High Spirits: The Cannabis Business Podcast
Hosts Ben Larson and AnnaRae Grabstein serve up unfiltered insights, reveal their insiders' perspectives, and illuminate transformative ideas about the cannabis industry for people who want to make sense of it all.
High Spirits: The Cannabis Business Podcast
#113 - From Blueberries To Regenerative Cannabis: How Coastal Sun Built A Profitable, Planet-First Brand w/ Darren Story
We unpack the federal push to restrict hemp products, then turn to a grounded model for the future: regenerative organic cannabis. Darren Story from Coastal Sun shares how soil health lowers costs, why OCAL matters, and how compassion and affordability can scale.
• hemp policy shock and what it means for access
• lessons for advocacy and industry unity
• Darren’s path from blueberries to cannabis
• WAM partnership and medical-first roots
• OCAL certification and consumer education
• regenerative farming practices and cost
• navigating DCC rules and animal integration
• brand positioning and diverse consumers
• greenhouse tech for organic at scale
• expansion via teaching and partnerships
• wellness ethos, leadership, and discipline
• affordability, SP34 donations, and unit economics
• measured growth and a five-year vision
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And Ray, what's what's the details again on the High Spirits Mixer this year? We are having the best party in all of Vegas. It's December 4th in the morning. You can go to high spiritspod.com slash morning dash mixer and get all the info there. You can sign up to apply for an invite. We are curating our guest list. It is going to be fabulous. And we are going to be celebrating all of the high spirits that are in this industry and who deserve to just come together and have a good time and sip some sips, have some high fives. We'd love to see you. Come hang out.
Ben Larson:Hey everybody, welcome to episode 113 of High Spirits. I'm Ben Larson, and I'm back in action with my co-host, Anna Ray Grabstein today. We're recording Tuesday, November 11th, 2025, and it's Veterans Day. We've got a great show for you today. We're bringing on Darren's story from Coastal Sun Farm. We're going to be talking about the organic movement in cannabis. But before we get there, Anna Ray, how's your week going?
AnnaRae Grabstein:No, I am staying strong. That is that is my my narrative and my mantra for this one.
Ben Larson:Keeping those spirits high.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Keeping those spirits high for sure. I had the most incredible workout yesterday. I lifted so many weights. I did this new exercise called a Bulgarian split squat. Sounds painful. Yeah, it broke me. Um, but I needed to be broken by something other than news. So it was it was really good. I'm feeling it in my butt today, really sore.
Ben Larson:There's uh there's been a fair amount of ass kicking news uh this this week, which if you're even if you're living under a rock, I'm sure you're hearing about it. The Senate has passed Mitch McConnell's hemp ban language. Some people say it's regulation, not a ban, but at the current language, it does remove a lot. The the 0.4 milligram cap per container uh certainly would cause for most products to be illegal, including your full spectrum CBD products. That is likely to be passed through the house because no one wants to hang up the government reopening uh because of hemp. But is it a one-year implementation plan, which means next week will be the same as last week, uh just with a little bit more foresight about what might happen in the future. And so anyone that is fighting for hemp or fighting against hemp, you likely have another year of lobbying ahead of you. So buckle up, keep your spirits high, and and get back to work.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Yeah, get back to work and be ready to put dollars behind policy, because that's that's what's going to move the needle here is that we need to have action in DC. And action has historically been very slow. We have not seen a ton of action. How fast this action is happening is pretty unprecedented in terms of the pathway to using the appropriations bill for any type of cannabinoid policy reform.
Ben Larson:Yeah, it's it's unfortunate. Uh, rulemaking in a spending bill is is is not what we'd like to see, especially because that spending bill is revisited every year. So fiscal year 2027, here we come. On top of that, you know, we've spent years lamenting how uh cannabinoids have just never been really top of people's minds and it's never been really high on the priority list. And and look, hey, we made it to the center stage. So uh that there you go. There, there's the the silver lining. I think there's some learnings though from this time period, right? You see a lot of cannabis operators, uh especially the MSOS gang, uh, celebrating the prohibition of these hemp products. And I think it's just a a very curious look. I think we're gonna look back on this time period and maybe cock our heads a little bit to the side. But you know, the the the hemp side is not free and clear of of missteps either. I think it was after last Canada where we not this past one, it was it was a little over a year ago that we both attended. And my main takeaway from that trip was uh we had to be very cognizant about those who we stand next to, especially when we're doing lobbying work. And what I've learned over the last several months is that, you know, there are some names, some people, some organizations that have much better reputations than others. There are members of certain organizations that don't understand the reputation that their organization either once had or now has or will have in the future. So I think it's just a good time for everyone to take a pause in this period where we just do some accounting and and really assess what is the right path forward, what are regulators saying, what are consumers saying, what are the legislators saying, and and how do we come to a place that actually puts good regulation in place for the plant, for the people. And we don't have to take that action right now. I think this this week is pretty much written. And so take a beat and really think about where you want to apply your energy over the next year.
