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Decoration, Functionality, Security, And Communication In Cannabis

Decoration, functionality, security, and communication in cannabis with April Lytle of KURZ Transfer Products. KURZ boasts four key areas of expertise – decoration, functionality, security, and communication, with decades of experience in the field of hot stamping finishes and coating technology. Cannabis producers must address packaging and labeling requirements, as it is a huge compliance issue for cannabis companies, which varies from state to state, and there’s definitely a need to find accurate and efficient ways of doing this.

They speak about types of technology solutions to address compliance concerns. As the market expands and new brands are popping up almost every day, we’re going to see some crowded retail store shelves with what we might call “cereal aisle syndrome” of too many choices. They talk about what a company can do to stand out in a sea of cannabis products on the retail shelf.

 

Transcription:

 

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Hello, thanks for tuning in to another episode of NCIA’s cannabis industry voice on cannabis radio. I’m your host, Bethany Moore and today my guest is April Lytle of KURZ transfer products, that’s KURZ the company, boast four key areas of expertise decoration functionality security and communication with decades of experience in the field of hot stamping finishes in coding technology.

Welcome to the show, April, it’s good to have you on, it’s a pleasure to be here, great, well let’s start the show by getting to know you a little bit better. I like to ask guests about their background and experience before finding yourself contributing your time, energy efforts, and elbow grease in the cannabis industry. So what were you doing before?

Well, as far as background, I’ve been with KURZ for almost four years now, I’ve been doing marketing and design for us, as well as my history has always been in marketing design. I spend a little bit time in the entertainment industry working for a big amphitheater worked in print with digital, in hot stamping for about as long as I can remember since… 2003 actually.

Oh cool, yeah. So a little bit of the entertainment industry sounds fun, was at concerts and performances, and… Or use a… Yeah, the big, big, big guys Kiss and rush linking a lot of… So I eat all those guys.

It was pretty exciting.

I got dragged to a Rush concert once…

they were so nice.

Yeah, I heroically nice, cool, alright, thank thanks for that little run down there.

You’re still with CRS transfer products you’re focused on the hot stamping marketing is a side of things.

So what got you or your company curve involved or interested in working with cannabis companies, in the industry?

For me, personally, it started because I was raised by two hippy parents cool and they still to this day, have this heavy belief in the importance of natural holistic medicine. THC has never really been my thing, be CBD has made a huge difference in my own health, I’ve got prone disease, and I can’t tell you the impact that cannabis is made, but for us personally for carts, we have a few different solutions that I think would make a huge impact on the industry in helping brands be successful. And for me, that’s sort of the key goal.

I want this industry to flourish. I want the companies to be able to brand themselves the best that they can and also protect themselves the best that they can.

Wonderful, wonderful. So there’s no resistance for working in cannabis even though we’re still dealing with federal prohibition, we are seeing the dominoes fall in various states across the country. So where is your company based and are you working with companies across the country?

We are based in our subsidiary in North Carolina and North Carolina is obviously being in the Bible Belt. Hasn’t exactly jumped on board yet, but I… Our corporate office is in Germany, so we’re extremely open-minded. There’s hurts. Thailand hurts China Curt Australia. We are always thinking, progressive as a company, even though there are some legal issues that we have full expectation that they’ll be complete federalization eventually. So as of right now, despite the federal resistance, we have full faith in that’ll completely resolve itself. We’ve been working with packaging companies, and with brands all over the US already and we’ll continue to do so, that’s great. It sounds like a bigger international company, actually, that’s pretty exciting. And of course, we… After the United States, we’ve already seen Canada and it looks like Mexico is moving toward a legalization and we are almost falling behind here. In the global market if other countries start to jump on board here.

So we’re seeing a lot of progress in Congress, this year. So I’m crossing my fingers that we get some movement there. So let’s talk a little bit more about course transfer products, and your role there, your day-to-day and what’s going on with the company and what it’s been like so far to work with cannabis companies.

Oh absolutely, so I were a bunch of hats.

I do a lot of our business development first new industries, all of our marketing and everything I work a lot with brands. Sometimes they’ll come to us and say We like this package, but we have no idea of how it would look with this foil, so we sort of help them re-imagine some of their packaging and labeling with decoration.

