CFN Media Exclusive with Lifestyle Global Brands CEO, Raj Beri

The canna-brew market is heating up, with more and more drink makers considering entering the legal marijuana market. Lifestyle Global Brands is a legacy alcohol business launching a cannabinoid-infused beverage line, coming first to California (other legal states, stay tuned!). With a multitude of brands, Lifestyle Global has manufacturing and distribution agreements for some of its brands with Coca-Cola Amatil  and owns manufacturing, distilling, and beer facilities in Sydney Australia and Los Angeles, California – and is on pace to quickly become a leader in the infused-beverage category.

CFN Media spoke with Lifestyle Global Brands CEO Raj Beri at the recent Cannabis Drinks Expo in San Francisco to learn more about the company’s incredible success, their latest product line and their go-to market strategy.

CFN:  How did you come to decide to enter the cannabis space?

Raj Beri:  I moved to the US three years ago to set up our sales and marketing office for our alcohol company, and at the same time saw significant opportunity to get involved in the cannabis industry, and started a new subsidiary that is focused on creating new CBD and THC-infused products. 

We’re in the midst of our current capital raise and in 4 weeks or less we’ll be going public on the Canadian exchange, but the development of cannabis happened while it’s a sole industry here and saw that there was consumer demand for products. 

Raj Beri, CEO of Lifestyle Global Brands

If you look at the top largest investments in cannabis to date, they have all been by beverage alcohol companies coming into cannabis and investing and making large investments there, so I feel that beverage will be one of the largest product categories after flower/smokeables.

CFN:  What sets you apart from potential competitors in this space?

RB:  What sets us apart firstly is the fact that we’ve been doing this for 10 years. We’ve scaled brands, we’ve launched them in multiple countries, we’ve partnered with the likes of Coca-Cola Amatil, and we really have a strong innovation hub.

Our brands and products have been created with a lot of proprietary technology, and knowhow. We know how to market to the right consumer audience for the right occasion for the right beverage, and we’re bringing that 10 years of experience in the alcohol industry with a proven track record into the beverage cannabis industry now.

CFN:  Tell us about your raise and go-to market plans?

RB:  We just hired our chief revenue officer, our chief marketing officer and we are really building a team around the cannabis division. The recent raise is for our go-public round. We’ve almost completed that now and we’ll be a public listed company on the Canadian Securities Exchange in the next probably four weeks. 

But the go-to-market strategy is developing the right team and people with the right product mix, and we’ll be launching a cannabis division with revenues this month.

CFN:  Why should potential investors look into Lifestyle Global Brands?

RB:  What makes us attractive is that there’s a team of people in the company who have a proven track record in beverages. We’ve just appointed a new director on our board, Mr. Smoke Wallin. Smoke’s also led a number of exits in beverage alcohol. He’s joined our board as well. And the team, we’re driven, we’re passionate, we have great new innovations and we’ll soon be launching with aggressive revenues. 

We run the business very lean as well. As of 2018, on a consolidated basis, we were revenue and EBITDA positive, which really sets apart. In 2020, we’re forecasting some large revenue streams and profitability as well. 

CFN:  What’s on deck for the next 18 months for the company?

RB:  The first product we’re launching is Life Brew. Life Brew is, for lack of a better term, a cannabis or hemp-infused beer style product with low dose of THC in one version and a mid-dose of CBD in another version. 

This product has a fast onset through technology that has been proven through human clinical studies, as we are quite proud of this technology that we have access to, and Life Brew will be launching next month with essentially a new beer style product offering for the masses. Consumers are already used to beer with an IPA version, then a dark ale in the next few months. 

CFN:  What else should our readers know about Lifestyle Global Brands?

RB:  The last 10 years, our company’s made successful exits. We operate under world-class quality assurance and quality control standards. 

We are bringing safe brands and products to the market with a proven track record of how to manufacture them well and then how to market them to the right consumer audience.

About Rachelle Gordon

Rachelle Gordon is a Minneapolis-based writer. Find her online at www.rachellegordon.net.