The THC loophole (and why it could close...)

0:00Welcome back to another episode of The Curious Consumer. I am here solo right now because Nate is dealing with some construction noises, but I am joined by an amazing guest. I'm super glad to be here. Thank you very much for having me. My name is Mark Rushmore, and I am the co-founder of Suri, which is short for Sustainable Rituals. We make the world's most highly rated and sustainable electric toothbrush. And to just say electric toothbrush, I know that's what it technically is, but it already feels like a massive undersell. Suri toothbrushes are the most premium electric toothbrush I've ever encountered.

0:36And we actually spoke about Suri in the newsletter, probably, I think it was a month ago now, when we had a deep dive on UK brands entering the US. Suri is a UK brand, but we're not fully going to tell that story today. I want to get into more about the brand itself. So if you want to read more about the UK expansion into the US of this product and other brands, I will link the deep dive below. But Mark, right now, I just want to know, what is the story of Surrey? How did you start it? What does sustainable rituals even mean? Give me the whole lowdown. I started my career at Procter & Gamble, working in a variety of sales and strategy roles, ultimately working on Pringles when it was sold to Kellogg's and then I helped transition that business.

1:23And then I set up another company, like a marketing agency, and I won Oral-B as a client across Europe. So I managed all their dental trade shows as well as a bunch of other companies. I really learned a lot about that industry during that time. I also was very lucky to be at an industry event called the Cannes Lions. It's kind of like the Oscars of the advertising industry in the south of France. And by sheer luck, one day I ended up on a speedboat to a party hosted by the Unilever CMO. And And I sat beside this guy and we got chatting and it turned out he had also started his career at Procter & Gamble, albeit in finance and marketing roles, ultimately managing Gillette Acrosse-Mir.

2:00His name's Guy. I kid you not, it was like a sliding doors moment. It's the first time we ever met. We kind of found out this shared history and we got chatting about the fact that during our time selling these incredible brands that we sold millions, if not billions of units. and just like the amount of like wastage we saw in the packaging the amount of plastic and we kind of just got chatting about like gosh where do you think that all goes when you think about the cumulative impact across the whole world and all the people using these products isn't it so wasteful we also discussed giv is got to be like i don't know if there was a competition for apple fanboys he would definitely be somewhere in like pretty pretty high up he he really has studied the history of apple and and steve jobs in fact so much so we kind of jokingly call him dive jobs internally.

2:46But I think Apple really redefined what customer experience could feel like, that unboxing is actually part of the value proposition, that any element of the product could be improved through clever design and through building features that people really want. And we felt that that was something that when you look across FMCG is perhaps maybe lacking in certain areas, one of them being oral care. You cover a lot of categories. Can you think of another category that you cover, which has a higher penetration than people brushing their teeth? That's a great question. No, I don't think so. No, like not, not everyone even washes their hair every day.

3:19Hopefully most people use deodorant, but I know kids don't use deodorant. And so when we look at categories, it doesn't matter whether you're five or 95, pretty much everyone brushes their teeth. And it doesn't matter what country you're in, what age you're at. It's this like universal, probably one of the strongest universal habits. And yet, despite that, when you look at power toothbrushes, which account for up to 50 % in most developed markets, and it's growing as a category because it's so much more effective you have two two players who have an 80 market share which is extremely unusual most people wear shoes but no two brands have such dominant share and so we were like well why is that and and actually what are these products made from and are they recyclable so we spoke to thousands of consumers it's kind of like a very png approach we bought market share data so we're like here's this crazy thing everyone's brushing their teeth the market's dominated by two players and yet when we speak to consumers they don't love their product in fact Many even couldn't name the brand, even though they're using it twice a day for years.

4:12And so we're like, well, that feels like there's an opportunity to build a product that people love. That's made using more future-focused techniques and designs and with features that people really want, like a long-lasting battery or a travel case with UV light. And that was really the genesis of Surrey and Sustainable Rituals. We thought, what if we could take this thing, which is like a chore, and turn it into a joy and make the experience better? And that's what we did starting in May 2022. And in the next few weeks, we will celebrate our fourth anniversary. And it's been a wild ride. Can you tell me actually, let's get to that story a bit too, because this started as a direct-to-consumer brand.

