Cookies

Cookies is not your average cannabis company. No stock market listing, no multi-billion fundraising, no merger with a pharmaceutical giant. Cookies is a brand born on the streets, built on exceptional genetics and authentic hip-hop culture, and yet it has become the world's most recognized cannabis brand.

The story of Cookies is inseparable from that of two San Francisco men: an entrepreneurial rapper named Berner, and a genius grower known only as Jai.

Berner: from Sunset to the covers of Forbes

Gilbert Anthony Milam Jr. was born on October 27, 1983 in San Francisco's Sunset district. He grew up above a restaurant in a working-class part of town. Music came early, and so did cannabis. At 18, he obtains one of the first medical cards issued in San Francisco, which adopts medical cannabis before the rest of the country, and starts working at a local dispensary, The Hemp Center, first as a receptionist, then as a budtender.

This job becomes an observation laboratory. Day after day, Berner noticed that suppliers were delivering unbranded cannabis in simple bags with a variety name. No one was working on presentation, packaging or identity. He begins to put the flowers in jars, to create neat labels. The intuition was there: quality cannabis deserves a brand to match.

Jai Chang: the shadowy geneticist

It's at the dispensary that Berner discovers the work of a Bay Area grower who knows himself only as Jai, Jai Chang, aka «Jigga». Raised among cannabis plants, Jai has been cultivating since his teens, absorbing the knowledge passed on by his elders in San Francisco's underground scene. Berner falls in love with his Cherry Kush. To show his appreciation, he has «Cherry Kush» T-shirts printed and films them in his first music video.

This spontaneous gesture contains Cookies' entire future strategy: since cannabis can't be registered as a trademark in the U.S., it's the clothing brand that protects the name and identity. Cookies SF, the streetwear line, becomes the legal and commercial shield of the cannabis empire.

 2010: the birth of Cookies and GSC

In 2010, Berner and Jai officially founded Cookies, combining the commercial and cultural vision of one with the genetic expertise of the other. Jai then developed the variety that would change the industry: a cross between OG Kush and Durban Poison, which they named Girl Scout Cookies. GSC immediately sets an absolute benchmark - complex aromas, powerful effects, spectacular visual appeal.

The Girl Scouts of America sent a formal notice. The variety becomes simply GSC, then the name Cookies is imposed for the entire brand. In the immediate aftermath, Jai and the Cookies Fam growers (including Sherbinski is part of) are developing Cherry Pie, the Sunset Sherbet, the Gelato, Biscotti, all varieties that shaped the American premium cannabis market in the 2010s and remain global benchmarks.

Culture strategy: Wiz Khalifa and hip-hop

At the same time, Berner developed his musical career. He meets Wiz Khalifa in 2010, who began to quote Cookies in his songs, Berner wears Cookies sweatshirts in his music videos. When Berner appears in a video with Chris Brown, Wiz Khalifa and Big K.R.I.T. broadcast to millions of views, he deliberately wears a Cookies sweatshirt. The brand enters the collective unconscious of American hip-hop even before it has a single store.

Wiz Khalifa signs Berner to Taylor Gang Entertainment in 2018. Four Berner albums enter the Billboard 200, including Gotti (2021) and From Seed to Sale (2022), the latter reaching #20.

Retail and international expansion

The first Cookies SF streetwear store opens in San Francisco in 2015. The first Cookies dispensary opens in Los Angeles in 2018. Expansion then accelerates according to a franchise-like model: 49 dispensaries by June 2022, 70 by January 2024, present in the United States, Canada, Israel and Thailand. Cookies SF clothing stores open in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Vienna (Austria). The clothing brand generates over $50 million a year. The busiest dispensaries, such as the one on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, earn up to $450,000 a day, according to Forbes.

In 2021, AdAge names Cookies one of America's Hottest Brands, the first cannabis brand to receive this distinction. In August 2022, Berner becomes the first cannabis industry executive to make the cover of Forbes. The brand's value is conservatively estimated at $150 million by the magazine, and $1 billion by Business Insider.

Cancer, resilience and the aftermath

In 2021, Berner learns that he has stage 3 colon cancer. He goes through chemotherapy publicly, continues to manage Cookies, and releases the Gotti album. In 2022, he announces that he is in remission. The episode reinforces his image in the industry: an entrepreneur who built everything himself, surviving every obstacle.

Cookies actively campaigns for social equity in the cannabis industry, access to the legal market for communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs, and support for entrepreneurs from the illicit market. In every Cookies dispensary, around 30% of shelf space is reserved for partner brands, making Cookies a launch pad for other industry players.

The Cookies portfolio today

Beyond the core brand, Berner has co-founded or founded: Lemonnade (California cannabis brand), Vibes (rolling papers), Santa Cruz Shredders (grinders), Hemp2o Water, and 1212 Ventures (cannabis investment fund). The Cookies catalog includes over 70 proprietary strains and more than 2,000 products.