Crab Cake Row: The new Love American Style with Wendy Bronfein of Curio Wellness for Valentine’s Day. The power of “Oh” at Far & Dotter for special occasions. Let our Chief Cannabis Officer tell you about the possibilities of something different to spice things up at home.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
product, cannabis, wendy, curio, grow, baltimore, strains, week, sell, viagra, talk, store, line, maryland, people, find, sex, called, ordered, dispensary
SPEAKERS
Wendy Bronfein, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back. We are W NSGA in 1570, Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive I’ve just blown up my clients ears she will be death but you’ll have great cannabis to help her with that. Wendy brown fine this year she is her. She’s our chief cannabis officer. We never do this together. Usually like we’re in separate rooms like Elton John and Billy Joel. It is a couple of Super Bowl. I’ve got my please donate. We’re doing crabcake row I could not do radio row at Las Vegas quite frankly, I don’t want to right now. I am happy being here with the people that I am here with. We’re on packet street if you’re driving around listen to us this afternoon and 15 Seven you’re on the stream. If you’re out in Baltimore positive all the videos are gonna appear all this stuff’s gonna be out on YouTube of ways to help people to help but thing you could do all week is bring us some canned goods and some some dry goods for the Maryland food bank when he brought some beans by which I’m appreciate for Canada beans. We’ll all go to the grace and hope mission Karen Harper was our previous guest. We’re going to wait Maryland lottery tickets courtesy the Maryland lottery your friends at window nation are here wise markets who sort of inspired all this stuff and if you do multi care, as well, we’re going to be Costas and Dundalk Tuesday. Coco’s Wednesday, Thursday at State Fair in Catonsville and then Friday Pappas, so you can’t make it the families today get down here soon they’re gonna move into the new market. But you got time you got the rest of the week. To go to wise markets get some cans, we’re also taking cash. Michelle, President Walsh made me a tip jar it started by putting money in it American money that’s gonna go to the grace and hope mission. Wendy, how are you? I know James Bond is gonna come by or be here. And if he’s not here, we’re gonna talk about living classrooms anyway, because what they do is important, but thanks for coming. I love this sweatshirt. Father.
8
Wendy Bronfein 01:41
Thank you. Yeah, this was a holiday swag for the staff. But students have come out as merch for anyone. Yeah. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:47
mean, you want to do something special for your employees, right? Like I have this really cool. I have my Baltimore positive sweatshirt here. This is my thing here. And when I got it embroidered every year, it’s nice. Everybody wants because it’s not. It’s nice. And now it’s a little piddly so I need to get a new one. So I like your thing there keep me warm. What’s going on with cheerio wellness and foreign data i i was in your store. I admit I was in your store. I went in your store last night. I went in you closed at six o’clock on Sunday. I went in at 530 and and I did something I’ve never done before a curio wellness and foreign daughter I ordered online because my wife made me she’s like they’re closing ordered online. We’ll pick it up like okay, so ordered it online. And when and it wasn’t a big crowd was a Sunday night before we close and I went in. And I got called into the back and I went to the back and the guy looked at me young person. You never weighed them before station three. And I looked down and all the OH is their bedroom, Barry. I’m seeing all that. And he must have looked at me and thought you need some of this. So he looked at me and he’s like, we don’t have any we don’t have it yet. We’ve been promoted. We just don’t have it yet. I think we’re gonna have it tomorrow. And I’m like, All right. I said, Oh, why just put up our piece from last week talking about Valentine’s Day. It was it was a little bit of a spicy conversation about the sex stuff for the grown ups out there. In regard to Oh, my wife was driving. She was my getaway driver. So I came outside and got in the car. And I said, I got to tell you about this product because we did the thing last week, and my wife was very titillated by and she’s like, Oh, so now I’m like, I gotta go back and get it. So I didn’t get it yesterday, but apparently you’re gonna sell it. The fella that waited on me said, people were asking for it all day. It’s like the most popular thing. People got it last year and they ran out. And I’m like, this is like eggnog at Christmas. It’s like finding the last. So give everybody the Valentine’s Day thing here. Okay,
Wendy Bronfein 03:43
so the product line is called. Oh, 808 not like Oreo. Oh, oh, yeah, got that. Oh. And there are a variety of ways that you can consume it or use it. So you can have get preroll flour, you can get a vape you can get a chew that has a terpene profile that is beneficial to the use you’re doing here. And then you can get an intimacy oil for use during sexual interaction.
