Grand Rapids cannabis dispensary Fluresh will remain open after its employees pitched a plan to save the floundering operation.
The retail shop at Phillips and Hall streets was slated to close as the company’s parent, Tend. Harvest. Cultivate., had defaulted on its loans and completed a massive financial restructuring that included shedding $110 million in debt and $5 million in new capitalization, Crain’s Detroit Business reported.
The Grand Rapids retail location generated below $200,000 a month in revenue and was a money-loser, CEO Brandon Kanitz told Crain’s. When it opened in 2020, the dispensary was clearing $1.5 million per month, but continued to drop under price compression and new competition in the city, Kanitz said.
“I should have done this a long time ago,” Kanitz said. “It’s been losing money for a while, but I was scared if you shut down retail, the market would freak out.”
The retail operation will now operate as a curbside-only service on five days a week, instead of seven, and will eliminate its showroom for customers. Kanitz said curbside accounts for 60% of the dispensary’s total sales. Keeping the full retail operational would have resulted in a $500,000 loss in 2026, Kanitz said.
As a result of the reduced operations, roughly 25 employees will lose their jobs.
Righting the ship
The restructuring marks Tend.Harvest.Cultivate.’s latest attempt to right the ship, as it’s been near collapse for years. The company also makes cannabis edibles and runs a grow operation.
The company shuttered a $46 million cultivation facility in Adrian in 2024, citing upside-down economics as the operation was losing $500,000 and defaulted on loans from Flagstar Bank.
At that time, the average price of an ounce of marijuana flower was nearly $74. Since then, prices have plummeted: the average price was only $58.22 per ounce in December.
The company also defaulted on its Grand Rapids cultivation facility loans. But through negotiations with Flagstar and investors, the company was able to shed $110 million in debt in a restructuring deal that closed in late December.
The restructuring deal positions the company to refocus on cultivation at its 55,000-square-foot cultivation facility in Grand Rapids, Kanitz said. The company produces cannabis for some of the largest cannabis operators in the state.
Read the rest of this story at Crain’s Detroit Business
