Some are calling it a green gold rush, a new cash crop or a miracle cure, while many others don’t know quite what to make of it. But one thing has become clear since its gradual legalization in phases over the last few years: CBD is here to stay in Tennessee. And in Knoxville, it’s no different.
But what is it, exactly?
CBD is short for cannabidiol, the active cannabinoid molecule in hemp, a strain of the cannabis plant. Most average people hear “cannabis” and make the immediate mental jump to marijuana, the most popularly known strain of the plant. Of course, smoking or ingesting the marijuana flower is known far and wide in popular culture for inducing a signature intoxicating high, which is brought on by its own, more psychoactive cannabinoid molecule, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). Growing, possession, sale and use of marijuana have been illegal on the federal and state level for decades.
While the movement to decriminalize or make marijuana medicinally and/or recreationally legal has been successful in several other states, it has not yet gained traction in Tennessee.
However, Tennessee has been successful in legalizing the hemp strains of the cannabis sativa family, which are regulated by the state to be bred below a certain THC threshold (0.3%). Growers are increasingly experimenting with other cannabinoids, too, but mostly with CBD. Proponents of the substance say that CBD, when taken in oil-tincture regimens (or in other forms like edibles, bath bombs, body butter or even smoking the flower itself) offers benefits like relief from chronic pain, anxiety, nausea or incontinence related to issues like Crohn’s disease and a host of other ailments.
According to an April story in the Tennessean, the state’s Department of Agriculture reports that over 2,600 farmers in the state had been licensed to grow hemp as of spring 2019, a staggering 1,100 percent increase from the previous year.
CBD dispensaries have popped up all over Knoxville in the past year, as well, with gas stations including Pilot and Exxon and even some regular retail stores getting in on the craze. But who’s cashing in on the trend, and who’s a true believer? Who is part of the new industry that seemingly is here to stay?
BLANK spoke with two of Knoxville’s more prominent and successful new businesses specializing in CBD: Blühen Botanicals and Hemp House. Representatives from both firms say that they are fully invested in the product – and that includes understanding the genetics, farming, cultivation and refining process to maximize the healing benefits of the compound, as well as educating consumers about it, growing their respective brands and spreading the CBD gospel far and wide. The following sections profile each company and provide insight into the bold new direction for industry in Tennessee.
Blühen Botanicals
For denizens of downtown curious about the new storefront retail tenant on Jackson Avenue in the Old City with the fresh blue signage reading simply Bü (as if to introduce a new element to the world) and featuring workers scuttling busily in and out from behind protective plastic sheeting for the past two months, it is the flagship brick-and-mortar location for Blühen Botanicals, a new health and wellness shop specializing in regionally grown CBD products. A grand opening of the business at 555 W. Jackson Ave. scheduled for this Friday, May 17, is meant to coincide with the kickoff of this year’s Rhythm ‘N’ Blooms Festival.
Blühen Botanicals is more than just a local retail location, however; the company is an ambitious, quickly growing, vertically integrated hemp farming/production brand with its own farms, grow facilities and an extraction plant. Though its globetrotting executives recently made major waves with an angel-investment cash infusion of around $30 million dollars from Heavenly Rx, a subsidiary of SOL Global Investments Corp., its offices actually are based in Knoxville.
Within two years of CEO Joe Fox’s due diligence spent building the foundation that would become Blühen, it has grown exponentially, and it really has exploded since actively launching in September 2018. Fox recalls a conversation with the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Business Journal in November of last year when Blühen’s team was scrapping together a business plan with just a dream in place and a lean founding team of three. Even then, Fox was ambitiously predicting that by this time in 2019, they’d be up to 20 employees. Now he says they’re already up to 50.
“The overall scale has grown tremendously,” Fox says. “But what’s even more impactful is the speed at which we’re executing. There are some people in this industry who are making some really big moves. The partnership with SOL helped us take our initial business plan and really put it to work to partner with someone who really takes our vision to a larger scale, much quicker than we anticipated.”
Blühen as a company has been built from the beginning as a truly vertically integrated enterprise, Fox asserts. “We’ve traveled across the globe looking for the best genetics,” he says. “Working with our farmers, from genetics, to cultivations, to consumer – we own every piece of that process – and that was the vision from early on.”
