A high-level overview of the Florida medical cannabis market

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Introduction

In the quickly evolving cannabis industry, it can often be challenging to identify unique opportunities for growth. With over $1.04B so far in sales this year, Florida is the largest medical cannabis market in the US. Aside from this market’s impressive size, distinctive sales trends and consumer preferences make Florida a nuanced market to watch as the industry moves forward. In this report we examine the Florida medical cannabis market, taking a close look at market share, cannabis product categories, basket metrics, pricing, and more.

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Executive summary

As the country’s largest medical-only cannabis market, there are some noteworthy trends that differentiate Florida from other US cannabis markets. For example, when we look at product category trends in Florida, we find that market share to Tincture & Sublingual products is much higher (2.4%). In Maryland, another medical-only cannabis market, market share to Tincture & Sublingual products is only 0.6%. Market share to Pre-Rolls on the other hand, is lower than other markets (5.8%). When we compare basket metrics across the US, we see that Florida consumers spend $96.56 on average per trip, which is the second largest basket behind Maryland. However Florida consumers have more items in their basket than any other market in the US, which means they tend to purchase slightly less expensive individual products.

Like in many other cannabis markets, we see the price of cannabis products has been steadily declining. In Florida, the average price of a cannabis product has decreased by -9% from January to July 2022.

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Methodology

Data for this report comes from real-time sales reporting by participating cannabis retailers via their point-of-sale systems, which are linked to Headset’s business intelligence software. Headset’s data is very reliable, as it comes digitally direct from our partner retailers. However, the potential does exist for misreporting in the instance of duplicates, incorrectly classified products, inaccurate entry of products into point-of-sale systems, or even simple human error at the point of purchase. Thus, there is a slight margin of error to consider.

Unless otherwise noted, the time frame for this analysis is from January 2022 through July 2022. All data is sourced directly from Headset Insights.

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Total cannabis sales in Florida

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In this first graph, we look at the total sales of legal markets to get a sense of where Florida stands in the US. With $1.04B in sales from January through July 2022, the Sunshine State is just behind the emerging Illinois market and ahead of the veteran Colorado market.

Florida currently only allows the sale of medical cannabis, which makes this the largest medical cannabis market in the country.

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Monthly sales and cannabis unit volume in Florida

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Here we see the total sales and unit volume within each month over the past year in the Florida medical cannabis market. Across this twelve month period, Florida averaged $147.5M in total sales and 5.5M in total unit volume per month.

Interestingly, December had the highest total sales of any month in the past year. This may be evidence that Florida’s cannabis market is influenced by seasonal migrations of “snowbird” residents.

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Monthly cannabis sales growth in Florida

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Similar to many cannabis markets in the US, Florida cannabis sales have experienced some ups and downs in the past year. Since September 2021, Florida has had an average monthly growth rate of 1%. This growth rate reflects the overall stagnation of the broader US market with the average national month over month growth rate of 0.03% since September 2021.

In this graph we see that when compared to Arizona and Illinois, Florida’s monthly sales swings have generally been less severe. This may indicate a slightly more consistent customer demand in the Florida market.

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Cannabis product category sales in Florida

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Now let’s look at how category sales in Florida compare to other US markets. In this graph, we are focusing on the five largest product categories. We can see that Florida’s market share to Flower, Vapor Pens, and Concentrates are on the higher end compared to these other markets. One notable exception is Maryland’s market share to Flower (46.3%), which dwarfs all other markets on this chart. Maryland is also the only other medical-only market in this analysis.

Florida’s market share to Edibles are low at 10.9% of total sales. However, Florida’s market share to Pre-Rolls at less than 6% of sales also stands out since it is much lower than other markets. As Pre-Rolls are often chosen as impulse, add-on purchases and are easy to share in social settings, it makes sense that medical patients might be less inclined to purchase from this category.

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When we dive into the smaller product categories, we find even more significant differences between Florida and other US markets. Here we see that Florida medical patients choose Tincture & Sublingual products much more frequently than shoppers in other states. Conversely, Beverage market share in Florida is miniscule. This is due to regulations in the market that don’t allow the sale of ready-to-drink infused Beverages. Instead, the only products legally available in this category in the Florida market are dissolvable powders meant to be mixed into other drinks.

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Florida cannabis basket metrics

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This graph shows the average basket size and average number of items per basket so far this year in several US markets. Florida has the second largest average basket size ($96.56) behind Maryland, the only other medical market on this graph. This is a common trend in the cannabis industry and we often find that medical patients tend to purchase more cannabis per transaction than recreational customers.

Florida consumers have more items in their basket (3.6) on average than consumers in other markets, including Maryland. This indicates that Florida patients tend to purchase slightly less expensive individual products than patients in Maryland.

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Cannabis prices in Florida

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In this final graph, let’s compare the trends in average item prices across US cannabis markets. In July of this year, the average pre-tax price of a cannabis product in Florida was $25.52, which is significantly lower than in Illinois ($36.28), but still considerably higher than the price of a product in Colorado ($19.55). We have previously reported that average item prices are dropping across the cannabis industry this year and Florida is no exception to this trend. From January to July 2022, the average price of a cannabis product in Florida declined by -9%.

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Conclusion

It is always interesting to watch trends change as an industry grows. Will Tincture & Sublingual share ever decrease or Pre-Roll share increase? Will customer baskets grow or shrink over time? We will keep an eye on things as the market develops! Need some help identifying opportunities in Florida or other legal cannabis markets? Reach out to Headset for a demo and learn how our tools can help keep you ahead of the competition.

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Key takeaways

• Florida is the largest medical cannabis market in the US, totaling $1.04B in sales from January - July 2022.
• December had the highest total sales of any month since August 2021, which may be an indication that seasonal migrations of “snowbird” residents have an impact on cannabis sales.
• Compared to the overall market stagnation that we have been seeing across the US, Florida’s sales declines have been less severe. This may indicate a slightly more consistent customer demand in the Florida market.
• Market share to Tincture and Sublingual products is much higher in Florida (2.4%) compared to other US markets. Market share to Pre-Rolls (5.8%) and Beverages (0.1%) on the other hand, is much less.
• Cannabis prices in Florida are declining. The average price of a cannabis product in Florida declined by -9% from January to July 2022.

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