AnnaRae Grabstein:And this this idea of lessons learned, I think that we've talked about this a lot on this show in in various ways, but the hemp movement over the past couple years and the commercialization of hemp derived THC has sometimes been called red state weed. And it often has had regulations imposed at the state level in places where there aren't medical or adult use cannabis programs. And truly acted as a testing ground in states that don't have another pathway or access point for cannabinoid products. And and we've seen a widespread adoption of these products by consumers in the market. Those consumers are losing access through this policy. And that's it's a really big problem. And whether you're a part of a regulated cannabis company that sees this as a positive move that is going to mean that you are less competitive in a market where you might have been competing with hemp, we can't lose sight of the point, which is access for consumers. And um, there needs there needs to be a consumer voice at the table here and certainly the voice of medical patients. And today is Veterans Day, and we know how much veterans have been helped by cannabis. And you know, whatever the go-forward is plan is, I just don't want the people to be lost in the story.
Ben Larson:Well, we have a year to figure it out, and I think it will be a very telling time. There are organizations, I won't call them out by name, uh, that have been fighting very hard against the uh hemp category. And it'd be interesting to see how they take this opportunity, this win, so to speak, to adapt their strategy for what is the betterment of the industry as a whole. And some of those organizations, you know, claim to represent both cannabis and hemp. So let's see it. What's where do we go from here?
AnnaRae Grabstein:Yeah. All right. In a total shift in topic, we're gonna talk about organic regenerative cannabis today.
Ben Larson:I love this. I love it.
AnnaRae Grabstein:I think is a total bright light. And hopefully, everyone who is feeling like ready to be curious about a new part of the bourgeoising industry or that's really actually been around, but has been a small niche and is starting to really grow. Like, listen up. I am really excited to welcome Darren's story, who's both my friend and has also been a client of mine for some time, um, to the podcast. Darren got his start in cannabis at an early age. He grew up in Santa Cruz, where many of his neighborhood friends were cultivators long before the days of Prop 215. Although he was surrounded by the cannabis movement and by agriculture his whole life, it really wasn't until the mid-2000s when he committed to a plant-based lifestyle that he really dug into learning about the food system and to into how cannabis was grown as well. And Darren co-founded Strong Agronomy, which is the business behind Coastal Sun, with like-minded co-founders with an emphasis on developing regenerative systems to empower others to create health and abundance. The company is self-funded, it's the leading organic cannabis brand in the US. It has no debt and it's profitable. Wow. Um, Darren's worked in finance and has a master's in finance from USF, which I mentioned because it's also my alma mater. So we have that in common. And I'm just really excited to bring on Darren and to talk about organic regenerative cannabis.
Darren Story:Hey guys, how are you? Good morning.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Welcome, Darren.
Darren Story:Morning. Yeah, likewise. It's good to be here.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Stoked to have you. So let's just dive in. Coastal Sun started as an organic blueberry farm, but the intention was always to grow cannabis, right? Will you tell us a little bit about the origin stories?
Darren Story:Yeah, that's correct. So I was working at the stock exchange here in San Francisco. We were trading options and it was um early 2015. And uh I was just at that crossroads in your career where you're kind of like wondering if this is what you're gonna do the rest of your life. I'd been there for 15 years and I got a call from one of my buddies who was pitching me on this project. They needed a person with a business background, and he was telling me all about it. Like it's a parcel with a bunch of greenhouses, and um, you know, the goal is to go there and start growing berries for the Whole Foods Network. We had an in at Whole Foods, one of our partners was good friends with the CEO at the time, the Rob family. And then when cannabis goes legal, we were all expecting it to go legal, you know, relatively quickly because it had already failed once in California at that time. So we knew the next time I was on the ballot, it should pass. When cannabis goes legal, you know, we'll start growing cannabis. You know, he was pitching me on the uh this idea of being the the RJ Reynolds of wheat, which I think everybody in California had ideas about that's how it was gonna go. Um, and everything was everything sounded good. I was like, okay, you know, I'm I'm leaving the stock exchange anyway, so that sounds good. You know, I'd like to meet the other partners. Um and I asked him, you know, where's this at? And he's like, Oh, it's in Watsonville, California. And I was like, Oh, no, dude, like everything sounds good except that. And he was like, Well, what's wrong with Watsonville? And I and I was like, That's that's my hometown, that's where I grew up. I really don't want to go home. I've been living in San Francisco since 95, and I never wanted to go back home. But I went down there and checked it out and met the partners. And my main question was, you guys grow organically, because most of them were already in the weed industry or or in the organic industry, uh, nutrient industry. And they were like, Yeah, we don't know any other way to grow if you've never grown a crop non-organically. So that was pretty much what bonded us, and it's it's just what started the story and how we got going. And then we quick quickly started growing blueberries and as I mentioned, selling them to Whole Foods back then before they got acquired by Amazon, and it was going pretty well. And then in late 2015, early 2016, Wham, who's one of the oldest collectives in the United States, they had actual legal authority to grow cannabis for their patient base beyond Prop 215. They actually sued the DEA. I don't know the year they did that, but they sued the DEA and won their right to grow cannabis for their patients. Um, most of them are terminally ill patients, and uh they had lost the property they were growing cannabis on. So they approached us. Two of our partners were on the board of WAM at the time, so we all got together and we moved their grow over to the property that we had secured in Watsonville and we were growing berries on, and we started growing cannabis for their patient base in early 2016, and it went pretty well. We quickly outgrew the patient base and we had this extra weed. So we went to the county because WAM had like a lot of authority with the county and the sheriffs and stuff. They really did have a license before licensing even existed because um there was no uncertainty, like they were allowed to grow weed, um, even under federal standards. And so we went to the county and we're like, well, we seem to have this excess weed, so what are we gonna do? So they said, you know, try and sell it to other dispensaries. So that's when we started developing relationships with like harborside and purple lotus and some of our other local dispensaries, and that's kind of like how we got through the early years before 2018 and before it became recreational. But we we call it the rec market, but we still have a medical license. We might be one of the few in the state that actually grow under a medical license. We and at the time, remember they at Prop 64, they were gonna have medical and rec and everyone was like, Well, we're gonna do rec. And and we were like, Well, we're gonna do medical. Like, why why would you do rec? And so to this day, we still have a medical license. We just we just didn't know that's funny.
