Bryan Gerber, CEO and Co-Founder of Hemper and Hara Supply – Interview Series

In the three years since mycannabis.com last spoke with Bryan Gerber, CEO and co-founder of Hemper, and Hara, the pre-roll market has expanded significantly. Beyond the surge in demand that follows state-level recreational legalization, the pre-roll category saw sales grow by roughly 10 percent in 2024 and 20 percent in 2025, according to CustomConesUSA. Today, pre-rolls account for nearly 16 percent of the overall market. Given their unmatched convenience compared to other product formats and endless customization options, it is easy to see why they remain a consumer favorite across all markets.

To get an update on the state of pre-roll and smoking accessory manufacturing—and learn how this segment continues to thrive despite broader industry headwinds—mycannabis.com caught up once again with Bryan Gerber.

In the 3 years since we’ve spoken, what have been the most major milestones that Hemper and Hara have celebrated? What are some accomplishments and expansions that the company has made, and why were those expansions strategic in nature?

A lot has happened since we last spoke. On the Hara side, we hit three billion cones produced in January 2024, right after we opened a site dedicated to pre-roll tube packaging. Customers kept coming back to us asking what else we could make: can you do the tube, can you do the packaging, can you do the child-resistant retail format? So we built toward being one source for the whole pre-roll input stack instead of a vendor for one SKU.

The way I describe it now is that we function as an out-of-house innovation team for a lot of our customers. We sit with their teams, design the product, manufacture it, and build it to run on the filling equipment they already have, because nobody wants to overhaul their line for a new SKU.

Last time we spoke we were at 2,000 people. We’re over 4,000 now, and we ship to about 35 countries. We’ve also built out a sales and business development team in Europe, with people on the ground in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

On the Hemper side, we moved into mainstream retail. Hemper is now sold at Urban Outfitters (URBN ), which puts our glass in front of a customer who was never going to walk into a head shop, and that’s a different kind of growth than adding another smoke shop account. It tells you the category is getting treated like a lifestyle product instead of something you buy behind a counter.

With the exponential increase in popularity that pre-rolls at a product category have been receiving across the American markets, how have you had to expand and/or evolve your manufacturing operations?

We’ve automated everywhere we can. We built semi-automatic machinery that took 15 manual processes down to three, but the paper is too fragile to fully machine without tearing, so the final steps are still done by hand. That means when demand doubles, you can’t just buy your way out of it. You add capacity, train people, and do it without letting quality slip. We’d say we control somewhere around 30% to 40% of the global market for our products at this point. Managing that growth without sacrificing quality was the hard part, and I’m proud to say we did it.

Volume was only part of it, though. Our customers weren’t just buying more cones, they were buying more inputs, and every one of those was a separate supply chain they had to manage and a separate place their order could fall apart. So we expanded into tubes, into packaging, into child-resistant retail formats. That turned us into a partner instead of just a supplier.

From your cannabis industry expertise as a juggernaut supplier of cones and smoking accessories, why do you think pre-rolls have become the most popular product format? What are the main factors behind that massive growth in popularity? Is it just convenience compared to other formats, or are there other factors too?

Convenience gets all the credit, but it’s only part of it. Price is the piece people underrate, because a pre-roll is usually the cheapest thing in the dispensary, which makes it the first thing a new or occasional buyer reaches for. Every category needs an entry point, and that’s what pre-rolls are.

It didn’t stop at the plain single either. Infused pre-rolls and multipacks gave people something to trade up to, so the category grew at the high end as well as the low end. Variety is what kept it growing after convenience got it started.

Since our last conversation, how have you seen cone and smoking accessory demand increase in international markets when compared to American markets? With Germany and other European nations on their own paths to legalization, how have those legalization measures increased or decreased that demand for Hemper and Hara products?

About 80 to 90% of our business is still North America, and most of our production is dedicated to it. International is smaller, but it’s where we gain a lot of interesting insights. The UK is our strongest market outside North America, which surprises people, and we move a lot of product there. We’re in about 35 countries now, with business development staff based in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

Germany has been harder than people expect, and it isn’t really about the law. Europe has been consuming for decades, but the methods are old school and everyone still rolls, so when we bring in something that needs any consumer education it takes time to pick up. That’s the real difference between markets. In the US, cones took off because people want grab-and-go. In Europe, rolling is the habit.

When expanding into international markets, what unexpected roadblocks and other unforeseen issues did Hemper/Hara face? How did you overcome those issues or create helpful and compliant solutions?

Consumer education has been the biggest one, and we didn’t see it coming. In a market with decades of rolling habits, we assumed a better product would sell itself, but we quickly learned that wasn’t the case. 

Logistics has been the other. Container prices right now are higher than they were during COVID, tariffs shift day to day, raw material costs have gone up and lead times have stretched. You price a market on one set of assumptions and they’re wrong six weeks later.

The route to market is the third. In the UK we’ve gone through cash and carry networks into smoke shops, and we’re working on multi-chain retail now. Every country has a different structure, and what works in one usually won’t work in the next.

Somewhat off topic, but what are some of the most recent memorable pieces that Hemper has created? What went into the clever design of those pieces and why do you think they were so well-received from subscribers?

Two from this spring stand out. Weedonald’s is a fast-food parody line built around a French Fry Bong, a Soda Cup and a Ketchup Packet hand pipe. The other is Enlightened Nermal, our 4/20 collaboration with RIPNDIP. Streetwear and smoking culture have always run adjacent, but that only translates when both sides bring a real point of view.

Our pieces land because we don’t pick between fun and function, where most of the category sacrifices one for the other. Our subscribers are buying something they want to show people, so if a piece doesn’t photograph well it doesn’t matter how it hits.

Looking forward, do you think the partial federal rescheduling of cannabis will impact the smoking accessories/cone production sector of the cannabis industry that Hemper operates in? Do you think federal involvement in the cannabis industry will have ripple effects that reach into your sector?

We’re not plant-touching, so rescheduling doesn’t change anything for us directly. It reaches us through our customers, because when operators have more cash, they place bigger orders and plan further ahead. 

The bigger effect is on the compliance side. Federal involvement means more documentation and higher expectations on every input in the chain. We already run GMP, ISO and HACCP. If that becomes the baseline instead of a differentiator, we’re fine with that. A higher floor is good for everyone in this supply chain.

Looking into the second half of the decade, what are some exciting plans for all the companies and brands under the Hara umbrella? With all the possible changes and expansions coming to the American cannabis industry, how does the company plan to benefit and expand alongside that growth?

The pre-roll segment is the only part of this industry really growing in both units and dollars, and we don’t see that changing. The US is a grab-and-go culture. Cigarettes proved that decades ago, and we don’t see the pre-roll going anywhere.

Overall, our goal is to be a solutions partner. We work with our customers’ innovation teams to figure out where they’re lacking, then help them build their next Coca-Cola (KO ) product, whether that’s premium or commoditized. We want to be the team that helps them get it made.

On the consumer side, we design and manufacture in house, which means we can act on something we see in the market without waiting on anyone. We’re consumers ourselves, so we pay close attention to what the new-age consumer actually wants and then we create it. For example, our rolling paper booklet with ten reusable glass tips built in came out of that, and we’ll keep pushing in that direction. Premium materials at prices that don’t feel premium.

Thank you for joining us again, Bryan! For more information on Hemper, please visit its website. You can find Hara’s website here.