MJBizMag November-December 2022 - 88

MJBizCon Official Show Guide
MJBIZCON.COM
Fast-Acting Intelligence
CEO of 'chef-ready' cannabis-infused ingredients company shares thoughts
about the future of edibles
K
im Sanchez Rael spent two
decades as an entrepreneur,
investor and business leader
in the technology space. But an
interest in wellness and a meeting
with New York City chef Ron Silver
changed the direction of her career
forever.
" Ron loved cannabis, but he really
couldn't stand edibles because they
were just so hard for consumers to
enjoy and to predict, " Sanchez Real
told MJBiz CEO Chris Walsh on the
Seed to CEO podcast this summer. " So,
he set out on this path to solve that
problem. And lo and behold, he came
up with our initial set of formulations. "
Silver's interest in solving the
edibles dilemma and Sanchez Real's
background in technology startups led
them to create Azuca, a New Mexicobased
business that helps brands
develop fast-acting and predictable
infused edibles, where Sanchez-Rael
is CEO.
On Nov. 17, she will join two other
speakers for the MJBizCon session
" Water and Oil Don't Mix: The Latest
in Cannabis Food and Beverage
Innovation. "
As a preview, some highlights from
her Seed to CEO interview appear
below. To purchase conference tickets,
visit mjbizcon.com.
When it came to due diligence, was
there one step that really made a
difference?
I really dug in to evaluate: Can this be
a profitable business? And we've been
focused on trying to build a scalable,
profitable operation that is capitalefficient
from Day One.
I really worry about the segments
of the industry that have raised
hundreds of millions and more and
still aren't profitable enterprises.
We've had a couple of shocks as you
watch the (publicly traded) markets,
but I think we're not we're not finished
with some of the resets in the overall
cannabis sector.
How did you feel comfortable that
your estimates of where this could go
where we're rooted in reality?
They were absolutely 100% wrong. We
expected to have our CBD line launch
and then generate enough sales
margin to fuel our growth in the THC
business.
Well, the federal government
legalized hemp in 2018, and then
86 November-December 2022 | MJBizMagazine
promptly smacked the industry right
down. The FDA said, " No, you can't put
CBD in anything-in any ingestibles or
edibles or supplements. "
So, what we miscalculated was the
depressive effect of the regulatory
environment in the CBD world postFarm
Bill, which really decimated our
financial projections.
The silver lining is it forced a
level of discipline in our operations
because we had to be extraordinarily
capital efficient, we had to figure out
how to scale without raising a bunch
of outside capital.
And this is where I think my
startup experience came in really,
really handy. Because as either an
investor or an executive, I've been
involved in dozens of tech startups,
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MJBizMag November-December 2022

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