Ben Larson:When we're we're when we were getting started in Berkeley, we were like evaluating the laws, and they're like, Oh, there's a different tax code for medical versus rec. And it's like, well, what's the difference after it leaves our hands because we're middle of the supply chain? Like, well, it all goes to the same outlet, so you can just claim one or the other. Yeah, and I was really confused by that. And then as we know, it just kind of the talk of medical kind of goes away.
Darren Story:Yeah, it does.
Ben Larson:Um giving you lots of accolades in the introduction. Number one, organic brand, profitable. But one of the biggest challenges in in running a cannabis company is typically that we don't have access to that USDA certified organic. And and I know that California launched their OCAL program, but I'm curious as what that looks like in action. Does the OCAL certification carry weight? And is that helping you market and sell your products? And that's why you're performing so well, or is it more the fact that you just have really great weed and it's because you grow it in this very loving and caring way under the coastal sun, so to speak? What is it? Like how how is the organic movement going in cannabis right now?
Darren Story:I feel like the organic cannabis, I've in OCAL in particular, is one of the things that the state got right. Of the many things that they didn't get right, I feel like they've done a good job with this, but they had they had the backbones of a program already established with the NOP organic program, right? So because we had been certifying organic berries for some time before OCAL rolled out, it was relatively straightforward for us to you know apply for the OCAL program and get certified. The programs are very similar. Um, they're very restrictive in what you can use. The input list is is restricted, unlike growing conventional cannabis where they just have a list of 66 chemicals you can't use in uh NOP or an OCAL, you have a very restricted list of inputs that you can use, whether it's fertilizer or pest control products. So it was relatively straightforward and I think it's going well. Um, one of the keys to our success is that growing regenerative organics, it actually does lower your cost of production over time. Um, each year, once you kind of hit a critical point, it becomes more cost effective each successive year to grow because the soil is really your friend. Even a year like this year, where we had very challenging weather, we still maintain a cost of production that's just far lower than a lot of conventional growers. And it's just because the soil does a lot of the work for you. So you, you know, you utilize your free inputs, which are sun and water, water is almost free, and you optimize those, and and those are the most important ones. And uh you just get more bang for your buck growing that style. So that's one of the keys to our profitability. And I don't even mind telling people that because our goal would be to get everybody to grow organically, especially in California. But the OCAL program itself, it's not magic, like just you can't just have OCAL and it's gonna win. Um, there's actually some growers that have pitched OCAL products and it's not going as well for them. There's a huge education lift, and we have a big street team of brand merchandisers and ambassadors that are out there educating the entire industry. Um, we do get some support from our certifier, which is in Viracan. They're also in Santa Cruz. And then the other certifier for OCAL is CCOF, California Certified Organic Farmers. Um, and they've done this before. They started the organic movement. They were one of the early founding uh members of the NOP program. So I'm sure it was very similar in the you know 80s and 90s to educate consumers on why organics matters. I mean, I think everybody can remember, well, at least people my age, when organics was like, you know, not not it didn't it didn't look as quality as some of the conventional stuff on the produce shelves. Now it's it's much higher quality. But but before it was like people were still learning how to grow it, and then they had to educate consumers, and you go in there and you just see this like this sad little tomato, you know, compared to some of the conventional stuff. Um, whereas now, because all that's happened and we've adopted a lot of their practices, the weed we grow actually looks like fire. Like you can even see reviews from consumers online, and they all they're all blown away at like not only the quality of the organic product relative to the conventional, but just our our organic greenhouse relative to like a conventional indoor is is comparable. So, you know, the technology and the practices have changed a lot. It's a very open and sharing, like OCAL certified producers, like we're all going to collaborate. And it's it's very similar to organic farming in berries, like everyone's happy to share secrets and and teach each other how to get better.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Well, it's it's interesting that you're kind of talking about these lists of kind of the do's and don'ts, whether it's just can growing conventionally under the regulated system or under OCAL or organic. Um, my son asked me the other day, Mom, what's or what's organic means? Because he knows that I like to buy organic, or he knows that we go to the farmer's market and seek out organic, but he wasn't really sure what it meant. And and I was like, well, you know, actually, it's kind of just rules. It's a lot of rules. And and those rules dictate what you can or can't do. And the intent is for something that's that's healthy or clean and natural and and without chemicals and pesticides. But one of the things that is, I think in the last 20 years that has been an evolution in the organic and natural foods movement is the concept of regenerative farming. And and then even more recently, I've started to hear people talk about regenerative business. And um as I've gotten to know you, Darren, I know that that you guys have really metabolized this narrative into the business, into Coastal Sun, into the brand, um, and also really into the way that you manage and function. So I think that it would be interesting for you to talk to the audience about what regenerative means in practice and what it means from a farming perspective, but but even also more than farming. What is the philosophy about regeneration?
