Standard Wellness sees a global opportunity in Missouri cannabis
As Kansas City draws international attention, Missouri cannabis operators are preparing for more than a temporary bump in foot traffic.
For Tiana Arriaga, Vice President of Product and Marketing for Standard Wellness, the moment is also a test of brand, education, retail experience, and how well Missouri’s cannabis market can introduce itself to visitors who may have little experience with legal cannabis in the United States.
Standard Wellness operates vertically in Missouri, Ohio, and Utah, with cultivation, manufacturing, and retail operations. The company also has retail operations in Maryland.
In Missouri, Standard Wellness operates The Forest dispensaries, including a location in Kansas City.
“Our Forest dispensary is located in the Westport district of Kansas City,” Arriaga said. “If you haven’t been to Kansas City, it is such a city that is rich with culture, music, nightlife, bars, dispensaries. People have it going on in Kansas City for sure.”
That location gives Standard Wellness a front-row view of how major events can influence cannabis retail. As World Cup-related activity builds in Kansas City, Arriaga said the company has already seen early signs of increased customer traffic.
“There are upticks of customers,” Arriaga said. “When you’re talking about cart size and customer spend, even if you get 20 new customers a day, that’s impactful to top-line revenue and also just access.”
But Arriaga said the larger opportunity is not simply transactional. For visitors, especially those from countries or states without similar access to regulated cannabis, walking into a dispensary can be a new and overwhelming experience.
“I think this is where brand can really take a special highlight with new consumers and people who are really kind of curious and haven’t been exposed,” Arriaga said. “Especially the international community, who haven’t been exposed to how we do cannabis in the United States.”
That first impression matters.
“If people come to Kansas City and they’re able to look at a cannabis brand and remember that and take that out to the world and tell their friends of their experience, that’s what we want in CPG,” Arriaga explained. “That’s what CPG aims for, good, positive experiences where friends tell friends.”
New consumers, familiar formats
For first-time or out-of-state shoppers, Arriaga expects ease of use to drive interest. While flower remains foundational to cannabis culture, newer consumers often gravitate toward products that feel more approachable and require less equipment or ritual.
“I think we’re going to see just some natural categories be the winner,” Arriaga said. “I don’t think a lot of people, if this is their first time, they might gravitate towards a gummy or a vape because those are easy and controllable. Maybe pre-rolls if people are really into smoking.”
That focus on convenience reflects a broader shift in cannabis retail. Consumers are increasingly shopping by format, experience, ease, and confidence, not just potency or cultivar.
“If ease and convenience are a big thing you want, and then pricing, you want quality for the best price, and you want it fast, and you want to be able to consume it easily,” Arriaga said. “Unless you have a dedicated joint rolling station or bong or a process, the ritual for flower smokers is usually the thing that keeps you in it.”
For brands, that shift creates opportunities across categories.
Standard Wellness’ house of brands includes Standard, which Arriaga described as the company’s premium flower, concentrate, live resin, liquid live diamond vape brand; Fish Whistle, a premium pre-roll brand rooted in the outdoors and conservation; LaDiDaDi, a flavor-forward cannabis vape brand; and The Solid, a value-oriented brand in Missouri.
Those brands are designed to serve different consumers without trying to make every product for every shopper.
“You can’t service everything to everyone,” Arriaga said. “I think that’s where people get really trapped, trying to service everyone, and you’re not going to be able to. If that’s your strategy, it’s really hard to sustain.”
Education remains the front line
As new consumers enter the market, Arriaga said budtenders remain central to the experience.
“They’re the gatekeepers to your customers and to your guests,” she said. “What they like is what they like. You can’t fake it until you make it with your budtenders.”
Arriaga said the company does not want retail teams to simply push house brands. Instead, she said, the focus is on authentic conversations and helping consumers find products that fit their needs and comfort level.
“We also want our guests to have an authentic experience of what they want instead of pushing our own house brands, which can be counterintuitive to a lot of business models,” she said. “The main thing for us is just choosing people who want to be there and actually have conversations with guests.”
That is especially important when serving consumers from different regulatory backgrounds.