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:14
8Are they there Now seriously, we’re live right now. So if you have everything in stock, or we talk about your product all times the hardest thing in the world you’re growing a plant. It’s like getting a crab. You gotta go make it right get to have it happen.
Wendy Bronfein 04:27
I believe that chews are coming in in advance of the weekend. I think everything else was supposed to be there now but don’t quote me because I have not checked their inventory. This
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:36
would speak to the fact that you’re a new business. We talked so much about consistency and when I come in and want blissful wizard you’d have it but it is it’s a process for the industry like all the way around that if you find a product you like to go back three months later, it might not be in bloom literally right like it’s a plan. Well, that’s Oh,
Wendy Bronfein 05:00
this product. So you’re talking about our store in Timonium, it could be available also at other stores around the state state because we sell everywhere. But yeah, I mean, I, it’s interesting what the most interesting piece to me is that the gentleman from the store was like, Oh, my God, we had like we can, I was going to run out the door, blah, blah. Because when we were in medical, I think we talked about this the other day, like, people would come in on a medical side and tell you very personal details in their medical needs. And some that could deal with bodily functions that are, you know, not for the dinner table, let’s say or something of that. Not as much fun. Right? Right. No problem talking about that to a stranger. But the sex thing super proved very uncomfortable. Like that was a hurdle we had to overcome. So it’s really interesting to hear that, like in in just the teasing that the product was going to come out with an adult use audience, like that prude factor. Sounds like maybe it has diminished, which is great. Well, I was
8Nestor J. Aparicio 05:51
just read, you have this beautiful display. And they’re kind of like, it’s like a raspberry color. And it says, oh, H on it. And it kind of like, it’s great name, right. But I was looking at all the products and seeing and I was just staring at it maybe a moment too long that you thought like, I don’t have that don’t don’t order. And I’m thinking all right. Well, Valentine’s is stuck at 10 days. I’m gonna, I’m gonna make it here. But just in a general sense, you. I always ask you this, because I’m just interested in it seven, eight years ago, you got Colorado. Did you know that would be an intimacy product? You don’t I mean, there are tentacles to this that I’m sure when you dove into this, as my family is going to do this. We’re gonna do that. You don’t even know where this is going from a product standpoint?
Wendy Bronfein 06:34
No, not at all. I mean, they’re onto scuffle. First of all, I have to you mentioned the color which then to call that I’d have to say something. So when we did that we work with Planet agency here in Baltimore. And when we first designed and Aragorn the color, I said to one of the art directors we always work with I was like, I want to pink but I want it like the pink you think of when you see a neon sign that says girls girls girls, like it was very specific what I was thinking about we did this, but I you know, I don’t like Alright, I’m gonna I’m gonna probably just go TMI here. Like I think sex and cannabis go well together. So it doesn’t surprise me that like that product has found its way. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:12
I’ve told you I mean, people would say champagne Lucena, you know wasters or everybody has all this this is
07:19
8like science this is a completely different thing your body is religious like a Viagra it’s a it’s a
Wendy Bronfein 07:25
sign of something right? There’s two pieces going on here. One is you’re you’re having body and mental relaxation right when you can and some experiences have heightened sensitivity and then sort of the magic of this one product line we created is it all came from the strain we grow called Golden strawberry. Were early on when we started growing it we kept hearing men talk about a Viagra like effect. So it’s like we sort of talk about this whole line as men are men are more through a Viagra line and women are more through like a relaxation heightened sensitivity line but but put them together put together whoever you want to do it with and it’s a firework. It is
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:06
cold outside, I’ll say it’s warmer inside. Wendy brown fine is here. She’s married, I’m married, not to each other. But we’re going to talk about this stuff up professionally. We’re down to families and we’re doing this turn I appreciate you coming down I know you’re busy and it’s busy time of the year. Um, what else is going on? I mean, I you know, I was in a store and I’m inundated in your store for Alaska. This is a big thing this this Oh thing is not just a Valentine’s but you’ll have this product later. But there’s going to be run on this because of the marketing you’ve done apparently, according to one of your salespeople,
Wendy Bronfein 08:38
