Cresco Labs is the Chicago cannabis company Charlie Bachtell co-founded in 2013 to build cannabis brands the way packaged-goods companies build theirs. It grows, extracts and wholesales Cresco, High Supply, FloraCal, Good News, Wonder Wellness Co., Mindy's and Remedi, and runs 75 Sunnyside dispensaries across six states. The bet is simple: own the brands on the shelf, not just the stores that sell them.
Charlie Bachtell's brand-first playbook
Cresco's stated mission is to "normalize, professionalize and revolutionize cannabis," and the company has pursued it through a packaged-goods model: national brands, made in licensed facilities state by state, sold both in its own stores and to independent dispensaries. Bachtell is still chief executive, and headquarters sit at 600 W. Fulton Street in Chicago.
The shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange as CL and on the OTCQX as CRLBF. In its second-quarter 2026 report, Cresco said it held the No. 1 share position in several billion-dollar state markets. In the same release it called federal rescheduling "the first true federal reform this industry has achieved" and said the end of the 280E tax burden opens a path to a U.S. exchange listing.
Seven brands, one wholesale machine
The portfolio spans price tiers and formats:
- Cresco: the flagship, with flower, vapes, concentrates and pre-rolls built on consistency and availability.
- High Supply: "quality weed that's always available," sold as vape carts and pens, flower, popcorn, shake, pre-rolls, shorties and concentrates.
- FloraCal Farms: the top shelf, pheno-hunted and small-batch, with hand-trimmed flower, vapes, gummies and pre-rolls.
- Good News: gummies, a rechargeable vape pen and carts, made "for great moments with the crew."
- Wonder Wellness Co.: low-dose gummies and mints built to make cannabis simple to understand.
- Mindy's: gummies and chocolates made in partnership with James Beard Award-winning chef Mindy Segal.
- Remedi: tinctures, capsules and RSO in measured doses.
The premium end came through acquisition. FloraCal Farms started as Drew and Karen Duval's Sonoma County grow and arrived with Cresco's purchase of Origin House, which closed on January 8, 2020. Cresco has since taken the brand to Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Michigan.
Sunnyside, state by state
Sunnyside is the retail banner, and Cresco's store list for September 2026 counts 75 locations:
- Florida: 31 stores, from Pensacola and Panama City Beach to Miami, Tamarac and Orlando. Cresco entered the state in 2021 and had 25 stores there by February 2023.
- Pennsylvania: 18 medical stores, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Lancaster, Erie, Altoona and Gettysburg.
- Illinois: 10 stores, including Wrigleyville, River North, Naperville, Schaumburg, Rockford and Champaign.
- Ohio: 8 stores in Wintersville, Marion, Newark, Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Proctorville, Bridgeport and Aberdeen.
- Massachusetts: 4 stores in Leicester, Framingham, Worcester and Fall River.
- New York: 4 stores in the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley, Huntington and Williamsburg.
Pennsylvania got bigger in September 2026. On September 2, Cresco closed a $50 million purchase of PharmaCann Penn and its nine operating medical dispensaries, paid in cash and a seller note, and said the deal makes it the state's No. 1 medical cannabis retailer.
Three of the Massachusetts stores carry real history. Cresco closed its acquisition of Cultivate in September 2021, taking over the Leicester, Framingham and Worcester dispensaries plus about 42,000 square feet of flowering canopy. On November 20, 2018, Cultivate's Leicester shop and New England Treatment Access in Northampton became the first two stores in Massachusetts to sell adult-use cannabis. That store now trades as Sunnyside.
Thirteen facilities and a new Kentucky market
Cresco runs 13 production facilities. Its cultivation network lists sites in Joliet, Lincoln and Kankakee, Illinois; Yellow Springs, Ohio; Brookville, Pennsylvania; Fall River and Uxbridge, Massachusetts; Indiantown, Florida; Marshall, Michigan; Wallkill and Ellenville, New York; and two in Santa Rosa, California. Cresco's growers tailor environment, irrigation and fertigation recipes to each cultivar, then standardize them.
Michigan has no Sunnyside stores, but Cresco's Marshall facility holds medical and adult-use cultivation and processing licenses there. Kentucky is the newest map pin. Cresco holds medical licenses there through subsidiaries, and its first branded products reached Kentucky patients in June 2026.
The deals that drew the map
Cresco agreed in April 2019 to buy CannaRoyalty, which did business as Origin House, in a deal valued at roughly $850 million, then the largest public-company acquisition in U.S. cannabis. The January 2020 closing brought FloraCal, 92,000 square feet of indoor cultivation and production, and Origin House's Continuum distribution network, which reached more than 575 California dispensaries.
The 2021 buying spree added Cultivate in Massachusetts and, on December 9, 2021, Pennsylvania's Laurel Harvest Labs for $136.7 million. The biggest deal never happened. Cresco agreed in March 2022 to merge with Columbia Care, the company now called Cannabist, in a roughly $2 billion transaction. Cannabis Business Times reported the two terminated it on July 31, 2023, after failing to line up the divestitures that New York, Illinois and Massachusetts required.
Then came the trimming. In October 2023 Cresco sold its last Arizona asset, the Encanto Sunnyside dispensary in Phoenix, to an affiliate of Mint Cannabis for $6.5 million in cash. In July 2025 it announced plans to sell its California cultivation, manufacturing and select distribution operations, with Bachtell citing fragmented retail, price compression and the illicit market. Cresco kept full ownership of FloraCal and said it would keep producing and marketing the brand across key U.S. markets.
SEED and the equity work
Cresco launched SEED, short for Social Equity & Educational Development, in 2019 and bills it as the first comprehensive social equity program from a multistate cannabis company. The program runs on three tracks: business development for BIPOC-owned cannabis companies, education and workforce training through the Illinois Cannabis Education Center, and restorative justice work including expungement and record-sealing events.
Cresco says SEED has put $1.3 million in direct capital into Black and Latino business owners, covered more than $280,000 in license and legal fees for social equity applicants, supported more than 200 cannabis businesses and reached more than 8,000 people through community justice programs across nine states.
The 2026 numbers
For the second quarter of 2026, Cresco reported $173 million in revenue, $15 million in net income and $40 million in adjusted EBITDA, a 22.8% margin. Management singled out Ohio, where it said its newest Sunnyside stores rank among the state's strongest new openings. Chief financial officer Sharon Schuler stepped down that quarter, and corporate controller Mark Stortz took the job on an interim basis.
Chicago is also home to another big multistate operator, Green Thumb Industries, headquartered on West Huron Street. In Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio, Sunnyside competes directly with Curaleaf stores.
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