Darren Story:Yeah, it's interesting. Um, right when we were getting started, it was kind of becoming um not so much a buzzword, but it was it was kind of piquing interest in organic farmers. And I guess we just kind of got lucky that we were starting our business right around the same time that this movement was catching steam. And so we we just dove head in. But it's beyond sustainable, it's really leaving the world a better place than you found it and just continuing, it's it's along the lines of lean manufacturing principles where you're continuously improving. So the way that works with regenerative farming is our practices have to continually improve the soil and leave it better than we found it. And each year we want to get better at it. So the regenerative movement, it's a little bit of a crossroads right now. There are people that are trying to define it and create standards and certifications similar to the NOP. And then there's on the other side of the coin, there's a lot of farmers that are like, no, we should leave this as inclusive as possible and continue to encourage a lot of the large conventional broadacre farmers to adopt these practices because if they if they implement even a few of these, it leaves the world a much better place than their current cultivation practices. So I I personally fall on the side of the coin where I think we should make it as inclusive as possible and continue to push all growers, uh, all crops to implement regenerative style. We have these pillars of health, and basically it revolves around growing in a practice and manner and using technologies and style that improves human health, it improves farm workers' health, and it improves the planet's health. So it's really about, you know, we call it planet-friendly farming in a lot of our educational work because it's just it's less of a mouthful than regenerative, and it's easier to understand, oh, okay, you know, it's it's good for the planet. It's also ends up being good for you. So that's a lot of what we're trying to do is really just help educate people, uh, whether it's growers or consumers, and make it as inclusive as possible. But regenerative in a basic nutshell is whatever your practices are doing, you're gonna leave the world or you're you know, where you're growing the plants a bit better than where you found it. So it's beyond sustainable. Sustainable is like it just falls short. The world is not in a great place right now, and we want to make it better. And farming's the way to do it. Like farming is is kind of what got us into this mess. When you look at when you watch some of the documentaries and you learn some of the statistics, that fossil fuels do account for a lot of pollution, but it's like 18%, whereas agriculture accounts for over 80% of the pollution. So the the vast majority of it is just the way we grow our food, um, whether it's, you know, raise animals for feed or grow our plants to feed those animals, et cetera, et cetera. So what got us into this mess can can get us out. It's unbelievable that we have this opportunity to employ practices and continue to develop them that can like get the world out of the mess it's in right now.
Ben Larson:Absolutely. Uh I want to dive in a little bit into the practical, mechanical side of this, because as a as a licensed California operator juggling a DCC cannabis license, what was a CDPH, hemp license, organic certifications, GMP, all this kind of stuff. What does that look like in practice when you're talking regenerative farms? Because what I know of regenerative farms is oftentimes it comes with like crop rotation and and like how do you how do you manage that? Has has the DCC made it navigable for operators like you? Has the DCC made anything navigable? Uh you you can plead the fifth too, if if if yeah, no, I don't mind.
Darren Story:I don't mind, I don't mind. Um they listen a little bit, they have that cannabis advisory committee, and we've been been petitioning them and and like pressuring them for years to work on some of the cultivation rules. And so they do allow us to to lay let stuff go fallow now. So if I have a um, you know, if we have a 10-acre parcel and we want to take four acres offline, they'll let us shrink our permit and not pay licensing fees for that four acres for however we want, a year or two, and then add it back in later and not have to redo, go through the licensing process again. So that took a while to get to, but we're there. And so that really helps us a lot with what we're trying to do because you're right, in regenerative organics, you you don't want to monocrop beyond just cover cropping, which we grow in the winter, to you know, help break up some of the monoculture biology that's established by just growing cannabis during the summer. We will be able to have our neighbors come in and grow traditional ag crops there. Um, we're we're super fortunate that we're surrounded by organic farmers in our little neck of the woods in Coral, California. So the plan is to have our neighbor come in and grow some crops, whatever that secession might be, potatoes, chilies, um, whatever makes sense, and just break it up a little bit so that we're not continually monocropping. So the DCC gave us that bone, which is cool and it's going, you know, in the right direction. But ideally, what we'd like to do is just be able to move our cannabis permit around and just be able to rotate crops. But then the other thing, like we believe a lot in pasture rotation, which is using ruminant animals to come in and terminate your cover crop prior to growing your cash crop. And cash crops are cannabis right now for us. And the ruminant animals, they come in, their little hooves disturb the soil. So it's a nice little disturbance you get without having to go too deep into the soil with like what you do with a tractor ripper that they use in conventional ag. And then they also obviously you know defecate and urinate on the prop on them after eating the the grasses, they they leave their their spoils, and that helps feed the biology for the for the soil. So it's a great strategy and it's it's very well um researched and developed, and there's there's a lot of science behind it. Um, and then lately the DCC came in with these sanitation standards, and one of them was well, if there's any animal feces in your field, you know, you have to you have to clean it up immediately. It's like, do they know what fertilizer? We're doing you know, we're doing this on purpose, and so now they're starting to back off, and they're like, Oh, yeah, maybe maybe there needs to be feces there for organic farmers. Well, and so now they're trying to figure out like, well, how do we make it so that organic farmers can get away from the city? What are you solving for? It's like, get get the hell out of here. Like, what are you solving for? Yeah, they were trying to tell us though, well, we want cannabis to be like the food industry, and everybody was like, like Janine from the Origins Council and all of the, you know, obviously Northern California legacy organic growers are like, we're not growing food. Like, why do you want to be like the food industry? Like, just create your own path, be like the cannabis industry, be better than the food industry, like create a regulatory framework that supports your license holders and and encourages us to do things that are good for the planet and good for consumers. You know, it's just it's just crazy sometimes the things they come up with.