I hope that they are so right because I mean look, I here’s the thing with cannabis I feel like there are things you go in and they’re useful to buy in that moment because you have certain needs you’re looking for effects you’re trying to feel better in some way and like you’re buying that then I think there’s just what I call like like you know nightstand drawer medicine cabinet products, right like I think like the topicals like you were talking about your back right you just have it because something hurts you rub it on the sex stuff you just have it because you’re gonna do it and it’s gonna be better like there’s some stuff that you can just have in your arsenal versus what you want right in any given week or day one
8Nestor J. Aparicio 09:13
I think about this from like an alcohol standpoint from like, I want to run the night or do I want to brisket Airdrie I just want to drink water tonight have a margarita like what am I going to do? What? What’s going to strike me as the right and when you think sativa indica hybrid along those lines after hours, they’re all going to do something really different to you. Yeah, I mean, and I think that that is the gateway that’s difficult for your product to come in and say oh my god, there’s a menu. Where do I even begin this as an AI this edge and he says and as they all have fun, weird names, fruity names, different stuff like that. I think a gateway would be try it see what try it in a vacuum judge it for what it is but this I have not taken your Oprah Hold on. I don’t know anything about the gold. I don’t come back a month from now and say, Yeah, you know, like, I told you that 20 years ago, I got a hold of a Viagra. And I’m like, I can’t believe that they figured this out how to manage this. From a cannabinoid standpoint. You’re not the only one growing cannabis or doing research. This is this would be like a magic ticket. Right for the industry. Right? Yeah,
Wendy Bronfein 10:31
I mean, I think I think yeah, I think it could be an excellent product. If people buy into it. I think it’s gonna be really interesting to see if now that we’re adult use, like, the conversation is more comfortable for people, I find it so interesting that it wasn’t in medical, but there was a much more prudish factor on I think, people’s willingness to ask for it. Or even just to say, I want one of those right now, of course,
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:56
if you feel like making your sex life better is medicine. Right? Like, right? Like, whether that’s medicine or that’s just a lot of life’s luxury. It’s a little different than I can’t sleep. Right? It Right. It is, but
Wendy Bronfein 11:06
8it’s like, you know, I don’t I think, look, there may be an IDI or other situation where it’s very useful to you because there’s a quote a need, I think there’s a whole other audience where it’s just like a plus up, right, like this is just, it’s almost like the weird and as conversations go in a weird place, but it’s almost like, you know, like the old like ribbed for her pleasure on a condom, right. It’s just like something extra for the experience. I think this is a great something extra for the experience.
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:33
Well, you can find it at foreign daughter, York Road Timonium, just south of Timonium Road, they’re there and the signs are up for the Oh product that didn’t want to do it two weeks in
Wendy Bronfein 11:45
a row while they’re dispensaries
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:46
and well, so explain that part of someone that goes to another dispensary somewhere you’d love for him to come to foreign doctor but most places you go in this state, if you go into a dispensary there are there’s a curio line
8Wendy Bronfein 12:02
correct. So we so so curio grows flour and sells that and it also makes a large series of products and sells those and then we sell all of those things to over, like 90 dispensaries in the state. So probably 90% of the market has our products in their dispensaries. So where are we like we seek to be convenient to you. So if you live in the Baltimore area, we love for you to come to our store in Timonium, because that’s like, you know, it’s almost like when you’d go to like Nike town instead of footlocker right, had come to the store and have our experience. But if Joe’s dispensary is down the street from you, then just go there, you should be able to find our products there. And you mentioned ordering online, right? That’s the easiest way to do it. Before you even leave the house. I found
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:49
that out. Yeah, just click click click, you put a number in and you’ve stopped buying you pay for one,
Wendy Bronfein 12:53
you’ll see the menu, you’ll know what’s there before you go. And you and if you don’t see it, you know, go to the next closest dispensary and see if it’s there. The other thing is, when you do order online, you’re never closing the cart. So that’s like the good thing, right? Basically, somebody’s putting the order that you want together. And you’re gonna pay for it when you get there. So you can always add more you could always take away so it’s just kind of like a convenience thing of I didn’t see OD. Yeah, well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:18