But as far as working with the cannabis industry clearly that’s new for us and we’ve experienced a lot of stranger danger which is understandable, given that everybody’s tried to jump into this sort of wild west Gold Rush scenario, the green rush as we… So I eat call it exactly, it is understandable, but we really just want these brands to survive as it becomes more competitive, as things become more retail space. We wanna give these brands, the tools that they need to really consider premium and luxury packaging. The beginning. Just like-minded, just like, spirits have most of the successful larger brands have always paid attention to their packaging and labeling in the beginning, which is why they sort of successfully made their way into the market. And stay there, yeah, it makes sense for sure, yeah, but the other aspect of it too, the big impact that we’re already seeing in cannabis is this counterfeiting issue, which there was that huge issue with the vape cartridges being counterfeit Ed. Maybe not so much the product itself but definitely all the cartridges, and even the packaging being counterfeit ed in China counterfeiting is a huge issue or rising into this market. That’s one of the other things that we can help with KURZ is experts in security, or holograms or on credit cards. They’re on the Eros. We’ve always been sort of these low-key experts in security, with security features.

We have a giant facility in Germany that just focuses on these high security features, but it Ethan the protective holograms the tamper-evident even so far as customized apps that can help track logistics, we can all help with that as well. I greatly encourage the industry to consider this when they’re making their products as it is right now, if a product is “counterfeite the brand can stand to lose their license, even if they had nothing to do with it. So is simple things, just like little protective holograms or camber Everton seals can make a huge difference with broad protection in the future.

Got it, got it. So before we take our first commercial break, I’m curious as we mentioned, your company is pretty large and an international company so you’re serving customers from all kinds of industries, all over the place, as you mentioned, what would you say is the difference between working with cannabis companies, versus non-cannabis companies?

Well, we do a lot of project management for these really large conglomerates. When you’re working with Procter and Gamble, for example, they’ll have a vendor in China, and a vendor here and sometimes working with their projects is a very complicated lots of facets.

Sure I… So we’re used to stepping in and helping with these, and I think eventually cannabis will get there too when we can internationally start working with each other right now. It’s such a baby industry, that it needs more hand-holding than it needs project development.

But the one thing that I love, love, love about the cannabis industry specific is just a synergy. We went to MJ Bascom last year, and there was this electricity on the floor?

The people, the brand owners are so passionate about their product in the effects of it, they’re so concerned with helping people, and absolutely changing sort of this big pharma handcuff thing that’s been going on in the United States. And when you walked out of the trade show every day, into a cloud of smoke mind you, what everyone was standing around just talking to each other, and reacting with each other, and it’s impossible really not to get caught up with this movement and making a difference and everybody helping each other to succeed in these scientists and it’s just, it’s amazing the environment, which I can honestly say has not been in any other market that we’ve been in, and I just, I love it a… That’s great to hear things. Yeah, I think we are all definitely a big passionate industry.

Cool, well, let’s take our quick commercial break and then we’ll come back and chat a bit more in depth with April Lytle from KRZ  transfer products stay tuned 

Alright, we’re back on NCIA’s cannabis industry voice on cannabis radio, this is your host Bethany and we’re chatting with April Lytle from KURZ transfer products.

So speaking of our wonderful industry, there is a lot to keep up with as fun as it all is. For sure. Cannabis producers have to address packaging and labeling requirements, and it’s a gigantic compliance issue, for cannabis companies, to do this correctly. And they vary from state to state, so there’s definitely a need to find an accurate and efficient way of doing this. I’m curious what kind of technology solutions we’re seeing that can address some of these packaging and labeling compliance concerns from your perspective?

Well, some of the technology that we’re seeing, it’s no surprise to us because we have worked in the pharmaceutical space. So you’re looking at all these child-resistant options with caps and packaging you’re looking at temper evidence, you’re looking at per the thermal transfer covert again, protective holograms. It’s things that we are perfectly prepared for because we’ve been in this space for a while.

There are some really new technologies that I’ve seen out there that are kind of cool. That was actually listening to the “ncia is packaging and labeling webinar, the other day.

And they were talking about as a technology that has these little nano particles that it can read and there are some really cool and innovative options out there to really help these brands stay afloat and make sure that they are being compliant. And then, then some… One of the things that I’ve heard too is that it is a lot of these bigger brands like he and his bush some of these big players that are sort of watching what’s going on in the US right now they are going to be expecting some of these smaller brands that they wanna acquire to really go above and beyond to supply these technical details to supply the logistics and I think it’s gonna be critical, the in-Board in the future, to be able to have these kinds of tools and your belt to differentiate yourself from some of the smaller brands.

