The first-ever New Jersey High Times Cannabis Cup went down May 1 at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. More than 2,500 judges across the state weighed in across 13 categories. Niche. swept the flower podium. ONYX cleaned up across concentrates and edibles. And here’s everyone who took home a trophy.

The first-ever New Jersey High Times Cannabis Cup is in the books.

The Steel Pier in Atlantic City closed its boardwalk for the night on May 1, 2026. The Ferris wheel kept running. More than 2,500 judges across the state had spent weeks evaluating product. Smoke DZA hosted, and High Times publisher Josh Kesselman opened the night by sparking a giant blunt and walking it through the crowd before the awards began.

Then the trophies started landing.

Honorable mentions to The Growfather and Sun Extractions, which each took home three medals across multiple categories, and Rosin King, which took first and third in Solventless Vape Pens.

Every winner, every category

A scene that’s only getting bigger

New Jersey’s adult-use cannabis market opened its doors in April 2022. Four years later, the state is producing the kind of cultivation, extraction and edible work that fills out a thirteen-category competition with real depth at every podium. The Steel Pier crowd reflected it: dispensary owners, brand founders, content creators, legacy growers and a few unexpected guests, all on a closed-off boardwalk under the Atlantic City lights.

The Cup is now part of New Jersey’s cannabis calendar. Every brand on this list earned the spot. And the next round is already coming.

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When I first moved back to my home state of New Jersey, I was trying to get a read on what was real and what was noise.

This state has momentum, but it also has a cloud of uncertainty surrounding it. Everyone’s “in cannabis.” Everyone’s “launching.” Everyone’s “building community.” Then you show up somewhere and realize half the room is there for the idea of cannabis, not the work of cannabis.

The first time I walked into one of Beth Conway’s events, it felt starkly different from the dozens of cannabis events I’d been to in the last year alone. 

I was impressed by who she brought out. Actual operators. Brand owners. People with receipts. Not just low-level employees sent as a formality, and definitely not a crowd of cannabis wannabes collecting business cards like they’re trying to speedrun the industry.

That’s what made me want to sit down with Conway and talk about what she’s building, because she’s not playing the popularity game. She’s building infrastructure.

The State of the New Jersey Cannabis Industry

New Jersey is no longer the “new” market. It’s the market that’s growing.

The NJ Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s 2024 annual report lays it out plainly. As of the report, New Jersey had 265 adult-use operators, including 181 retailers, plus cultivators, manufacturers, laboratories, and a wholesaler. That is the real scale for a state that is still figuring out its long-term identity.

At the same time, this market is not wide open. The CRC notes that 60% of municipalities have rejected cannabis businesses, which keeps location strategy and local politics front and center for operators. If you are building in Jersey, you are not just opening a store. You are navigating a patchwork map where some towns want you and others do not.

Financial pressure is part of the story, too. The CRC points to “financial hurdles” created by federal illegality that keep traditional tools out of reach. That reality shapes everything, from expansion plans to marketing budgets to who survives a slow quarter.

But consumer demand is no longer a question. The state’s quarterly sales totals show adult-use sales of $1,000,125,130 in 2024, generating $61,019,060 in recreational tax revenue. In the CRC annual report, the agency frames 2024 as a year with more than $1 billion in sales, nearly 10,000 industry workers, and meaningful impact for ancillary businesses.

In 2025, the pace continued. The state’s 2025 sales totals show $532,595,957 in recreational sales across Q1 and Q2 alone.

Here’s the part operators feel day to day: the market is expanding, but it’s tightening.

The CRC’s December 17, 2025, public meeting slides show adult-use flower prices per gram dropping from $10.98 in Oct 2024 to $8.09 in Oct 2025, a -26.3% year-over-year change. A market can be booming and still be ruthless. That price compression means brands need a sharper story and better execution, and retailers have to be more selective about what earns shelf space.

This is exactly why rooms with real decision makers matter right now.

Why Beth Conway Built NJC3

Beth Conway is a small business consultant and strategist, and she founded the New Jersey Cannabis Chamber of Commerce with Brendan Robinson, co-founder of Mud Brothers.

Conway told me the origin story is not some overly polished “startup founder” narrative. She was doing what many hungry people do. Showing up. Networking. Learning how chambers work across the state. She mentioned visiting chambers like Jersey Shore, Princeton Mercer, and Hudson County, trying to understand the playbook.

At the same time, she was on the dispensary floor doing customer service and upselling. That hands-on piece matters. It grounds you fast. You learn what customers actually ask for. You learn how products move. You learn how hard the front line can be in a regulated industry.