8unless you have to touch up right or you have touch. I don’t know, I don’t know what thoughts you pay since that
Wendy Bronfein 13:23
duchy is the point of sale system, like the cash register systems we all use, which also populates the menu that you see. And because cannabis has these constraints, because we’re scheduled one and federally illegal payment systems are harder. So duchy themselves created a secondary payment system so that people can buy in a cashless way. And it doesn’t have to be a cash transaction.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:44
Is that like toast when I ordered things that ekiben? Sort of? Like, what
Wendy Bronfein 13:49
is now your credit card? That’s your credit journal? Yeah, so it’s doing debiting rather than credit.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 13:55
The one thing I’m learning about your industry and I didn’t I wouldn’t have known this before there was an industry is the the manufacturers like yourself and other people called the different people that are in business in this state. You sell other people’s products, they sell your products, you grow West is a Cumberland comp, you know, you sell their products. Was it always known it was gonna be that way? Or did you think in the beginning, it was going to be sort of an in house, we’ll grow we’ll sell it with it was there always? Was that always going to be the business model? So I do find that you sell your competitor stuff, which is not always if it’s a Pepsi shop, they’re not selling Coke, right? I mean, just in general,
Wendy Bronfein 14:34
there’s sort of two factors. One is the regulatory piece. So in the state of Maryland, we are a wholesale market, right? So it is designed where it is legal for you to create a product and then come and be able to sell that product to any dispensary. There are other states where it is literally vertical and you only sell inside your store and you don’t get that diversity of offerings in a store. So that’s one piece we can do it now for us. It was our thing from the day We won because our family had background in pharmacy retail. years ago they repair. Yeah, Neighbor Care. So, you know, there was there’s this idea of if you’re in serving a community, like we want to be a go to resource, like we make a lot of stuff, we want you to buy our stuff, we hope you like our stuff, but there’s other stuff you’re gonna want. So we should carry that. So we pick other brands that share our values, have great products, great quality products, and we carry those as well. Because we think we should, you know, be one to many. You
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:32
know, Facebook listens to everything we say, right? You know that I mean, whatever I’m saying right now, you and I had a conversation about happy Eddie, two weeks ago. Happy Eddie keeps showing up happily on my time, not just know not just like the product. I’m talking about, like social media people like they met him at one of your stores, or at least he because it’s a local thing. Yeah. Everybody’s happy Eddie story again, because it keeps showing up saying Happy Eddie keeps showing up on my time. I love that everybody looks like yeah,
Wendy Bronfein 16:01
8I love that. You’re bringing this up today because last night, it was very exciting. We actually we curio wellness were mentioned on The Real Housewives of Potomac. So Eddie osafo is the husband of Wendy Josepha, who was one of the Real Housewives of Potomac on the Bravo show. And inside the series, he got this nickname happy Edie, it became a thing. And so then he and then he wanted to get into the cannabis space. And so he we got in contact with him. And we brought him into our cultivation facility toward him round talks about what to do. And so essentially, we are producing the line for him. So he launched the line a couple of months ago, and he launched with a series of strains that we had already we’re already growing and we could bring into the market
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:45
people together to fund me yeah, you can roll a nasty
Wendy Bronfein 16:49
mess. You could weaken
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:52
a shoe that would not be in exactly a promise.
8Wendy Bronfein 16:54
And now he’s got like, he’s got I think three strains like you know, two based on Eddie and one based on Wendy they were
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:03
on sale this week. I don’t know what to do with them one was an indica and I’m like that yeah,
Wendy Bronfein 17:06
I’ve never been really an advocate first. Yeah, exactly. I can settle myself speaking
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:11
8to that Wendy brown fine. He’s here we’re doing a James Bond those everybody in the cities you’re hogging the whole staff. He’s gonna have three crabcakes for I get one. We’re fade these we’re gonna be here all week. It is crabcake row a couple of Super Bowl we’re giving away free soup for the Maryland Food Bank. You’re you’re happy anything pop up this week? And all he’s here but the lines and indica sativa? Does he picked that I need to know this.