Fox says that commitment to control will give Blühen the ability to offer top quality and education about their products to their customers.
“We can look a customer in the eye with confidence and pride and know we can tell them every last ingredient,” he says.
Blühen’s flagship wellness shop on Jackson will have a relaxed atmosphere with a “grab-and-go cafe vibe,” Fox says. He adds that it will offer products that are “crafted with care” and will feature knowledgeable employees who can help local CBD enthusiasts and even novices who are “thirsty for knowledge, thirsty for education on what is CBD, what hemp is. Our space really evokes calmness. … [You can] really enjoy your time here.”
Fox credits the team of Sanders-Pace Architecture, Build Knox Construction and his own Blühen team for doing a complete build-out renovation of their historic space in around 60 days to prepare for the grand opening. “It’s nothing short of miraculous,” he says. “The ability of this team to design and execute this concept is like nothing I’ve ever seen. The congratulations there goes to the team.”
Fox feels the community will respond well in Knoxville. When SOL and Heavenly Rx’s holdings in other states are mentioned and he is asked if there are plans for Blühen to be involved in developing locations or future product-line expansions elsewhere, Fox seems enthusiastic about the possibilities. “We feel this type of concept that we’ve developed in Knoxville is likely to resonate, and we may duplicate [it] in other markets,” he says.
Fox and his other business partners have had their hands in several local entrepreneurial endeavors, including Fox and Fogarty Real Estate, Respectful Rehab and Elkmont Exchange. But why the move into hemp and CBD?
Fox says he was not very knowledgeable initially until his partner in the business, Director of Horticulture Erich Maelzer, a longtime grower and enthusiast for the plant, continued to inform him about developments in the industry, eventually piquing his interest.
“I had so much going on with our real estate development that, at first, I really didn’t take that much of a look at it,” Fox says. “It was a pretty daunting task.”
But as Fox continued to follow the news with the rapid growth of the CBD scene, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something big, and he found himself up late at night researching the topic. “I’m kind of a natural sponge,” he says. “I found myself dipping my toe in the water. This is a post-Prohibition era, and this is a potential to help carve and shape an industry. It was a really exciting thing to take a look at. … For an entrepreneurial-minded person, that’s an opportunity that can be highly addictive. It was an opportunity I just couldn’t turn off.”
Soon, Fox and his business partners at the Fox and Fogarty firm all became investors in the fledgling Blühen Botanicals. “The rest of the team worked diligently to man the ship at home with existing businesses while I traveled the country meeting with potential vendors, partners and collaborators,” Fox says.
Eventually, Fox says, he knew it was time to go for it. He approached his partners and told them, “I think it’s time for one of us to go full-time with this thing.” Initially, he said he wasn’t sure about the plunge, but he just knew someone had to do it. He was relieved, though, when he got the vote of confidence from his group. “They said, ‘Yeah, man, you are the right person.’ I just couldn’t turn it off; it’s become a calling.”
The group has continued to increase its visibility as they’ve grown. They recently sponsored Heart of Town, a Grateful Dead-themed music festival produced by Born & Raised Production on April 20, and they will be a headlining sponsor of this year’s Rhythm ‘N’ Blooms – which has been a major impetus for opening their brick-and-mortar location in the Old City. Blühen also has invested in top-notch public relations and marketing photography/video from the likes of local whiz Lisa Duncan’s team and video mavericks Loch & Key Productions.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Fox says of the choice to work with these highly rated local media companies. He is clear to point out, though, that while the campaign is professional and sleek, he still views it as authentic and personal. No purchased stock photos of random farmers were used; those are real Blühen farmers in their fields. “We tell our story through our photos,” Fox says. “We’re a group of really passionate people.”
So what’s next for Blühen? What will the investments mean with regard to continued expansion and growth? For one, Fox says, customers can expect to see the Blühen team launching products on a monthly basis. While they are open to potentially placing products with other retail locations, the product control and quality is tantamount. “We’ll look at strategic opportunities,” he says, “but our focus is not on getting it on as many shelves as possible. It’s about getting it on the right shelves where the people are educating the consumer. Making sure our product is best represented is paramount.”
