TILT Holdings On The Future Of The Cannabis Market And Current Technology Developments

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, TILT Holdings Inc TLLTF is made up of multiple cannabis companies that deliver products and services to businesses operating in the cannabis industry. Their services range from manufacturing and distribution to business and consumer delivery services.

Although according to Gary Santo, senior vice president and head of capital markets and investor relations, TILT Holdings is much more than just a distributor. 

One major focus for the company has always been technology and R&D. Current CEO and Founder of Jupiter Mark Scatterday, co-developed the CCELL technology that was incredibly disruptive to vaporizing technology. The CCELL technology reimagined vaping hardware products by utilizing ceramic heating elements as opposed to wick-based coils. The patented ceramic formula resulted in a release of purer flavors and a higher potency of extracts.

“We think we’re just scratching the surface of what we could do,” said Santo. “But for us, it’s all about being that disruptive foundational technology.”

Disruptive Technology

Looking ahead, TILT is starting to see the market go towards heat-not-burn technology. The idea behind this emerging technology is to heat tobacco without burning it. 

Cigarettes burn tobacco and the smoke that it creates during the combustion process contains many harmful chemicals. Heat-not-burn prevents the combustion process by heating the tobacco at a lower temperature as to not burn it. This would ideally help to avoid the ingestion of those additional chemicals and carcinogens that enter the body when smoking cigarettes.

So similar to what Scatterday did with CCELL in the vaping industry, you can expect to see similar R&D type products come out of TILT for both heavier concentrates as well as heat-not-burn.

Educating The Consumer

When it comes to newer technologies, one aspect developers must consider is how to educate the consumer on product usage. Some previously developed heat-not-burn technologies have experienced challenges surrounding the education of the product. 

Santo credited these challenges in part to how the cartridges are loaded. Consumers have been left with questions such as: Are you putting the flower in yourself, or are you buying pre-made cartridges? What are the availabilities? Are they proprietary?

“If you have to spend a lot of time teaching someone how to use it, it does beg the question how useful is that product long-term?” said Santo. 

When it comes to this developing technology, TILT believes in creating platforms that are simple to use, and that would only require a small amount of education. This education would explain some of the benefits of heat-not-burn versus pure combustion as well as how to use the technology.

“I think it’s going to be the challenge to sort of make [heat-not-burn] take off the way we’ve seen vaping take off.”

As an emerging industry, companies such as TILT Holdings are working to be at the forefront of these technological innovations. It will be interesting to see if technologies such as heat-not-burn become the next big thing in cannabis.

Photo by Jeff W on Unsplash

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.