AnnaRae Grabstein:So you also don't need a license to grow lettuce.
Darren Story:You don't need a license to grow lettuce. We do have food safety standards. I mean, the the CDFA and and the federal government did come up with you know these food safety standards in the last couple of years, and you know, we're all abiding by them in organic agriculture. It's not it's not nothing uh onerous, like it's it's stuff we are already doing growing organic blueberries, but for some reason the DCC just thought that, like, well, that then we need to come up with the same thing. It's like, why? Like, we're we're you know, we're either sending this stuff through uh a process to you know which sanitizes it, or we're setting a 600-degree flame to this stuff. It's not it's not food, guys. But yeah, it's how it is, it's not easy to navigate. It's challenging. I will say honestly, out of all the regulations we have to abide by, whether it's organic growing or or anything else, the DCC's regulations make the least sense. Um, maybe it's just because it's really early in the game, but yeah, it's it's really mind-blowing sometimes. Yeah, we're only nine years in.
AnnaRae Grabstein:But you guys are making it work. We're making it work. So you talk about organic at scale, and and I think scale matters because it gives you the ability to truly have an impact on the market. If scale means that you can be a market leader, and um, you guys do consistently rank among California's top flower and pre-roll brands. And I'm just wondering when you look at the other top brands in the market, a lot of them are just positioned really differently. A lot of them are indoor brands or people call them hype brands, or they're marketed really towards guys with flat brimmed hats. That is not what that is not the story that Coastal Sun is selling. Um, I'd love it if you could kind of talk about the way that you are positioning yourself in the market, who you think your customer is, and um what that customer is proving uh about the potential for organic cannabis.
Darren Story:Yeah, for sure. So, as you mentioned, you know, we're trying to build a regenerative company as well, not just lip service to the style of growing we do. But so a regenerative company is is always looking at the long term. Um, you know, how is this gonna look when I when I hand it over to the next person that's gonna run the show? How is, you know, how is this gonna make an impact on the planet? Um, you know, it's it's the infinite game, right? So our consumer, we think, is gonna be with us for a long time, and that's really what we're trying to attract. Um, so our consumer, and it's it's mind-blowing who our consumers are. I I can't, but like the demographics are pretty far stretched. But one thing that's consistent is there are people that are somewhat independent, like they're trying to be autonomous with their ability to control their health and their wellness, and they're making you know better lifestyle choices every day, and they're like continually improving, like they're trying to make them themselves a better person. It's really interesting, and they come from all walks of life. There's younger 20-somethings, I guess they're Gen Z or Gen Alpha. Um, there's a lot of senior citizens that are that are attracted to our products. There's some Gen Xers and my demographic, they're all over. But the the consistent thing is they're always trying to improve themselves and and who they are. And then the other thing is they're trying to improve their their environment. They're like they're always pitching it to their friends. Like so many of our consumers were turned on. By one of their other friends who was just passionate about this product and really loved it. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to just market that what we do is good for you. And if you can support us, we're going to continue dumping, you know, investment into research and development to continue to try and find better ways to grow plants that you know heal the planet at the same time. So it's it's a community-driven company, I guess. You know, it's a it's a whole community of stakeholders that that um feed in and pitch in. And amazingly, like, you know, I'll give the regulators credit. Like when they understand and learn what we do, like they buy in as well. They're just like, this is amazing. In particular, like our our cannabis licensing officer in Santa Cruz County is just like an amazing individual. And he is just so bought into our company and our industry. And a lot of the other growers in Santa Cruz County are also regenerative organics. So it's like we get so much support from the regulars once they buy in and it makes sense for them. And it's beyond, you know, just a cash grab. Yeah, that's it. So I I don't want to knock any other brand, but that's our story. It's just we're we're playing the infinite game. Like we're not building something to sell, we're just building something to be able to hand off to the next generation and that we expect is going to be able to actually improve this company beyond what we can even imagine right now. And our consumers are just are those people that believe in that that vision as well.
Ben Larson:I'm a I'm a big Simon Cynic fan. I I love the the the infinite game uh reference. Being that you're playing this infinite game and that we're still in the infancy of of cannabis, unfortunately, after all these years, what are you building towards? Like where where does this really become exciting for you? Are are you anticipating interstate commerce and the ability to push California organic, or are you just approaching every day as it comes and and and enjoying the kind of journey as it as it lies right now? Like I mentioned, you know, we're we're nine years in into this legalization experiment in California. And so it's gotten kind of hard to anticipate when when those things are going to happen. And so I'm just curious as to how you're approaching that as far as your business planning goes.
