When Illinois became the 11th state to legalize recreational cannabis in 2020, the owners of Consume Cannabis, who already operated a cultivation center for medicinal cannabis, didn’t hesitate to launch a recreational cannabis dispensary.
And when COVID-19 hit in March, business only got better.
“COVID has driven a lot of people to use cannabis,” Dan Scheidt, director of marketing for the Palatine, Illinois based company, told Kiosk Marketplace in a phone interview. “Once we were labeled as ‘essential’ business, it was a big help to us as a company. People are looking at us in a different sense.”
Since opening its first dispensary in January 2020, the company has expanded to seven stores in Illinois and Michigan, with three more planned by the end of the year. Self-order kiosks have proven a useful tool.