Independent pot retailers in Sask. establish co-operative

SASKATOON A group of independent cannabis store owners in Saskatchewan are pooling their resources in the hopes of levelling the pot playing field.

The Saskatchewan Weed Pool, the province’s first cannabis co-operative, was created in response to an industry that members say is starting to be largely taken up by chains and publicly-traded companies.

According to information from the SLGA, approximately two-thirds of the province’s 36 currently-operating cannabis retailers are owned by these large companies.

“We just felt as individual players in the Saskatchewan market that we benefit by consolidating our efforts and our buying power,” said Jim Southam, president of the Pool and owner of Prairie Cannabis in Prince Albert.

Following legalization last year, a group of private stores formed the Saskatchewan Independent Cannabis Retailers Network (SICRN). Members of the network came up with the cooperative approach to address the challenges they were facing.

Supplying legal products on a store-by-store basis is difficult for large suppliers, Southam said, so the group is looking receive a wholesale license from the SLGA to pool their buying requirements and purchase products to be split between member stores.

Aside from Southam, the cooperative is currently made up of Landyn Uhersky — owner of the Wiid Boutique in Regina — and Clayton Sparks, who won a chance to operate a cannabis store in La Loche.

The co-operative’s branding and methodology are based on the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, a group of farmers who banded together in 1924 to work for better prices for their wheat.

“If you look at the Wheat Pool’s success over the last hundred years, we feel that there’s a lot of similarities there,” Southam explained.

“We’re very respectful of those ideas and what they accomplished and we feel that that model really fits in with what we’re doing today.”

While the wholesale stock would initially be provided to membership businesses, Southam said that after receiving interest for the idea, the Pool is also looking to potentially branch out to non-members once it’s up and running.

Southam said the idea of supporting independent stores is appealing to Saskatchewan residents — it’s also another place where they draw inspiration from the agriculture industry.

“In Saskatchewan and all across the prairies, the locally-sourced and grown and produced products are something that we like to stand behind,” he said.

“We think that the cannabis industry will be no different.”