Darren Story:Our business plan went out the window a long time ago. Um, yeah, that's a good question. I I'm it's hard to anticipate. I I can take it either way. Like we can either obviously we'd love to be able to grow weed and expand outside of California. We'd love to continue teaching other California growers how to grow our style. And because we know that, like, you know, if we can get glasshouse or someone to commit to organics, like they're just gonna push the envelope and they're gonna require us to get better and they're gonna dump money into research and development, and we'll be able to glean some information from them and they'll be able to glean some information from us. And it just makes the world a better place. Like if they're not dumping conventional salts into the waterways and putting a bunch of spent media into the back of their facility, and who knows where it's gonna end up, like the whole world's gonna be a better place. So it's you know, that's that's kind of the cooperation that that regenerative organics stand for. Um, and if we can't export, then you know what we're working on right now is just trying to find growers in other states that we can work with and try and help them learn our style and see if if they can if they can grow weed that you know we'd be okay putting behind a in a coastal sun jar or container. That's a project we're working on with NRA. We've got some good leads. Um it's it's interesting, it's different. California is obviously in general a pretty good place to grow weed. Um it's very challenging in some of the other states um due to just the the humidity and and they get rains, like California, other than this year, typically doesn't get rain in the summer, where these other states they they always get rain in the summer. You know, that's kind of where we're at. Like, how do we expand this story and how do we take the next step? Um, we're working on a few things, a few angles, but what all we do know is we're just gonna just stay mission driven and take one step at a time, um, control the things that we can control, which is ourselves and our quality, and you know, make make a bunch of little mistakes and keep keep getting better. And the environment's gonna do what it does. Like can't control for whatever. I love that.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Can't control the dog barking. You know, you were talking about going outside California, and one thing I think we haven't talked about is is the way that Coastal Sun grows. You talked about your field crops. I think people probably have a vision in their head when you're talking um about an outdoor sun-grown organic farm. Um, you guys also do grow in greenhouses as well. And and you think about kind of what the proper product is based on the quality that comes out. And when you're looking at other states, um, I imagine that potentially greenhouses are a solution to be able to grow organic, high-quality products in other markets that don't have the same type of uh climate as California, right? Do you find that other states might be better equipped for organic if if like someone is listening to this and they're in Missouri or Maryland and they're trying to think about how they could bring organic product? Do you think that that greenhouses are a solution if you're in a wet, rainy place?
Darren Story:Yeah, absolutely. We've spent uh millions of dollars refining and and dialing in the the process. And um, we feel pretty confident in the technology right now, growing organically in a greenhouse to scale. Our current flower greenhouse is about an acre, a little over an acre. Um, so we do have technologies that we kind of borrowed from growing organic berries and learning from others to grow organics to scale. You know, a lot of it has to do with being able to pH the water using organic inputs and also pH down the water using organic inputs, and then also getting the nutrition, in particular the nitrogen and the phosphorus and the potassium that you need a decent amount of through the drip lines and irrigate it. And so we've we figured a lot of that out. So yeah, we'd love to be able to teach. I mean, we're we're talking to a couple of people right now. Um, that's the goal, that's the hope, is that we can work with them. And they have a lot of questions because they've been growing conventionally, and you know, it's all it all revolves around how do you pH the water and how do you get the nutrition to not create too much biofilm in your lines. And that's it, yeah, for sure. You can do it in greenhouse. And we grow some fire weed in a greenhouse. All our other greenhouse growers that feed into the brand, I guess we didn't really cover that. Like Coastal Suns beyond just what we grow. Um, it's a net the brand itself is a network of legacy organic growers throughout Northern California that we've been working with for years. Right now, there's 20 total farms that feed into the brand. Some of them grow um just sun-grown field crops outdoor, some of them grow in greenhouse and some of them grow both styles. So all the other growers that grow in a greenhouse are a little bit smaller than us, but everyone's starting to learn and figure out okay, you know, how how do you scale this greenhouse production organically?
Ben Larson:And yeah, we're we're learning, we're teaching each other like it's happening. I love this. All this uh teaching others and and improving by creating your own competition. We were talking in in the car when we were down in Anaheim together uh about my my favorite winery uh that I've been a member of since like 2008. They they do this biodynamic farming, it's called Benziger up in Glen Ellen, and they've taught basically everyone in the US, like as many people as would listen, how to do biodynamic farming, and and it is really cool to hear that. And Anna Ray and I talk a lot about like these mission-driven companies and how it does lay a foundation for building resiliency and eventually hopefully profitability, like yourself. Let's go deeper on kind of that mission-driven side. I I know you've talked a lot about you know plant-based medicine and and it being kind of the source of a life force. I want to kind of like dig into that ethos a little bit and and and just really kind of unpack what truly is is this greater vision that you have, this greater mission for the for the company and for the world.
Darren Story:Well, I just feel like cannabis is uh as a tool in your wellness chest or like a uh arrow in your quiver, right? So I feel like cannabis can be used by by people to treat all kinds of ailments. And um, I know that the doctors are are starting to do some research and learn, but you know, even if if the science community comes up with reasons or or you know abilities to treat certain diseases using cannabis, I I feel I still feel like using the highest quality um input is gonna be the regenerative organic because it just has higher levels of medicinal compounds. So we'll continue to produce you know more bang for the buck for the for the medical community. But I also think consumers themselves are gonna start using cannabis for treating all kinds of ailments, whether it's uh you know sleep disorders or just stress and anxiety. And it's just gonna be part of a wellness and a healthy lifestyle as these consumers just start to really take matters into their own hands and make themselves better, make themselves start feeling better, you know, following healthy lifestyle choices, disciplined diets, um, you know, yoga exercise, meditation. I feel like cannabis just feeds perfectly into that. I learned recently from you know incredible sources that um a lot of the Hindus believe that Shiva gave cannabis to the earth. So it's been here at least you know 15,000 years and it was brought by Shiva specifically to uh improve um humans' ability to go deeper into meditation. So that's something people should look up, and that's my understanding is why cannabis is here. Um I'm a big fan of Shiva, so I think that you know we're just in the very, very early stages on how this plant can be used. And then you know, from cannabis, it's just gonna it's gonna be all all kinds of other plants. Like we're just learning so much. Like, yeah, I'm sure a lot of people watch the Joe Rogan podcast on ibogaine and like the potential for that. Like, like we're just gonna have to take you know our health and wellness into our own hands. Like we have to go beyond the established medical system and the pharmacology and and just go like, okay, what works for me and what doesn't work for me. And uh and I and um Coastal Sun just wants to be right there. We want to be a part of that movement because um it's it's bigger than us, it's it's bigger than what we can accomplish on our own. Like our consumers are gonna accomplish it with us, you know, the regulators are gonna be a part of the story. Um, basically everybody. It's yeah, that's just the mission is take your health and wellness into your own hands. Cannabis may or may not be a part of that journey. Um, you know, certain foods will be part of that journey, but the consumers just everybody has to do it for themselves. 100% agree.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Yeah, I mean, we we talk a lot about how a big part of leading a company is about showing up for yourself. And I'm curious how that translates into your own personal journey in your life, in your health, and in and in your leadership.
