A New Way to Classify? Blue River Rethinks the Dispensary Using Terpenes

When you walk into a dispensary you don’t want to be second-guessing whether you’re purchasing responsibly farmed and sustainable foods. With hundreds of cannabis products to choose from, it’s hard to know if you’re purchasing a sustainable product without doing extensive research.

Blue River of Cambridge, MA,  whose branded extract products are sold in more than 150 locations nationwide, is introducing a new concept in dispensary design. Rather than categorize its inventory by sativa, indica and hybrid, which the company believes has become largely meaningless to a sophisticated consumer. The redesigned dispensary, slated to open in Cambridge, MA in the next several months, will display and categorize products by their dominant terpenes.

As a pioneer in the extracts field who helped popularize the term “terps,” Blue River is a firm believer in the importance of terpenes as part of a consummate cannabis experience. Blue River specializes in the art of “deconstructed” extracts using their proprietary mechanical separation technology, which produces clean, sustainable solventless extracts.

The new store is Blue River’s first dispensary and venture into direct retailing. The company says it looked to the model of the Whole Foods grocery chain to build the U.S.’s first farm-to-table dispensary. Blue River will only carry vetted third-party solventless brands within the dispensary.

The family-run company operated by CEO Jessica Pelletier and Founder and COO Tony Verzura, who worked with Berner’s Cookies to co-develop its Caps by Cookies line, says Blue River has an ethos is rooted in sustainability, social responsibility and creating naturally made, unadulterated, plant-based products. Collaborating with cultivators, Blue River has received over 59 cannabis awards for its concentrates, cartridges, capsules and edibles that allow customers to experience flower strains converted into all their forms.