Conway had the obvious thought: I should lean into cannabis. She went looking for a cannabis chamber to join, and in her words, it basically did not exist in the way she expected. So she built it.

She also made a clear distinction that stuck with me. There are organizations in New Jersey doing important policy work. The Chamber’s focus is commerce. The mission is to help businesses make more money, and one of the fastest ways to do that is to put the right people in the same room and make introductions that actually matter.

Why Beth’s Events Feel Different

A lot of “industry events” are expensive hangouts with weak follow-through. Conway’s trying to do the opposite.

She told me one of the Chamber’s early proof points was an event called Secure the Bag, which brought together cannabis entrepreneurs who needed capital and investors, including non-traditional investors. Conway’s point was simple. The right conversation can change the trajectory of a business. She said people left that event and later opened dispensaries because of who they met.

That is not hype. That is economic development with a face.

Beth also talked about a bigger vision for events that I think Jersey needs more of. She wants multi-chamber collaboration, not isolated cannabis bubbles. If a Chamber event lands in a town, she wants to invite the local chamber and bring non-cannabis business owners into the mix.

Her reasoning is obvious once you hear it. A dispensary owner needs plumbers, fencing, pest control, security, finance, marketing, POS, signage, and buildout help. Those vendors are also consumers and community stakeholders. When those circles overlap, cannabis becomes less of a weird outlier industry and more of what it actually is: a local business.

She also structures sponsorships to avoid that awkward conference sales energy. Sponsors can invite dispensary owners and budtenders to ensure decision-makers are in the room. It becomes a non-sales touchpoint. A brand can say, “We’re showing up. Your ticket is on us. Let’s talk like humans.”

That is how trust gets built here.

Why New Jersey Is Its Own Kind of Market

Conway made it clear she’s Jersey through and through, born and raised at the Shore. She also looks at markets through a consumer lens, not just an operator lens. She talked about traveling for work, landing in California, and immediately pulling up delivery apps, and how different the consumer experience can be across states.

Her bigger point was about culture. New Jersey is a trust market. You do not get automatic respect because you have a logo and a pitch deck. You earn it. People here can tell when someone is trying to “swoop in” with an out-of-state playbook and sell a solution without understanding the ground truth.

Conway said there’s grit here. I agree. And as the market matures and prices compress, grit becomes a competitive advantage. The brands and operators who survive are those that can execute under pressure.

The High Times Cannabis Cup Is Coming to New Jersey

Now, let’s talk about the part that should have every serious operator paying attention.

The High Times Cannabis Cup is officially coming to New Jersey, and pre-registration is live for brands, retailers, judges, and sponsors.

This market is ready for a real spotlight moment. Not a legalization victory lap. A quality moment. A credibility moment. A moment where New Jersey gets to show what it can produce, what it can build, and which brands actually deserve to rise.

If you’ve been grinding quietly, dialing in the product, building relationships the hard way, and doing it with real intention, this is your shot to step forward.

New Jersey cannabis is getting real. Beth Conway and Brendan Robinson built a Chamber that matches that reality.

Now it’s time to celebrate it.

And it starts with the Cup.

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New Jersey’s legal cannabis market is bloated, messy, and on the verge of collapsing under its own weight. With over 250 licensed dispensaries across the state, competition is fierce, margins are thin, and many operators are struggling to survive — especially in oversaturated areas like Atlantic City, where at least one retail shop recently laid off most of its staff after losing ground to newer entrants.

Industry analysts have pointed to a perfect storm constraining New Jersey’s cannabis market: rising wholesale prices, a limited number of licensed cultivators, regulatory friction, and local opt-outs that have created uneven access across the state. Licensed retailers are grappling with high costs and tight margins — all while the illicit and hemp markets continue to draw away consumers.

And while much of the market spins its wheels, at least two operators are quietly thriving because instead of following the typical playbook, they wrote their own.

The Operators Doing the Opposite

Jeff Miller and Dave Valese, the team behind HoneyProjects, and Dmitri Costello, founder of Coastal Herb Company, couldn’t look more different on paper — but they share a common strategy of rejecting the hype while serving the culture and surrounding community.

Miller, a Peabody Award-winning documentarian, and Valese (known by many as “Big Dave”), a 29-year veteran of East Coast cultivation, built HoneyProjects around a single premise: integrity or nothing.

“We visit every grow before we bring anything onto our shelf,” Miller said. “We’ve decided we’re not going to compromise on quality or values. It’s not that complicated — that’s our strategy.”