Darren Story:Yeah, I don't know. My employees might think I'm a little bit crazy sometimes. I feel like I'd push the envelope. Like I said, a lot of my college friends, we just kind of got passionate about health and wellness around the same time. My journey started when I was working at the stock exchange, and it was just a competitive advantage to be able to wake up earlier and not be full from the night before because we had to wake up very early to start work. I noticed that like a lot of the people that just ate like royalty because we were all making pretty good money, anything you wanted back then, they were really sluggish. And the first couple hours of the trading day, it just it really impacted them, and they were really tired until they would pound like three cups of coffee, and then lunchtime would roll around and they'd start getting a little bit more energy. And I didn't want to be like that anymore. I was I felt like that, so I just I stopped eating meat and I was just you know vegetarian. Um, and that worked pretty well. I was I was able to get up and not feel bloated the next day and get get at work right away. And then my buddy Kit, who's who's done a bunch of movies and he he was one of my college buddies, he convinced me in uh it was like right after we started this company, I think 2016, he came out with What the Help, and he convinced me to to try to go 100% vegan. So I did that, and then him and some other college buddies of mine, we've just kind of continued pursuing that lifestyle and figuring out how to be more disciplined. A few years ago, I got really into yoga and meditation again. I watched a Joe Rogan podcast and it was with Saadguru, and I was like, okay, you know, I I agree with a lot of what this guy says. So I went to one of his inner engineering workshops, and now I'm just like, I've just dove straight into like Kriya yoga and meditation. So I have a three and a half hour routine I do every day. I wake up around between 3:30 and 4 and I crank out that routine before I start my workday, and that's every single day. Um, and then I just do meditations throughout the day. So I I'm you know, I'm older than most of my staff, so I'm maybe pushing the envelope a little bit, but but all of my staff, like we have continuing education every Wednesday, and everyone we're always talking about and teaching each other about new hacks or you know, new biohacks. Like, did you try this? Have you tried this? So, you know, like my our staff is really into fasting right now. Like we do a lot of fasts. Um, some of us do dry fasts, some of us just still do water fasting, but we all push each other and like work on fasting to to heal certain certain things which are ailing us. And um, yeah, I don't know. It's it's kind of fun. We we're all just trying to help each other get better and healthier.
Ben Larson:Wow. People call me crazy for getting up at 4 30 or 5 in the morning. You're you're up at 3 30. What time do you go to bed? Uh like 10. Wow, okay. Yeah. So you know, I I've read a lot about like how meditation and and meditative states can actually contribute to that, you know, that well of of sleep.
Darren Story:It replaces sleep. Yeah. I didn't believe it. When you first start going to like some of these retreats and seminars and workshops, like Sadguru and all the people that have been doing it for a while, they're like, Yeah, you're gonna start sleeping a lot less. And I was like, I don't know how that's possible, but yeah, before you know it, you're sleeping five to six hours a night, and it's no problem. And it like when I was trading, I used to wake up to 4:30 at 4:30 every day to an alarm clock, and it was just brutal, it was horrible. It was like to this day, I could still hear that alarm clock. So I did that for 15 years, and now I'm actually waking up earlier than I was when I was trading to no alarm clock, and it's like super easy. So yeah, I mean, it's just interesting how your life ebbs and flows.
Ben Larson:And and are you indeed using cannabis as a part of that practice when you're meditating?
Darren Story:Um, currently I'm not. No, I use it a lot when I was growing up in Santa Cruz County. You just start smoking weed at a very good thing. Yeah, it's like water down there. Yeah, no, I know now, I know now that like it's not, you know, a lot of the studies show that you should probably wait till you're 21 for your brain to develop. And you know, the studies are pretty convincing. I'm I'm not gonna go tell kids what they should and shouldn't do, but like my my my nephew, for instance, I'm like, no, you should just be aware of these studies that you know, maybe you if you can wait till you're 21, it might be better for you. But Santa Cruz growing up in the 70s, like none of those studies were out. We just started smoking weed as soon as we could steal it from our parents.