But the NCIA is a really awesome source to help keep up with that. I know that they have experts really paying attention to what’s going on in DC and some of the other states to help brands and companies stay compliant.

We have an agent in DC right now doing the same thing. Again, it goes back to… That’s one of the great things about this industry and everyone working together. I don’t get that pushing someone under the bus to try to get a head feeling.

We’re all sort of helping each other out, but in this space, especially the innovation that’s going into the technology, especially where it comes with the plants and the tracking. Super cool, for sure. I can’t wait to just have the word nano particles as part of my every day vocabulary and use it in a sentence every day.

Oh goodness, yeah, it is really amazing. Every time I walk the expo floor and our cannabis business Summit in Expos coming up right around the corner here, like any second July 22nd through 24th in San Jose every time I walk the expo floor there’s something new and I’m like… What is that? And it’s fascinating to see the innovations absolutely, and I do wanna quickly mention that NCIA’s Policy Council did put out a white paper within the last year or so, with recommendations for packaging and labeling policies when states and governments get to that point where they wanna implement that we have recommendations for what we think is reasonable and sensible so you can find that on “cia’s website under industry reports.

So moving along, compliance and regulations, it’s our life and our industry has a lot of packaging designs because of those compliance and regulate regulations that we have to follow, so some might say All this packaging can create a lot of environmental waste.

So of course, we’re looking at ways to make our industry more sustainable for the environment in various ways. Can you talk about maybe some ways your company or other companies can address these issues?

Absolutely, I guess first and foremost, one of the big misconceptions even within the standard printing industry, is that foil that is not recyclable, but 10% is as long as the substrate that it stamped on is also recyclable. I don’t oh, so primary or secondary? As long as it can be recycled, so… Can or foil which is… But considering that our corporate office is from Germany, sustainability issues are one of our top priorities we are all the time, changing our energy usage we have one of the most purest progressive internal recycling programs within the industry, we are going to be building a gigantic new facility of operations here in the US soon and we’re looking into all manner of energy solutions. There’s one that’s kind of top secret but it’s gonna revolutionize the pet carriers. What carries the film?

And I’m just so excited. And so proud to be working for this company, especially in their concern with environment but in general, as far as the industry is concerned, just as long as we keep pushing for the recyclable items.

Recyclable papers, I know that there are him papers that are gonna be coming out soon, which are really cool, absolutely love that concept as is working on one, I think stoppers is working on one but just consider your sources when you’re looking at packaging, and labeling. There are so many really neat, raw recyclable materials out there now that are not that much more expensive. There’s even biodegradable shrink film now.

Oh, well, so I think that to have relevancy and to have an authentic product, especially from a consumer’s perspective, that’s something to be considered for sure. I look forward to the day when we just make everything out of him.

So our cannabis will be in some kind of derived plastic container and maybe we can put straws back in restaurants, when we make hemp straws. So I also like that you have a little bit of a top secret mystery going on at your company, so that’s exciting. So speaking of company secrets everyone of course wants to protect your company secrets, your intellectual property, your company’s reputation and everything in between. And I’m curious what some other concerns to be aware of maybe, that you’ve seen regarding security and protecting our companies.

Sure, well I briefly touched on anti-counter-fitting earlier, and that is going to, I predict to be an increasingly is nagging issue with this industry especially. I’ve heard when I went to Mason heard many times. Well, I set my packaging off to China and all of a sudden my brain is being distributed in China, so we have to be very careful with… Where we’re getting things printed. Always do your due diligence there, and always consider those tamper evidence, those customized protective holograms. Just a little authentication sticker on there. Could you’re saving your brand’s reputation?

I’ve seen some issues with logistics too on the back end, people struggling to bring all the data that they want together. I know metrics doing a good job with that, they cover part of that. There are some other companies that work with metric, but there’s not like a seed to consume our solution-

I know that we have customized app software that can do all of it, I highly suggest using some kind of company to really get your logistics nailed down, get your test results in just have everything working together to protect your seed-to-sale production.

