Great News: We Finally have Data!

Great news: we finally have data! The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has begun publishing a public dashboard of market data, updated monthly, covering both adult-use and medical cannabis activity. The reporting is organized into four main sections—Licenses, Retail Sales, Product Sales, and Cultivation—along with a definitions section (and as always, definitions are data destiny). Current coverage includes medical cannabis data from 2023–2025 and adult-use data for 2025, with a monthly refresh cadence that should steadily expand visibility as the market matures through this year.

So, what does the data show? First, a larger and more diversified licensed market than I expected at this stage. Minnesota currently has 120 total licensed sites, including 24 cultivators, 11 manufacturers, 3 testing laboratories, 3 transporters, and 69 adult-use retailers. Cultivation capacity in particular stands out as higher than anticipated, suggesting the state moved quickly to stand up supply-side infrastructure alongside retail. There are 118 licensed businesses, meaning only two operators control more than one site, and 55% of all licenses are held by social equity applicants, indicating that equity participation is not just symbolic but meaningfully represented in the market structure. Licensing activity has also been notably steady: from August through December, Minnesota averaged 21.6 new licenses per month, with no sharp spikes or slowdowns, pointing to a consistent regulatory rollout rather than a one-time rush.

Sales data reinforces the picture of a market gaining momentum. Adult-use cannabis generated $31.24 million from September through December, with December alone reaching $9.4 million, and 466,000 total transactions yielding an average ticket of $67, suggesting frequent, moderate-sized purchases rather than a concentration of high-dollar sales. Medical cannabis remains a meaningful channel as well, averaging $7.6 million per month and totaling $91 million last year, with a much higher average transaction size of $120, consistent with more planned or higher-volume purchasing behavior. Product mix shows adult-use consumers heavily favoring flower (52%), followed by concentrates (28%) and shake/trim (15.5%), with edibles and other categories making up the remainder. It remains an open question how much this distribution reflects true consumer preference versus current product availability—flower share, in particular, may shift as broader supply comes online, or it may reflect the profile of early adult-use consumers entering the market in the second half of 2025. Finally, cultivation activity is already substantial, with 65,000 plants planted across medical and adult-use programs in 2025, underscoring that production capacity is ramping in parallel with retail growth rather than lagging behind it.

There are also several opportunities to improve the dashboard’s usefulness. For example, Product mix categories seem unintuitive for casual readers: non-infused pre-rolls are reported under the “shake/trim” category, while infused pre-rolls are grouped with concentrates, while it's more preference, I do feel like it's more meaningful if pre rolls were split off. Rather than redefining categories, a strong improvement would be to add a second, more user-friendly product mix view, such as a distinct pre-roll category with infused and non-infused splits, layered alongside the existing compliance-based classifications. Similarly, adding geographic context would meaningfully enhance interpretation. A metro versus non-metro split, along with a small number of broader regional groupings, would help stakeholders understand how market activity varies across the state. A complementary interactive map showing licensed operators by city, ideally with basic contact information, would further improve transparency by allowing users to easily identify who is licensed, where businesses are operating, and which communities are actively participating in the market.  With that all said, this is a great first draft to the market and I hope that it will continue to improve.