4:55And now you are in Target stores nationwide in the US. Yeah. Bridge that gap for me. So from the very beginning, from day one, actually ran ads in the uk and the us to see like what would the appetite be is there interest in america which is the world's largest market for oral care what we saw surprises there was a really strong pickup in the us and so straight away we're like oh hey that's really interesting and then i don't know do you believe in like manifestation is i i'm not as woo woo but i i yes i do to a degree i'm the same as you like i was a bit like what i i don't know like is this like it's not something it's like a core belief but i kept reading about people like oh you know if you keep believing it and so on and so actually from before we even launched a product we're like wouldn't it be great if gwyneth paltrow supported the brush and one day we're on goop like what what a great what a great website and brand to be on and then one day we got a phone call from gooping like hey when the started using product loves it like we want to we want to put it onto our website would that be all right and we did that it became a bestseller and we said why don't we come to la to meet you and there was an event on called founder made at the time and so we're like well we'll go to that event and then we sent some brushes to my friend's house in the pacific palisades on our way there we stopped in this famous store that i'd read about called errone i don't know if i pronounce it correctly but um and it was just the most beautiful shop i've ever been to and i got chatting to the woman who was working in the personal care aisle and got chatting and she was like well what do you do and i was like oh we make this this new toothbrush and she was like oh my god it's not suri is it and i was like i cannot believe i'm on the other side of the world i was like yeah it's like how do you know that and she was like oh it's easy to remember because it's the name of my dog.

6:31And I was like, okay, that's pretty random. I said to her, well, look, I'm gonna go to my friend's house. I'm gonna bring you back a sample. Try it tonight. If you love it, please can you send an email tomorrow morning to your bosses and the owners of Erewhon and tell them why you think they should list it. So she did that. And then the next day, I bump into the head buyers at this trade show, which is incredible. And they're like, oh, I just got an email about you guys. Then we got listed in to Erewhon. And we got the opportunity to have these side caps in store along with other brands like Jolie and Seed.

7:02Although it was a big investment for us at the time and still is, we thought this is such a great opportunity. And so what we started doing was like really building this like cult following in L.A. I think it's just got real clout beyond the confines of Los Angeles. Then we kind of got national awareness. We continue to grow our DTC. Our Amazon business is building. That's ultimately led to the target listing. And now lots of other retailers are in touch, which is exciting. That's a wild story. So maybe I should start believing in manifestation a little bit more. I was thinking about that because obviously, yes, your Erewhon launch is really what kicked off Surrey in retail in the US.

7:37And it's so powerful to have a product that isn't, I mean, it's, I see toothbrushes as like clinical. I don't think of it as a wellness product. I know this might be kind of not something that you can break down into formula of how to do this, but I'm curious, could you tell me a little bit about how you think you were able to shift that perception enough that you could end up at Air One next to supplements, that the people who were already at Air One knew the toothbrush, that Gwyneth Paltrow knew the toothbrush. How did you shift the perception from clinical to wellness? I must say, my co-founder, he had this vision from the very beginning.

8:13Why should we compromise on design as a core element of your experience with the product? In the same way that I think Apple saw design as a real point of differentiation to actually improve the experience because the idea and the thinking is like if you enjoy using something you're more likely to use it by designing a product to look beautiful to feel like the weight in your hand we really look at every single detail like the tension on the box when you unopen it how you engage with customer service the time it takes to respond like it is the accumulation of marginal gains across every single touch point that we scrutinize deeply we probably got a hundred other brands packaging not just in oral care across all categories electronics across wellness across other brands and we kind of saw that actually why should we compromise in this part of our business if you look on uh like uh interiors magazine you'll see all sorts of other brands appearing in the bathrooms you'll you often will never will see a toothbrush before suri because you know just it didn't fit with the aesthetic of everything else we have in our lives And so we felt there was an opportunity if we could address that.

9:20I have a Siri and these small details that you've already touched upon, the experience opening the box, that was huge for me. But also a small detail, like it comes with a mirror mount. So I have it stuck on my mirror, which one, I think is just like a lovely experience. You don't get the stuff stuck on the bottom because it's your toothbrush isn't sitting on your counter. It's dangling. It's mounted on the mirror. But two, it becomes a conversation piece, which also like naturally allows for word of mouth marketing. I had a friend over who went into my bathroom and came out and was like, this is a weird thing to say, but I love your toothbrush.

9:52And I was like, yeah, no one's ever said that before. I think those little details can make such a world of a difference. And you've touched upon that a lot. It's something I'm interested in. You buy the Surrey, you get these replacement heads, but you can keep your Surrey forever, hopefully, and just continue getting replacement heads. I think a lot about, like, I call it in my head, the Peloton problem where everybody wanted a Peloton. Everybody got a Peloton who could afford one. And then Peloton started to struggle after the pandemic when everyone who could afford one already had one. And then all that was left was people were paying for the subscription and that wasn't enough for Peloton to stay alive.