Hemp House
“I’ve always been a cannabis enthusiast,” says Andy Chesney, owner of Hemp House, located at 1645 Downtown West Blvd. “I think it’s great that Tennessee is moving in this direction.” He says that when the state made hemp (and, by extension, CBD products) legal in 2016, he had to investigate to see what the scene was about. Before long, he was leaving his day job and getting involved in it himself.
“It’s no question people are getting relief,” Chesney says of the benefits to CBD. He cites one of his early customers, an older woman who is a longtime gardener with chronic arthritis. She started using one of the tinctures before over time bringing in 10 to 15 of her co-workers. “She’s just a customer for life,” Chesney says, “and that’s what I’m in it for.”
Another example Chesney gives of the word-of-mouth growth of his business and the crossover appeal of the product is taking one of his salves to his daughter’s daycare teacher who complained of back pain. When he did, to his surprise, one of the other teachers pulled out her own vial of another brand’s ointment. “I just feel like it’s a testament to the popularity [of CBD],” he says.
At this point, however, when folks bring out other products, Chesney says he always likes to ask them how much they are taking, how it is working for them and other questions to get a gauge on how familiar they are with the products. Some health shops or internet sites, he says, sell cheap CBD products that have not been examined for effectiveness and don’t have much information about their ingredients or from where they come. He likes to share a lot of information with his customers as they shop, as was evident in an interaction with a customer BLANK witnessed before its interview with Chesney. They conversed about a variety of products, a dozen or so in about as many minutes, and among the subjects discussed were the history of the laws surrounding CBD, Chesney’s personal history and current use of the compound, his farm-to-business model and how to use the products.
“For me, it is all about education,” Chesney says. “You have to find out what is an appropriate dosage … you have to find your sweet spot. Just running an honest campaign, I’m getting all this feedback. The testimonials are what I’m in it for, and the data doesn’t lie to you.”
In fact, in Chesney’s past life he was a corporate data analyst, and he’s taken that professional approach and applied it to many aspects of his business. Entering Hemp House, customers find a clean, welcoming environment with a minimalist interior design and soothing instrumental music playing softly in the background. His products are offered in a vast yet carefully arranged and presented array.
Among the items are salves, capsules, foot soaks, transdermal patches, oils, body lotions, body butter, tinctures, coconut oil, candies, honey sticks and more. Two of the most popular products tend to be the tinctures (sold in an assortment of concentrations and sizes) and the flower, bought in bulk buds or in pre-rolls. Though Chesney believes the testimonial data to show that a daily regimen of tincture is much more effective for calming anxiety and relieving pain, he says that some people just really enjoy the instant effect and the process of smoking the flower.
Back to that collaborative spirit: Chesney’s main angle for doing what he does seems to be supporting local and regional farmers. Most of his topical products are made by Tennessee brands like TN Homegrown, Veteran Grown, Smokey Mountain Homegrown, Alleviate Pharms and Little Tree Labs, and his flower comes from North Carolina. “It comes down to the product, and it comes down to Hemp House’s reputation,” he says. For example, some vendors have offered to sell him their own branded CBD pre-rolls, but Chesney says, “I must know what’s in there. I fully trust my vendors, but at the same time, this is 100 percent flower in here because I put it there myself.”
The same approach informs his business arrangements, as well. Some other major brands, like Blühen Botanicals, may seem like major competitors, but at the same time, Chesney likes carrying all the best products, and if they come to an agreement on a good relationship for him to carry them as a vendor, he is not averse to doing so.
“I’ve always found these relationships between these breweries interesting,” he says of the supportive atmosphere cultivated amongst craft-beer providers in Knoxville, describing how seemingly competitive brands are welcomed into each other’s spaces for tap takeovers and the like – just for the love of the product and the process.
Chesney estimates that there are upwards of 3,000 hemp farmers now in Tennessee. He says that many often will come by the shop and ask him to carry their products. His answer to that question is always, “Well, yeah, man, if they’re good.”
So for Chesney and his brother-in-law in Chattanooga who started the Hemp House brand and who owns the location there, their relationships with local and regional farmers, an unwavering commitment to quality, their love of the product and a commitment to their customers is the name of the game.
“It’s an exciting time for the industry in Tennessee,” he says. “What a time to be alive.”
Bluhen Botanicals retail location address is 111 E Jackson Ave