Mass Grown opened an adult-use cannabis dispensary in Mount Holly in Burlington County.
It was among the first 100 New Jersey cannabis dispensaries to open earlier this year.
They have a good-sized space that includes a seated area and features music playing.
“We’re trying for a homey feeling. Some places you walk into, it’s like standoffish. Cannabis brings people together,” Mass Grown Co-owner Sheryl Agro explained. “Coming from a retail background, we wanted to make sure this is a one-stop shop.”
So, the Mass Grown dispensary sells a lot of accessories, smoking supplies, and paraphernalia that smoke shops often do, like funny signs.
Many Legal Cannabis Products Available
Mass Grown is among the few dispensaries where legal New Jersey adult-use cannabis products can be seen behind the counter and the budtender/clerks.
“We all have the products behind us,” Agro explained. “They can see the product coming off the shelf and into their hand and bag versus walking up a cold kiosk.”
Most New Jersey cannabis dispensaries have a backroom/vault room where products are kept.
Notably, Mass Grown dispensary has legal cannabis flower brands for sale from the local grower Garden Greens. They have gotten progressively popular, she noted. Mass Grown also carries cannabis flower from the local Indian American family-owned grower Hamilton Farms.
In addition, they carry some smaller brands like the local independent Jersey Canna chocolates by Inclusion Gourmet which got to market the week of 4/20.
Agro said they were the first dispensary in South Jersey to carry them.
Mass Grown also carries vape products from the North Jersey-owned Lily Extracts and the small corporate Multi-State Operator (MSO) Fernway.
She is eager to sell more flower and thought there would be more independent brands in the market by Christmas.
“I’m for the little guy,” Agro declared. “I’m a little bit more for the little guy because the little bit more care and dedication goes into it to produce it, other than mass producing. It reminds me of Costco, a big box store, versus going to your town’s little deli.”
They also have some flowers and products made by large MSOs like Rhythm.
Ownership Background
Mass Grown like many successful dispensary owners, is a bootstrapped enterprise by determined local serial entrepreneurs who have run other legal businesses.
“We did it with our own blood, sweat, and tears,” Agro declared. “We built every cabinet in here.
The name MASS is an acronym for the owners’ first name initials of Mike, Alicia, Sheryl, and Sam.
They decided to add “Grown” to it as a clever name.
Thus, they are not from Massachusetts, nor are they farmers.
They had planned on using it as a Doing Business As (DBA) and using an alternative. But the NJ Cannabis Regulatory Commission (NJCRC) needs to approve every name change, and that could have taken some time. They got the conversion to an annual adult-use cannabis dispensary license needed to open in August 2023.
“If the State had dragged us out any longer, we would have been in trouble,” Agro said.
Co-owner Alicia Pizza first approached Agro about opening a dispensary.
“She said we need to do this,” she explained. “So we talked to two of our other friends.”
Smoke Shop Owners in Legal NJ Cannabis
The Mass Grown owners previously operated vape shops and saw an opportunity as the licensed New Jersey adult-use cannabis market grew.
For example, Agro owns Inno Vapes in Wrightstown in Burlington County, where she lives, along with the CBD shop in town as well. So she went from selling vapes to CBD to Delta 8-THC hemp to legal cannabis.
Agro has a lot of experience with horses as well.
“We had horses in Staten Island growing up. They built it up, and we had to move off the island,” she explained. “We accidentally got into the standard-bred racing industry.”
Pizza also has a place called The Vape Shop on Route 33 in Hamilton in Mercer County, where she lives.
Co-owners Michael Novembre lives in Bordentown in Burlington County, and Sanjeev “Sam” Kaul lives in Manalapan in Monmouth County.
Operating in Mount Holly
Mount Holly, like other towns, has allowed a few dispensaries to be very close together, while towns around it allow none at all.
“We were the 1st resolution issued in Mount Holly, and we were the last to open,” Agro noted.
She added, “We were much pretty all told… you’re the only one. We all bring something different.”
(Full disclosure: this is an advertorial purchased as an ad deal with Heady NJ.)