10:31How do you avoid the Peloton problem as a company? A few key differences. One, the addressable market for A peloton, like you said, is like a certain person with a certain level of disposable income, etc. No eight-year-old needs a peloton and few 95-year-olds, I suspect, are using a peloton. Whereas both really are addressable market is much, much bigger. It's not like there's no persuasion. Like, this is why you should brush your teeth, right? The question is, like, which brush should I buy? And then it comes down to, like, why should I buy this one over this one? And you don't have to own like 80 % market share to have a big business here.

11:10Like if you take 20 % of a multi-billion dollar category, you have a really chunky size business. So I think just in terms of our addressable market, that's one key differentiation. I think a second one is Peloton is very expensive. They can't come out with like a lower price product. Whereas in the toothbrush game, we've launched obviously at the higher end right now. Will we launch other products into the future to address other needs and other groups? Absolutely. And so I think that's another kind of point of differentiation where we really can go for this wider audience. And then lastly, where we're really lucky is we have great people who've got incredible teeth like you, Jenna, repping our brand.

11:55What we're finding is actually, maybe you can guess, what do you think is our biggest channel for new customers? what comes up in highest in our attribution. Is it just like word of mouth recommendations? It is. It is word of mouth. Excuse the pun, right? You should do a campaign with that. That's so good. So it was meta for a while, but now it's word of mouth. And why? And it's because we downloaded all of our Trustpilot reviews and turned them into a custom GPT. God, I feel so 2026 saying that. Then we were able to interpret it and ask questions and so on. What's our number one most commonly used word to describe Suri in our 17 ,000 reviews, it's the word love, right?

12:36I never thought I could love brushing my teeth. I love Suri. I love the unboxing. I love how clean my teeth are feeling. What we found is when you love something and you genuinely have this like really positive experience, you tend to tell people because if it's giving you some joy and you love it, guess who you want to share it with? You want to share it with the people you love. And so what we find is like word of mouth is our biggest attribution channel. Yeah, it's such an interesting prospect to open up a channel in that way because there was no giftability of a toothbrush before Surrey, in my opinion.

13:07I don't want a toothbrush as a gift. I actually think that would be insulting. And now it's like, well, this is a wellness gift. This is an aesthetic, a beautiful thing for your home. It's really reframed, yeah, the entire category. It's interesting because we cover consumer packaged goods for the most part, but Surrey really fits under what we cover because it's still wellness. I want to close out with, you already touched on this a little bit, but maybe you'll reveal a little bit more. What is next for Surrey? We have some world-class innovation that's about to launch in the coming months. I am super excited.

13:44This is, some retailers have said it's one of the biggest innovations they've seen in the category in 15 years. It's really, you know, could be huge. And I think on formulations, on all sorts. So keep your eyes peeled. Oh, I am so excited. I have no idea what any of that means, but I can't wait to see it happen. And if people want to find Suri, where do they find you? They can find us on our website, trysuri.com. They can find us on amazon.com. They can find us in Target stores, on target.com. If you're in LA, go check out Erewhon or on Goop. and that that's it for now but keep your eyes peeled maybe maybe it'll start appearing in other places too exciting thank you so much mark and to anyone who's listening who hasn't tried a surrey yet i think you might have just been convinced welcome back today i am drinking a la cologne everyday latte sounds so good it does sound so good yeah the la cologne lattes are fun because they're draft lattes and like they actually you know how draft latte has like a foam because there's nitrogen in the like i don't know how they replicate that in a can but they do witchcraft witchcraft the fine folks at la colombe aka chobani are witches they know what they're doing well enjoy that caffeinate away i actually had an update before this i was drinking flirt yesterday day.

15:10So for our long time listeners, Flirt, F-L-R-T, because why would you put vowels in modern products, is Monster Energy's new energy drink, quote unquote, for women, because of course you would name an energy drink for women Flirt. And again, long time listeners know that I have a lot of problems with this product. I think it is so offensively gendered and branded. and Nate's an ally. Nate agrees but he doesn't agree enough to not drink the product. It tastes good unfortunately. They did a really good job. I won't try it unless you put it in an unbranded cup and put it in front of me. I will not be drinking.

15:53Flirt. I can't support. Maybe you'll know it's for women. I'll take one sip and I'll say that's an energy drink for the gals. We should do a blind taste test of all the energy drinks. Put the lady focused ones and see if you can guess it. I'm like, this one tastes like a woman. Like, what is that? Is it floral? Like, what does that mean? Someone tell me what it means. I hate it. Anyway. We should talk about some floral stuff. Because Monday, natural transition, guys. Because Monday was 420. And Jenna and I and Express Checkout writ large hosted a little event called InSeasons. This is a new quarterly event we're hosting.