Wendy Bronfein 17:37
So he I think with his strains, because they were connected to kind of narratives that have come about in the show like The Zen when and happy it. So it was more like well, what does that represent? And how would that be how you want to feel? And so then we matched it to kind of strains that could give you those effects. So we have like these original cultivars that line up with the Zen when the happier
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:02
I really thought a brewery would have you know, I would put my face on a beer and and I’m thinking would it be a pilsner? Would I be a lager? Would I be a stout? You know, probably, I’d probably be some sort of chocolate stout.
Wendy Bronfein 18:13
I was gonna say that’s where I was going. Yeah, I
8Nestor J. Aparicio 18:15
probably be you’re more lonely, like a milk stout with some hazelnut chocolate dark, you know, but I don’t I don’t know. You’d have to? We’ll have to talk about this. Because I mean, I think your industry is going in that direction. Right? Yeah. There’s going to be a former athlete of the Ravens who’s going to come like, like Eddie Murray has a beer and right as a beer. They’re gonna, that’s gonna happen. Yeah, no question about that. Well,
Wendy Bronfein 18:37
I’d welcome it.
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:37
But there that’s a business for you. That is a bit like that is an open business model.
Wendy Bronfein 18:42
8Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of like, a lot of the celebrity names that you hear in cannabis aren’t new, right? They’re not typically having like, oh, I built this grow facility. I’m growing this flower. It’s normally like a licensing thing where their partner was somebody else who grows it. And they’ve defined how they want their brand to be and they just use their name and rights to produce that sir Bruce
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:01
has got a beer now he’s not even alive. Right? And he like, you know, I mean, goose would love that. I wish you were alive to drink his beer. Well, the next step
Wendy Bronfein 19:08
is we need the we like we got to get over that federal hurdle so that we can have the league’s allow people to be you know, affiliated publicly with these brands. Because think about move right like that is like you’re not getting high and like who’s a good more than a athlete. My
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:26
wife bought the good night’s she bought the time release that you’ve talked about. She has not taken them. I she bought it 10 days ago, and I’m like, Have you started like, Nah, should and she was having trouble sleeping others up in the middle of the night. Tell me about a little bit about that product and how to use it the right way because I said to her I said I think if you use it you probably should use it for a week or two every night to get the vibe of like, what we can’t use it one night and say it worked or didn’t work or you know, makes you feel I mean, we
8Wendy Bronfein 19:57
normally tell people like you know, to Take a week take five nights and like, take it every night. So like take it 30 minutes before you’re gonna go to bed make sure that like when I was interviewing a lot of sleep patients who are developing it, there’s a whole like sleep hygiene thing. So like you really should like, you know, get your space quiet, get your lights dim, like don’t don’t take it and then like sit down to like watch some like loud aggressive show or something while the lights on right like interest. But 30 minutes before bed, get in bed, close your eyes, you should be it should help you fall asleep. And then there’s a second pulse that comes through three hours later, that should help you stay asleep.
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:33
A couple years ago, I ran into Wendy at an event in Baltimore, she’s marketing cannabis Securio we got to talk and we’ve been doing this like the whole time. It is amazing to me how much small tomorrow right? Like we share these things. I said the money I’m doing this crazy thing with charities who are your charities? And she said Why do we live in classrooms I’m like James Bond, that James Bond so he’s going to be joining us next we’re going to talk about living classrooms and it’s been a little while but about a year and a half since that James on I’m going to look forward to finding out post plague stuff with him. You look good. You cut your hair I grew my hair. What do you want a guy to have the long hair all the time we’ll step out we’ll take a break James Bonds here from Liberty classroom, Wendy Brown, fine is here from curio wellness and foreign daughter. I’m doing live radio which means I’m nuts it’s messy, but come see me do it because you’ll see me with my hair on fire. That needs some indica after this back for more right after this.
