Interview, Part 1: Ben Meggs, CEO Of Bayou City Hemp And 8th Wonder Cannabis
May 21, 2024Texas has emerged as a booming market for hemp-derived THC beverages, with drinks retailers steadily ramping up their involvement in the category. Houston-based Bayou City Hemp and its recent acquisition 8th Wonder Cannabis are among the up and coming players driving expansion in the market, and the business has received a further boost lately from retail giant Spec’s Spirits, Wines, and Finer Foods taking on its products across the Lone Star State. SNDC executive editor Daniel Marsteller recently spoke with Ben Meggs, CEO of Bayou City and 8th Wonder, to hear about the company’s expansion plans.
SND: What does the Bayou City and 8th Wonder portfolio look like?
Meggs: We’ve got several brands. We’ve got Howdy, which is kind of our “cosmic cowboy” vibe. It’s a Ranch Water and a Paloma, and we also have a Sweet Tea and a Lemonade coming very soon. Then we have Beach Break, which is more of a surfer vibe, in Swell Berry and Watermelon flavors right now. Those are five milligrams of THC apiece. Then we have Lil Bit, which is in an eight-ounce can, and that’s a two-milligram offering in Cherry Limeade and Peach Mango. Lil Bit is under the 8th Wonder portfolio, as is Wonder Water. Wonder Water is the high-dose brand at eight milligrams. Everything we make is Delta-9 THC, and for each beverage brand we have matching gummies.
SND: How are you approaching your route-to-market?
Meggs: We are distributed by Spec’s, and we’re also distributed by (beer wholesaler) Silver Eagle Distributors Houston. We will have more distributors coming online; we want to saturate the market in the right way. We’re grateful that Spec’s has stepped in because it signals to the market and other retailers that this game is real. It’s not a fad, and the numbers don’t lie. It’s taking off rapidly.
The business right now is mainly in Texas. We’re also in Louisiana, we’re getting ready to move into Florida, and we’re launching in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as well. The idea is to have a product that can compete with alcohol and have similar volumes, and to bring it to consumers in a familiar format.
It’s very difficult to get a distributor and a retailer to agree to just put one new product on the shelf. So we built multiple brands so we could have multiple SKUs and provide a full category. That was before major retailers started really buying in. Now, of course, the market is opening up.
SND: What kind of scale are you expecting to reach this year?
Meggs: For THC specifically, we worked hard for a year with a really big sales team to get upwards of 300 locations, no major chains of course. I would say that Spec’s alone coming in has provided for 10x growth in production from the dominoes that are falling from that. We’re prepared to scale very, very rapidly. We believe we have enough capacity to make it into 2025, and before that time there will be expansion announcements.
I will be surprised if we don’t soon cross the thousand-account threshold. That thousand accounts is one hundred percent Texas. We’ve got a few anchor accounts both in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and so we’re going in with 25 stores there, and then we’ve got about 150 locations in Louisiana right now.
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