16:34This was our spring 2026 version, and we included a little trend. We included three trends, and one of those trends was THC beverages, mostly beverages, but also other CPG products are, as you put it, Jenna, budding and growing. We also covered dates as a trend and dips and sauces as a trend. It was a very fun event. We had a lot of fun products. It was on 420, which I was very, very proud of. We'll be doing them quarterly. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. It was so fun. Yeah. We had a room full of CPG enthusiasts and founders and investors and just awesome folks. Influencers. Influencers.

17:17Indeed, actually. Really cool folks who are all just excited to try some new products. So if you live in New York and you listen to this podcast and you want to come to our next event, email us. But as Nate said, this was on 420. And for those who don't know, I actually need to understand the origin story of this. But 420 is like the weed day. And it's the weed day. And so it's a day of celebrating cannabis if you choose to partake. And at our event we did. But also it was really interesting this week because there was some news this week around THC regulation. because it's been fraught lately.

17:59Yes, it's been very fraught. A little brief background. So last November, this administration signed a bill into law that reopened the government, refunded the government during the shutdown, and they snuck in an amendment that basically closed the loophole of the 2018 farm bill that allows for all of these CPG cannabis products that are 0.3 % hemp-derived THC by volume or less. And they basically closed that loophole. Brands have until November 2026 to decide what to do with their product or their businesses, effectively dead. And a bipartisan bill was introduced by Senators Rand Paul, Amy Klobuchar, and Joni Ernest.

18:43So two Republicans, one Democrat. They introduced the Hemp Safety Act that lets the states opt out of the federal ban as long as it enforces age limits and bans any synthetic cannabinoids. The strategy for them is they're going to attach it to the 2026 Farm Bill. This is a lifeline, but we did get a very interesting quote from a cannabis beverage brand founder who gave us a little bit more context on what this might mean and how this is both good but potentially a little bit more complicated. The whole thing is really complicated. I'll read the quote quickly, and then we can kind of go back in time a little bit because there's some pieces that need to be filled.

19:23It's just confusing. Ben Starmer, as you said, who is the founder of Dadgrass, gave us this really interesting quote. It's encouraging to see movement toward a more defined regulatory path for hemp-derived products. Giving states flexibility is an important step, reflects how much this category has already involved. But at the same time, the system needs to actually work in practice. The fastest growing channels for us, grocery, convenience, and liquor, rely on national infrastructure like banking payments and multi-state distribution. Even if a state allows these products, the ancillary systems that make modern retail work like banking and payment processing operate on a national level and have to follow federal rules.

19:59Large retailers depend on those systems. And if they don't align at a federal level, it's really hard to actually sell and scale the product even where it's legal. So to break that out even further, basically, if this bipartisan law does pass, it still presents unique regulatory challenges because it would be this state by state patchwork where there could be, yes, all of these different compliance environments, which it already kind of feels like these brands are dealing with. It also means that the infrastructure that enables modern retail that has to operate under federal rules could make these products actually effectively unsellable, even in states where they are legal.

20:37So like we have had all of these incredible, in the past, like year truly we've had all this incredible movement in retailers selling thc products because they have been able to so far under the 2018 farm bill for example target launched a test in minnesota all 72 minnesota target stores are selling hemp derived beverages right now thc beverages and this edibles.com which is the same edibles that owns the fruit company is now also a thc online marketplace, they just opened a physical brick and mortar store in Atlanta where they're selling. So there's been all of this movement. Total Wine and Spirits has dedicated a full aisle to hemp derived THC.

21:18All of this movement that could be put back at risk in November when this ban goes into effect, even if the states that they are in, so for example, where edibles.com is in Atlanta, Even if Georgia opts out, Edibles.com's store might not be able to use the banking partner that they need to use to run their store because it has to operate at a federal level. So it just introduces so much complication. Even though it is hopeful, I would imagine that the founders of these companies are still looking for some opportunity for the ban to be fully reversed as opposed to just this state-by-state framework.

21:58I think it's really interesting that big national retailers who probably have a lot of power to potentially lobby or at least slip a little check in somebody's back pocket. I really hope that they can move and mobilize to make this very fast growing and probably very lucrative arm of their business work. because if Target is also doubling down now when there is a looming ban, like right now, if things don't change, November 2026, things are going to start to change. But there is such strong headwinds from consumer behavior, from retailers, even from the success of a lot of these brands, that it would be crazy for this market to go away overnight.

