Maplewood, NJ (KYW Newsradio) — New Jersey voters approved the use of recreational marijuana for adults back in 2020. Now, three years later, independently made edibles are hitting shelves in the Garden State for the first time.
ButACake owner Matha Figaro started selling regular butter cakes at a farmers market in 2015. About a year later, a customer sparked an idea, asking if she could infuse cannabis in them for medical purposes.
“The original ask was from a woman that was getting ready to go through chemo,” Figaro said. “She was like, ‘I love your cake, but at this point, I need medicine more. And instead of doing the two, can you combine it for me?’
“I never stopped after that. I realized how much I can help.”
Figaro applied for a manufacturing license soon after adult use became legal in New Jersey. The process took 444 days and, during that time, she had to stop selling ButACake products.
“My lawyers advised me that anything I was doing in my past in the unregulated market had to completely stop,” she said. “So, from that moment on, I wasn't generating a single penny of income to sustain myself.”
Luckily, she found a partner to help her figure things out.
Figaro teamed up with The Cannabist Company — previously, Columbia Care — and was able to sell her products in their dispensaries in Delaware while she waited for her New Jersey license.
“Our philosophy is … a rising tide raises all ships,” said Volley Hayhurst Jr., Vice President of Regional Operations at The Cannabist Company. “We love to open up the doors and allow these new licenses to come in, ask questions, share best practices, share our startup issues that we had, and be able to use us as a resource that's been in the market for a long time.”
New Jersey cannabis regulators have said they wanted to prioritize equity and inclusion as they rolled out adult use, but very few minority-owned cannabis businesses have opened so far.
Figaro says ButACake is the first Black-owned legal edibles brand in the state.
The biggest hold-up has been access to knowledge and resources. Small businesses often don’t have a lot of startup money or a team of lawyers to help with licensing, but The Cannabist Company does. They were able to provide all of that to Figaro, as well as raw materials and a kitchen to work out of.
“I get support in every single possible way,” Figaro said. “If I have questions … they have every answer.”
Figaro has also launched a second business, CannPowerment, making products for other retailers to sell. She hopes this will help other small businesses get off the ground in the legal market without having to source raw materials or make products themselves.
“CannPowerment is the manufacturing company that helps bring brands to life, like ButACake,” she said.
The complicated process and cost of starting a legal business still present barriers to a lot of independent and minority-owned operators. There’s still an active underground market, but Figaro said the benefits of joining the legal market are worth the effort, and she wants to inspire more Black and brown entrepreneurs to take the leap.
“I can actually pay my taxes, I can actually get a mortgage, I can actually start thinking seriously as a 34-year-old woman about my reproductive system,” she said.
“I'm figuring out how to be an independent operator so that I can help other people and just create a more interesting marketplace in New Jersey.”
ButACake’s dissolvable strips made with regulated cannabis will be available at several dispensaries beginning Thursday, Dec. 14.
The company also makes infused baked goods, like butter cakes and PB&J brownies, which are available at a few medical dispensaries in Delaware.
Hear more about Figaro’s journey on The Jawncast: