Grove Bags CEO Jack Grover chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about how his love for his older brother, Charlie, turned into Grove Bags, Ohio’s largest cannabis packaging company that is now in over 50 countries.
Jack Grover is the founder and CEO of Grove Bags, an Ohio-based cannabis packaging company focused on sustainability and optimizing the plant’s unique properties for the betterment of users’ health.
Vital to the company’s inception, comes both the mission of providing something new with cultivation packaging, as well as a personal motivator with Charlie Grover, Jack’s brother, who has since birth, lived with cerebral palsy, finding solace, comfort, and inspiration in what ultimately became Grove Bags.
In addition to its hub in Ohio, Grove Bags now has a presence in all 50 states and over 50 countries, including Colombia, South Africa, Thailand, Pakistan, and Israel with over 20 full-time employees. It is Grover’s hope that the company is recognized as the curing and storing solution in every cultivator’s SOP.
The first few years of growth, according to Grover, were pretty tough, but as the industry matured and became more complex, supply chains have become elongated and the need for sustained efficacy and potency became a priority. It was then that Grover discovered that most of the product very quickly dried out, particularly in the Colorado climate, begging for changes in what is supposed to be a modern agricultural industry.
By tailoring engineered solutions that are specifically made around the unique physiology of this plant, Grover hoped to build a company that was designed in the same way that other modern agricultural industries operated. And in the fall of 2018, the company met its match, experiencing what Grover describes as the company’s “first big break.” when there happened to be a fairly large overproduction of cannabis and the outdoor community was hellbent on keeping the product viable and sustainable over a long period of time.
“That’s when we had our first pop,” Grover explained. “TerpLoc is slowly becoming the global standard for the sharing and storage of cannabis.”
Why Sha’Carri Richardson Was an Unnecessary Catalyst for Cannabis Legalization
Back in July, U.S. track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended from the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team for one month by the United States Anti-Doping Agency after testing positive for THC. While Richardson had admitted that she had used THC, she emphasized she only used it after having learned that her mother had died.
Consequently, the suspension, effective immediately, landed Richardson an immediate disqualification, forcing the 31-year-old Dallas native to not participate in her signature 100m at the Tokyo Olympics. Richardson’s suspension opened the doors two months later for The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to review whether cannabis should remain a banned substance.
“Unfortunately, it’s kind of fitting that a woman whose representing our country on an international stage, who’s trained her entire life for this moment, enjoys the false rights of citizenship because of a plant whose prohibition seems to be racially motivated,” said Grover, referring to the difference in consequences assessed against Richardson and former American swimmer Michael Phelps. “
We come across many athletes who use cannabis instead of opiates. We still have some distance to overcome.”
Grover’s second oldest brother, Charlie, has lived with cerebral palsy, receiving an enormous amount of medical relief from cannabis. “It wasn’t until Charlie moved out to California for law school that he began experimenting with cannabis, and it completely changed his quality of life for the better,” Grover revealed.
“I started growing for him in Ohio, learning as much as I could about his condition, hoping to help provide him with an additional form of relief.”
A recent study published by the National Institute of Health (NIH), between 3.1 and 3.6 per 1,000 children in the U.S. has cerebral palsy, with the disorder most commonly affecting boys more than girls. For individuals like Charlie, who take the psychology and physiology of cannabis seriously, there is merit to its legitimacy in today’s modern agricultural society.
Neglecting Plant Physiology
One of the biggest issues the industry faces is the neglect of the physiology of the plant, which only exacerbates the volatility, fragility, and delicacy of the plant. “The terpenes and the fatty lipids that contain most of the distal qualities of cannabis are very volatile themselves.
“So, having proper packaging really can result in delivering medicine that has 50 percent or more potency, maintaining full weight inhibiting microbial growth,” said Grover. “It really just adds a whole layer of peace of mind for cultivators to be able to use TerpLoc, because it’s a proven system that accounts for those variabilities.”
The company emphasizes that it works with boutique industry players that place a heavy focus on product quality, where packaging is one of the top priorities. Right now, plastic, which has an extremely low environmental footprint, unfortunately, has a bad rap mainly because it’s almost always disposed of improperly.
“For us as a company, responsible use of plastics is important, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be sustainable in a closed-loop economy,” Grover explained, bringing the conversation next, to the current stigmatization surrounding legitimate cannabis marketing.
The Stigma Prevents Legitimate Marketing
For most legitimate cannabis businesses, online marketing is an absolute nightmare when attempting to advertise content across Facebook and Instagram.
“Right now, Instagram is the most valuable platform for cannabis brands, allowing for brands to communicate directly with their customers,” said Jeff, a trained lawyer and chief of staff at Grover Bags. “These platforms serve as a place where most people will go before your website just to learn more about you,” he added.
The problem is the inability to post anything about cannabis or its packaging, without the risk of losing the Instagram account. We’ve seen many large cannabis brands actually lose their social media accounts. We’ve been flagged a number of times, so current legislation restricts what we are able to show and communicate.”
For companies like Grover Bags which rely on their user base to create content, it is a huge setback, especially on the education front.
Could Federal Legalization Be a Disaster?
Back in September, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved a bill to decriminalize and deschedule marijuana. Ultimately, the bill would decriminalize and deschedule cannabis, and implement a federal tax on marijuana products to fund grants for communities hardest hit by the nation’s war on drugs. The bill would also provide for individuals convicted of nonviolent cannabis offenses to expunge their records, with certain exceptions.
As of today, it’s still unclear on whether President Joe Biden will sign the bill, despite Biden endorsing decriminalizing the drug, but not fully backing its legalization.
However, business owners, regulators, and lawmakers have expressed their fear surrounding what industry behemoths could do in the event all federal prohibitions are lifted, inviting industry giants to monopolize and push minority-owned businesses out altogether.
“I think the idea of anyone being in a cage for a drug offense is so disturbing,” he said.
“This penalty comes from such a horrible place, so when we talk about cannabis advocacy, this has to be the number one issue along with mental health recovery.”
The bottom line is that the cannabis market is finally evolving, but it is certainly a force of change for capitalists. “It’s an unbridled force of nature and the genie isn’t going back in the bottle.”