22:41People want these products. And I think they want them more than ever now, especially because they're being dosed properly. people know that they're safer they're accessible we're getting more people especially people who are not who are deciding not to drink they're not necessarily going to traditional nas that we think of a lot of them are going to cannabis products because they still want to feel something but they don't want the effect on their liver i would be surprised if this actually goes away because there's just so much economic activity happening and support from all different sides from the consumer side, from the retail side, from big retail side.

23:21It's not just creepy bodegas in New York, it's Target. And if this goes away, they're losing out. And I would be surprised if this really goes away. It will be really interesting to see. We're just speaking about it from the consumer perspective and the end product. But this also, I mean, the reason that the farm bill went into effect in the first place was because it was designed to support hemp farmers. It's a huge industry. It was actually never really supposed to create this market. It was just supposed to support farmers, which is also why this has turned into such a bipartisan issue. I think that's, that's what's so interesting.

23:59I do want to back up a little bit to explain that farm bill in the first place, because we get so many questions about like how this is, how this was legal in the first place. We, we, for our event partnered with an amazing company called Klebbies, which makes baking mixes THC baking mixes and Nate baked so many brownies and we were sitting there packaging up like a hundred weed brownies and I was like my 2015 self is screaming this was so illegal this was so like how we would have been millionaires first of all so we could have like oh my god it was just such a different landscape not that long ago so this 2018 farm bill as you Like it legalized hemp that was defined as cannabis with less than 0.3 % Delta 9 THC by dry weight.

24:44And that little tidbit is what allowed this whole market to basically blossom. Because when you're measuring concentration by dry weight rather than by serving, it means that something like a 12 ounce beverage can actually legally contain up to 10 milligrams of THC. That is a full dose. For some people, that is actually too much. And that's still just - It's too much for me. That still qualifies cannabis as hemp. I think a lot of times people, there's also something called Delta 8, which is a slightly different molecule, but still has psychoactive effects. And people think that the only thing that's legal is Delta 8, but no, Delta 9 is legal.

25:23It just technically qualifies as hemp under this 2018 farm bill. The reason, as I said, this was signed in the first place was really for farmers to grow hemp. Mitch McConnell really pushed this bill in the first place and now the ban that is going into effect that was as nate said a rider on the end of the government shutdown bill was championed by same senator mitch mcconnell who authored the 2018 farm bill and apparently regrets what it turned into so it's really interesting to see some of the back and forth on this it's a really complicated issue this isn't simple as much as we're like, well, the dollars are there.

26:03The industry is huge. Yes. But it also has just been a really contentious category for a really long time. We will see what happens. There is progress towards the ban ending in some way. The brands, all the brands I spoke to were basically like, we're continuing business as usual because they have so much faith that these retailers that they're partnering with kind of know something they don't and are taking bets that are realistic. And so they're going to continue doing what they do and hopefully they get a positive outcome. I hope so. I think it's a very fascinating. So interesting. It's such a fascinating category and it touches so many different trends across the board.

26:45And I love talking about this category. I agree. And mentioned this in the newsletter. Also, you alluded to it with this new audience of people that are partaking in some degree. It's because THC isn't like a standalone category anymore. It's wellness. It's part of wellness. People see having this hemp drive THC beverage or taking like Mary and Jane have these melts that are one milligram, they're micro doses. And the high confectionery also has one milligram gummies and chocolates. And this whole new audience of older women, a lot of them are taking these products to manage their anxiety. And it's like part of a wellness routine.

27:20And no matter what happens, the transformation in people's minds of weed being this like dirty word and being this like illegal thing that your sketchy neighbor, we always say that, but it's so true. Like your sketchy neighbor was trying to put you on when you were a kid. It was. It was that. It's no longer that. That is irreversible. It is irreversible to change the perception in consumers' minds that a microdose of THC is part of this like wellness sphere. No matter what happens, I think that progress is really interesting and it will come up time and time again. Even if the band goes into effect now, this is not a one and done issue.

27:56I would seriously doubt it. Let's move on to our next little story of the week. Why don't we start with Beyond Meat? Not Beyond Meat. Beyond. The company that I invested in their IPO. I remember getting the prospectus. I made money on that. Did you exit at the right time? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I definitely did. But Beyond, they recently, Beyond Meat recently rebranded to just Beyond, is now officially launching their line of sparkling plant-based protein drinks in New York City through a distribution deal with Big Geyser. They're launching in retail. They're launching this protein drink into retail.