong. We had these limited edition [collections]: there were 1000 of each, 5000 total for each of these artists. They heard of us through that event. They reached out and were really interested in carrying those two items.

Where do you see the future of the cannabis industry?

It's going to be worldwide. It's almost legal in more than half the states already, recreationally in the U.S. And that's not going to stop. It's going to continue to grow. If you look at the data, it's way more recreational than medical. A lot of medical patients and advocates helped pave the way. But if you look at the sales data, people are buying and consuming cannabis for mostly recreational reasons, although there probably are some mental health and wellness aspects as well.

But pre-rolls are one of the biggest categories, as well as flower and vape pens. Whereas the health and wellness categories of sublinguals, topicals, capsules, those are really small. It shows you that consumers value high potency and convenience. Definitely the trend in pre-rolls is going to be higher quality. A lot of people still have the assumption or the misconception that pre-rolls are low quality, and will never be as good as rolling your own. But as companies shift towards quality, as competition gets fiercer and fiercer, the good companies stay in business and the bad ones go out of business — the companies that stay in business are going to be focusing on product quality and consistency.

We just launched cannabis humidors at Custom Cones USA to help keep pre-rolls fresh. That's a big trend. Just like you'll see a mini-fridge in every dispensary selling hash rosin, you're going to see a humidor right next to it selling infused pre-rolls and full flower premium pre-rolls as well. By offering that climate control and freshness all throughout the supply chain, it's going to help maintain the product quality. The farm’s going to have a humidor to store the pre-rolls once they're made, up until they ship to the store. In which case they'll be stored in the humidor in that air conditioned building. So people aren't getting old, dried out, terpless pre-rolls. There's no reason to want to roll your own if what you can buy is just as good. If people value convenience, then we'll continue to see pre rolls rise in popularity.

Anything else we should know?

We're coming out with our white paper. Every year for Custom Cones USA, we do a big deep dive on the state of the pre-roll industry. We use Headset data to look at the market on a retail level, then we send out a survey to our pre-roll customers, who are all producers, processors, or dispensaries. We get their primary data as well as the secondary data from Headset, and we look into all sorts of insights and trends in the pre-roll space. That should be coming out later this month. It's really, really insightful.

Through Daysavers, we’re doing an experiment called the Science of Smokeability, where we’re analyzing what the constituents of the smoke actually is. What makes a pre-roll taste better or burn harsher or burn faster or convey more cannabis into your lungs. No one's done that research yet on cannabis, there's been scientists that have done that on tobacco. This is a first of its kind study looking at the smoking experience of cannabis, and what makes a joint good or bad. We're putting hard metrics, numbers and science to that, so that's really exciting.

That's going to take place over two years. We're currently wrapping up phase one, we'll be publishing phase one results in September. For phase two, we’re paying people $4.20 to smoke two pre rolls, which will have different nutrient content and flushing techniques. Compare those two, whereas phase one is looking at the moisture content. We're really excited about that as well.

For more about Custom Cones USA, visit customconesusa.com. To learn more about DaySavers, visit daysavers.com.

Written By:

Shirley Ju is a journalist, media host, and seasoned music industry professional. She is the founder of Shirley's Temple, a podcast series with a focus on mental health, where her guests include Trippie Redd, Chanel West Coast, Ricky Williams, Blac Chyna, and more. Shirley's work has been featured in publications such as Variety, Complex, Nylon, Flaunt, and REVOLT; she can also be seen doing exclusive interviews for leading urban news source VLADTV, featuring a platform with 5 million subscribers. Find out more about Shirley at @shirju on Instagram and Twitter, and on LinkedIn.

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