Photo: Kaleb Tapp/Unsplash
The Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency (MRA) recently issued its October 2021 report detailing sales, licensing, and production data in the state’s medical and adult use cannabis markets. Overall, Michigan’s medical and adult use sales were $163.5 million in October, up 1.4% from the September figure of $161.4 million. This month’s gain in sales reverses the two previous months of declining sales figures.
Michigan’s Spot Index underwent a 17.5% sell-off, nearly $500 per pound, from January through June 2021. Since then, the market has undergone a failed rebound that brought price climbing up before the sell-off resumed, leaving the spot down 12.5% from the January high. Much of the initial 2021 sell-off was spurred by the proliferation of licenses and increased production in the state.
Sales are now at a level not seen since July 2021, a month in which sales skyrocketed by 19.5%. Year-on-year, adult use sales soared 115% from $59.7 million to $128.4 million. This magnitude of year-on-year sales increase is more typical in markets that are just moving into their second year of adult use legalization when retail footprints are still expanding rapidly. Michigan has had adult use sales since December 2019 and demand growth is still strong, due in part to an initially slow rollout of the market and nearby states with no legal adult use sales.
Retail sales revenue in the adult use market increased by 2.8% in October and flower sales eked out a 0.3% increase in the month. Revenues and flower sales are seeing narrower gains and losses, suggesting the supply is better meeting demand at about $152 less per pound than this time last year.
Inventory of flower held by growers in the adult use sector that had passed the state’s required testing stood at 23,682 pounds as of the end of October. Combined with the amount of flower held in inventory by retailers – 35,836 pounds – the amount of immediately marketable flower in Michigan’s adult-use market as of the end of October stood at 59,518 pounds, or the equivalent of 3.2 months of supply based on the October flower sales volume.
The number of plants reared and harvested in the most recent three months are shown in the table below. Vegetative and flowering plant figures are as of month-end, while harvested plant figures encompass all those successfully brought in during the entire month.
Vegetative plant counts fell over 41% in September and fell a further 8.6% in October.
Flowering plants fell by 36% in the last month of outdoor harvests as the number of harvested plants peaked for the season at 271,322, up 119% month-on-month.
The mean retail price of an ounce of flower in the state’s recreational sector, shown below, trended upward from June through August. Price then flattened out in a well-supplied market with little change in per ounce retail prices from September to October.