Costello, meanwhile, has turned his background as a legacy grower and automotive salesman into a business model that’s flipping the script in New Jersey cannabis retail. In addition to operating dispensaries, he also acquires and repositions them, targeting distressed assets in oversaturated markets and turning them profitable through hyper-local focus and cultural credibility.

“We took over our Atlantic City shop and made it profitable in under 45 days,” Costello said. 

That’s not magic but rather knowing your market better than your competitors do.

Why Most Stores Are Failing

Both operators agree that most of New Jersey’s cannabis retailers were never built to last.

Costello noted how many of New Jersey’s dispensary owners came into the industry treating it like a liquor store play and following the corporate MSO mold without understanding the culture. “They neglected the due diligence that was necessary to make sure they were going to be successful,” he said.

That lack of cultural fluency, paired with over-capitalization and poor community engagement, has led to a rash of underperforming stores and a growing secondary market for licenses — which is exactly where Costello sees opportunity. His team, now positioned as an asset management firm, targets dispensaries that are “over-capitalized and underperforming” and rebuilds them around neighborhood-based loyalty and authentic brand voice.

In essence, he’s not playing the game most people in New Jersey are playing — and that’s the point.

Culture Wins Where Capital Fails

For HoneyProjects, community, culture, and local events are a big part of the brand and also part of the business model for both of their dispensaries HoneyGrove and HoneyStash.

While this includes collabs with the likes of B-Real & Sen Dog, DJ Rich Medina, local bands, and car shows, it also means upholding their integrity behind the scenes as stewards of the cannabis plant.

“We’re probably the only dispensary in the state that outright rejects remediated products,” Valese said. “That goes against everything we stand for. If we don’t believe in the product, it doesn’t go on our shelf.”

That kind of curation has turned HoneyProjects into an engine for small-batch brands. “We bring a mom-and-pop brand onto our shelf, and by the next day, they’re getting calls from a hundred other stores,” Miller said. “We’ve seen it happen again and again.”

Costello takes a different but parallel approach via high-frequency deals, community events, and a relentless drive to meet his audience where they are. For instance, he runs a 20 percent local discount for Atlantic City residents and isn’t shy about being unorthodox: “We negotiate prices with customers — just like their plug used to.”

That neighborhood-first mentality shows up in his events too, which blend cannabis with streetwear, music, and vintage culture. Costello describes the dispensary as a cultural hub, something that feels like it belongs to the people who walk through the door.

The Shelf as Strategy

Both operators take buying seriously, not just as a function, but as a narrative.

Valese said they turn down more products than they accept, based on a value system that their whole team stands behind.

Costello, meanwhile, dissects local buying habits down to the micro level. In his store, flower makes up 64 percent of revenue, with pre-rolls, vapes, and edibles trailing behind. Concentrates? “They don’t move,” he said flatly. “We’re phasing them out.”

Instead, he focuses on product velocity and loyalty patterns — partnering with vendors to buy up excess inventory and drop prices to $13.99 eighths. On “blowout” days, it’s not uncommon for the shop to move $7,000 worth of product before dinner.

The Beverage Wars Are Just Beginning

If there’s one product category both operators are eyeing carefully, it’s beverages — and specifically, the competitive threat of hemp drinks.

Licensed retailers across the state are watching hundreds of thousands of units fly off shelves outside the dispensary channel, mostly through alcohol distributors. One popular cannabis beverage company revealed that they are moving nearly 200,000 units of their hemp THC drinks per month in New Jersey alone.

Miller and Costello both describe it as a missed opportunity — and a regulatory paradox. 

“We can’t even sell CBD products,” Valese said. “Meanwhile, liquor stores are moving THC.”

Still, both have held off from diving into the beverage space until they find products that meet their standards. Although Valese recently picked up a rosin-based drink that aligned with his values. 

Costello expressed interest in nano-formulated products when asked, calling them “cool” and noting he’d be open to testing them — even white labeling, if the quality and brand support are there. 

Still, he cautioned that products like these come with a cost. “There’s a cost to educating customers,” he said. “If brands don’t do that work, it doesn’t matter how good the product is.”

The Blueprint Is Already Here

While most of the state’s retail operators are chasing trends, these two are setting them.

They’ve chosen loyalty over gimmicks, education over hype, and cultural alignment over convenience. In doing so, they’ve built something rare: dispensaries that actually work — financially, emotionally, and culturally.

New Jersey’s cannabis market might be crowded, but its future isn’t unclear. The blueprint is already here. You’ll find it on the shelves of stores like these.

All photos courtesy of Zoe Wilder and HoneyProjects.

This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.

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