AnnaRae Grabstein:So, Darren, I think that you've been sharing a lot that's giving people a good idea of who you are with your meditation and talking about regenerative farming. But when I so I went on Saturday to the Coastal Sun 10th anniversary harvest party, and I got to spend some time with some of your co-founders. And and I was uh walking around with one of them, and they said, they said that you are a CEO who identifies as a CFO. And uh I have witnessed this a lot as I've gotten to know you as well. And one of the things that is really unique, I think, about the way that you bring in sort of these like earth-based philosophies into the company is that you also have this business background and you are running a really tight, profitable business that's focused on metrics. You keep things really um, really clear. Like you, you know exactly how much it costs to produce a gram of cannabis in your operation and and you know where you can move the needle on pricing and how you can stay competitive. And so that's made it so that Coastal Sun is is is both um a values-driven brand, but it's also not the most expensive brand in the dispensary as well. And and I'm I'm just wondering if maybe before we end this hour, if you want to talk a little bit about the way that you see the importance of financial management as a part of a regenerative business.
Darren Story:Sure. We owe it to our consumers. Affordable quality is a big deal for us. And uh in our opinion, organic cannabis has to be affordable and accessible to all demographics. It's already hard enough with the taxes. I think the taxes are the biggest challenge in the industry still today. So we owe it to our consumers to be able to produce uh an affordable quality product at a price that they can reach that is a daily consumer, you know, someone should be able to consume our product three to four times a week and and be able to afford it. And um, it's just part of our business practices, part of our ethos. Like it's we're very driven in that aspect. And if they can't afford it, we'll just give it to them. Like, like I said, you know, we we started growing weed for wham. It's a compassionate use program. I like to brag. I don't brag about a lot of things. One of the things I do brag about is I I guarantee you we're um donating more SP34 donations than any company in the state, but we encourage everybody to do it, so it's pretty fun. But we actually grow a certain percentage of our our products and all our partner farms pitch in, they're all in on it. We grow a certain percentage strictly for SP34, just so we can support these programs. And SP34 is California's um compassionate use program, which allows us to donate weed to patients without being taxed or or or cost money. So yeah, it's just we have to continue getting better in that regard. That's being mission-driven to us means continuing to make this affordable to all consumers. And like I know it sucks for a lot of people that are like, oh, the price of weed's so low. It's like it needs to go lower, in my opinion, unfortunately. Um, but the great news is there's a lot of farmers like originally, they were like used to growing, you know, $1,300 outdoor pounds, and now we're all fine with where it's at, and our whole network of or legacy organic growers, we're all making a comfortable living. Like no one in our in our network is is not profitable. So we're all figuring out together, and you know, maybe we're not driving fancy cars, but you know, we're serving the patients, and it's you know, like I said, it's a community, so everyone's winning.
Ben Larson:That's really great to hear. And I'm just so inspired by your drive, your mission, and how you're doing it. I want to know what success looks like to you over the next call it five years. So 2030, you've been progressing, the movement, the regenerative farming. What are we looking at in five years? What what what have you accomplished of like what are you proud of?
Darren Story:It's so hard to say, right? Well, we want to grow 28% each year. So however we get there, like we're just trying to be, you know, moderate growth. I know the companies that grow too fast, they have trouble getting the right people and putting them in the right places, and they end up frittering away some of their capital. So we don't want to outgrow ourselves. We don't want to outgrow our ability to find the right people. So, you know, wherever 1.28 to the fifth power is where I hope our revenue is. Um, if we're anything better than that, that's great. Um, how do we get there? We get there with continuing to serve our consumers and making sure that they are very appreciative and and appreciate and you know getting what they deserve as far as quality and affordability, continuing to grow our farm network, teaching our farmers and and you know, all of us just teaching each other how to grow better crops more efficiently and you know in a more planet-friendly fashion, and hopefully exporting to other areas or or going to other areas and teaching those farmers how to grow. But I'd really like to be able to export it. You know, I do like California for look, California is great for everything except the politics, right? Like everything else is amazing here, the people, the you know, the geography. Yeah, that's where I'd like to be in five years. But success to me, just like it's also an industry-wide thing. Like, I just want to see cannabis continue to push forward and become more adopted. You know, consumers just continue treating their own personal ailments with with cannabis and coming up with innovative ways to to utilize it and and work it into their tool chest.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Hell yeah. Well, so we're at the hour. It's time to hear a last call from you, Darren. So, what's your final message for our listeners? Advice, call to action, closing thought.
Darren Story:Uh, my my final call is that health is is your choice. Your genetics don't dictate your lot in life, that you can overcome any obstacle. And you should just take health and wellness in your own hands and and be serious about it. And you know, there's companies out there like us that want to be a part of that journey with you.
Ben Larson:We can overcome any obstacle. I think that's a great note to end on. Even lay even legislation. That's right. That's right.
AnnaRae Grabstein:Love that.
Ben Larson:Darren Story, Coastal Sun. Thank you so much for spending the last hour with us. It was it was truly a pleasure. Thank you.
Darren Story:Yeah, likewise. Appreciate you guys.
Ben Larson:What do you guys think? Pretty awesome, right? Are you gonna go find some coastal sun? Go get yourself some regenerative cannabis. I want to thank our guests, my co-host Anna Ray, our producer, Eric Rossetti, and of course our teams at Vertosa and Wolfmeyer. If you've enjoyed this episode, please stop, like, subscribe, share, do all the things. Our audience continues to grow. We're excited to see you in Vegas at MJ Biz. Come hang out. It will be a great time. As always, folks, stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, keep your spirits high. Until next time, that's the show.
