Cannabis NB Reports $11M In Third-Quarter Sales

Cannabis NB says it made $11 million in sales during the previous quarter.

The Crown corporation posted its third-quarter results for 2019-20 on Tuesday.

It said sales increased by 23.7 per cent compared to the same quarter last year.

But there is a catch: this year’s third quarter lasted three weeks longer than last year.

Thomas Tremblay, a spokesperson for Cannabis NB, said the difference had to do with the cannabis legalization date.

“Legalization started on October 17th, 2018. Therefore, there were additional weeks of sales during the 2019 third quarter (September 30, 2019 – December 29, 2019),” said Tremblay in an email.

“Next year, our year-over-year third-quarter results will be the same length.”

In-store sales made up 98.9 per cent of this quarter’s sales, up from 95.1 per cent last year.

The latest financial results also include 12 days of sales following the legalization of edibles and concentrates. Cannabis NB said it made $100,000 from edibles and $200,000 from concentrates.

During a luncheon in Saint John on Jan. 16, the province’s finance minister said Cannabis NB turned its first profit of $13,000 in December.

Ernie Steeves largely contributed the profit to the introduction of edibles.

“It’s better than losing, and we had been losing most recently close to $400,000 to half-a-million a month,” said Steeves.

Three days earlier, the Higgs government announced it had received eight proposals in its bid to find a single private operator for Cannabis NB.

The province said the proposals will be reviewed soon by a third-party through a transparent process.

A single operator could be chosen by this spring with the new private model being rolled out by later this year.

With files from Danielle McCreadie and Allan Dearing.