Absolutely, I think that’s really good advice. Thanks for sharing that. We are gonna jump to our last commercial break here, but then we’ll be right back to wrap up our conversation with April from curse transfer products to stay tuned, we’ll be right back

Alright, we’re back on NCIA’s cannabis industry voice weekly podcast on cannabis radio, and we’ve been learning a bit about some packaging hot transfer, hot stamping technology in ways that it protects cannabis companies, as well, so our market’s expanding there’s new brands popping up almost every day and where I think we’re starting to see a crowded some really crowded retail store shelves in cannabis dispensaries and it’s what I might call like Cereal Aisle syndrome of having way too many choices. Do I get that guy or that guy? And what is the difference and why does it matter? Or I think a lot of humans in general, especially in the US experience what’s called decision fatigue. I am just tired of making decisions. So my entire closet is just all black, so everything matches, so I… What can work? What can a company do from your perspective to really stand out in a sea of cannabis products on these retail shows?

First of all, I must be guilty that ’cause my entire class, it is black same alright, high five.

But we’re involved with a lot of companies that do research for this specifically, there’s the packaging school at Clemson, they have a really cool program there that has eye tracking, they set up fake shelves of product, even with competitors to see how they do against each other and they have these goggles, that go on and they actually track where people’s eye goes.

Oh wow, and record that data. And their studies are open to the public, they’re online, they do really good work there, but one of the things that they found out is that decoration makes a huge difference, anywhere from 30 to 80% more likely someone to pick it up.

One of the coolest industry specific videos that I’ve seen lately that sort of talk about this was from the bud tenders ball and they interviewed a bunch of these, but tenders who all basically said that they’re guilty of helping consumers pick a brand based on how cool the packaging look… And foil in really customized solutions like decoration, and solutions can make a world of difference there, be creative with your packaging, think outside of the box.

There are so many needs raw materials now that you wanna make a difference, you wanna really do some clever or some really smart branding, in the future. I’ve seen a lot of dull packaging brands just go to the wayside really be clever, have interactive packaging, there’s nine crimes that has that really cool app that goes along with their wine label, where the criminals labels start talking to you.

Oh, wow, that’s a… Yeah, and then I get it. Yeah, they did one with The Walking Dead were a zombie walks out of the label and Rick interacts with it, so…

Oh my God, yeah, I was wondering what you meant by interactive. But now it makes sense. That’s pretty Asian. The, there are so many clever ways that you can set yourself apart on the shelf and we’re gonna see the backlash of this in a few years because you do have so many brands and CD places and dispensaries coming up that it might not seem like you should be taking risks, this early, but really start planning to take these kinds of risks. Try, it’s okay to be completely different, it’s okay to set yourself apart.

Cool, thanks for that advice. Yeah, and coming from an international large company that’s worked with all kinds of brands in all kinds of industries. Yeah, I think that’s really great for companies that are looking to stay on top of the growth and the sophistication, I’m sure your company is probably part of a lot of associations of depending on the company’s industries that you’re working with. And you’ve been a member of  NCIA for a while now, too. What about being a member of the National cannabis industry association is most helpful to your business or important to your company?

 Well, they have so many different events, so many networking opportunities. It just seems like the “ncia goes above and beyond most organizations to really help bring people together. It’s obvious that everyone involved is passionate. They’re not only trying to network but they’re really trying to make a difference.

Yeah, in this industry, period. And you just wanna be a part of it, you just trust them to keep your best interests in mind, to give you all the tools and opportunities that you need to succeed.

 Awesome, yes, we try… We try to do our best, we provide, we provide we’re doing three on three major conferences a year, and I think next year will be adding a couple of conferences to our schedule believe it or not. And also, if your conference fate out, there’s the smaller evening networking receptions that are regional across the country, we have the Cannabis caucuses and they have the industry socials and those are great ’cause they’re a little bit more intimate they’re usually like 100 people or… So depending on the region and you really get to have some great conversations with your peers as well.

 And of course, the cannabis business Summit, and expo is our biggest summer conference July 22nd, through 24th in San Jose. If you haven’t got your tickets yet come get in line or jump online, before ticket sales close to cannabis business Summit, dot com. Well, we run at a time but April, thank you so much for being on the show and thanks to your company. Curse transfer products for being a member of ncia. Where can people find out more information about course transfer products?

 We have … and if you look up the KURZ group on LinkedIn, we’re always there. I’m always posting data. Sometimes people’s projects, sometimes tips for the industry. Those are the best ways to keep up with his… Awesome, thank you, thanks everybody for tuning into another episode of NCIA’s cannabis industry voice until next time.