Standard Wellness sees a similar dynamic in other markets, including Ohio, where Arriaga said the company’s Cincinnati store draws customers from Kentucky. In Kansas City, the market has long served customers from neighboring states with more limited access to cannabis.
“If you’re coming from Kansas and you don’t have much exposure to cannabis at all, you’re probably going to be in the same educational bracket as someone who’s coming from maybe France,” Arriaga said.
The key, she said, is keeping education simple and digestible.
“I’m always with the theory of “low and slow” recommendations and very simple digestible bites of information to explain things,” Arriaga said. “You’ve got to be able to break it down where people can understand it.”
That becomes more complicated as consumers move from flower, gummies, or vapes into concentrates, rosin, hash, and solventless products. Arriaga, who has more than two decades of experience in cannabis and a background rooted in Northern California cannabis culture, said the jump from traditional cannabis consumption to concentrates can be significant.
“There are all these things you have to navigate from the consumption space, which makes this industry really beautiful, but very challenging, is the aspect of education, especially with new consumers,” she said. “I’ve been trying to educate consumers for the last 22 years of my life, and we’re just scratching the surface.”
Missouri’s culture and constraints
Arriaga said Missouri’s cannabis market has a stronger foundation than many people may realize, in part because of the state’s existing cannabis culture before adult-use legalization.
“Missouri has always loved their weed,” she said. “When adult use really kicked in, there were tons of people growing their own weed in Missouri before. Lots of breeders are sending packs of seeds out there, with Missouri having a prolific traditional market.”
That history, she said, has helped Missouri support more authentic cannabis products. But the state’s regulatory structure also creates challenges, particularly around genetics.
“Missouri’s hard to get new genetics in,” Arriaga said. “You have only a year from when your license becomes active. You have this immaculate conception clause to bring in clones. Otherwise, you have to start from seed, and it takes forever.”
For someone whose work includes product strategy, portfolio management, brand development, commercialization, and cannabis genetics, that limitation is significant. Arriaga said access to genetics directly affects what companies can bring to market, particularly in categories like solventless concentrates.
“We’re limited in our solventless use right now because of the availability of cultivars that are able to commercialize,” she said. “If I could bring in 10 other strains right now, then I can have 10 other flavors on the market in the next couple of months for our customers.”
Still, Arriaga said Standard Wellness is leaning into what it does well, particularly manufacturing, concentrates, vapes, solventless products, and intentional brand development.
“We know that we have one of the strongest MIP manufacturing teams in Missouri,” Arriaga said. “We’ve won multiple awards for our concentrates, our solventless concentrates, and our vapes in the state of Missouri. So, we know that that’s a strength and we can lean into that.”
Balancing scale and authenticity
For Arriaga, the challenge is not simply making products. It is making products that can scale while still respecting cannabis culture.
“The constant conversation with my executive team is, how do we do this? How do we scale this and keep quality in places that is authentic to the people who are supporting us?” she said.
That tension is central to the cannabis industry’s next stage. As adult-use markets expand, companies are being asked to operate more like traditional consumer packaged goods businesses while still serving a consumer base that values culture, craft, genetics, and authenticity.
Arriaga said that balance is difficult, but necessary.
“There is so much culture and rich history there when it comes back down to products,” she said. “Being in the traditional market for so many years and then building authentic brands, and now being with Standard Wellness, my team takes it so serious and so to heart.”
Looking ahead, Arriaga said beverages, federal rescheduling, hemp regulation, and the ability to operate more consistently across state lines could all shape the future of cannabis.
But she was cautious about predicting how quickly federal change may affect operators.
“What I would love to see with rescheduling, I would like to see ease of being able to work between our own markets,” Arriaga said. “We’re just these little microcosm countries right now that we get to operate in.”
For now, the opportunity in Missouri is more immediate. Kansas City is welcoming new visitors, Missouri dispensaries are serving consumers with different levels of familiarity, and brands have a chance to make a lasting impression.
“I just want safe access for people, and I want them to enjoy it and have it,” Arriaga said. “I hope that some of our international customers come through, whether it’s us or other dispensaries, so that they can just enjoy it and take that experience with them.”
Brandon Dunn contributed to this story.
