As of August 4, the young Montreal rolling paper company KEB Papier will appear on the shelves of the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC). While two-thirds of the crown corporation’s cannabis suppliers are headquartered in Quebec, the company, founded in 2020 by brothers Renaud and Jérôme Lessard Ste-Marie, is only the first Quebec supplier of cannabis. SQDC accessories.
“At the beginning, we didn’t have the stock. It’s a christi large order”, says Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie in an interview with The duty. And for good reason, the products of KEB Paper, labeled “100% organic and 100% vegan”, were only sold to date in a hundred convenience stores. The approximately 90 branches of the SQDC therefore represent a much larger market for the young family business, while bringing their share of challenges.
“We’ve been working on a logistics infrastructure for several weeks, if not months,” says Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie. The film’s co-director Mad Dog Labine (2019) explains that he had to set up a distribution company with his brother to supply each of the SQDC branches. His brother Jérôme still found in this requirement of the Crown corporation a shoe for him, he who studied “precisely that” at the John Molson School of Management of Concordia University.
The fact remains that the search for financing for their distribution service proved to be laborious. Most of the banks and granting agencies they approached refused to support them. Only Desjardins Group granted them a line of credit, but only after the two entrepreneurs argued that the financial cooperative itself does business with the SQDC.
“We do not feel taken seriously by the banks,” laments Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie, recalling that cannabis has been legalized for almost four years. In the same breath, the entrepreneur says he is impressed that the “roller and roller community” has adopted their products so quickly and is delighted to see that more and more Quebec suppliers are on the shelves of the SQDC.
Local producers
At the end of the 2021-2022 fiscal year, 17 of the SQDC’s 32 cannabis suppliers (53%) were established in Quebec, thus greatly exceeding the 20% target it had set for 2022. To date , this proportion climbs to 61%, according to the state-owned company.
This portrait, which only concerns cannabis producers, therefore excludes accessory suppliers such as KEB Paper. “The SQDC does not want to become a destination for accessories, but rather [posséder] a limited offer to help out its customers,” specifies the state-owned company. She adds that she is continuing “her efforts to promote the place of Quebec producers in her portfolio. »
In an interview, Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie prides himself on being, with his brother Jérôme, the first Quebec suppliers of accessories to the SQDC. KEB Papier will thus be alongside the OCB products of the French giant Republic Technologies in the displays. The two entrepreneurs do not hesitate to describe as a “duopoly” the pair formed by this multinational and the American HBI International, which dominates the rolling paper market. KEB Paper was born from the desire to offer an alternative to Quebec cannabis consumers, says Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie.
Stamped with a fleur-de-lys, KEB Papier’s products are still made in France. Repatriating production to Quebec soil is a long-term objective, according to Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie, who speaks of a “gradual transition”. In a somewhat dreamy enumeration, he evokes an abandoned factory that he and his brother plan to convert into a rolling paper factory as well as the various machines that they intend to acquire.
“But before that, we have deliveries to make in the 90 branches across Quebec. The bulk of our focus is on our contract with the SQDC. When everything is settled, we will take a couple of days offto get back on track,” says Renaud Lessard Ste-Marie, a nod to his future projects.