Q&A: Christine Apple on Grön’s Next Chapter With Wyld

On Monday, January 5, leading cannabis edibles company Wyld announced the
acquisition of Grön, a women-led brand focused on creating delicious,
handcrafted, cannabis-infused edibles. The deal brings together two of the
most recognized and respected names in edibles—both from Oregon—combining
Grön’s premium, innovation-driven portfolio with Wyld’s extensive
distribution reach across North America. According to the companies, the
partnership is designed to accelerate growth while preserving what makes
each brand beloved by consumers—a shared commitment to quality, creativity
and authenticity.

“This acquisition is about scaling a brand that’s already winning,”
stated Aaron Morris, founder and CEO of Wyld in Monday’s press release.
“Grön has built exceptional products and a deeply trusted brand. Our goal
is to support its continued growth by pairing Grön’s creativity and
innovation with Wyld’s infrastructure, reach and operational
strength—without compromising what makes Grön special.”

Grön Founder and CEO Christine Apple is equally excited about the company’s
future. When deliberating on how to grow the brand so that it can carry on
for generations, Apple asked herself, “What is the brand’s best opportunity
for success to continue to grow and grow rapidly?” She concluded that “Wyld
has the platform to be able to do that, and they’re the only company, I
think, in this entire space, that can do it better than I can. And I mean
that.”

Beyond Apple’s belief in the power of the Wyld brand and infrastructure to
expand, Apple, perhaps more importantly, is in line with Morris’ vision. “I
couldn’t imagine someone that I could trust more to carry this brand
forward,” she candidly shared in a conversation with Cannabis Now’s own
founder and CEO, Eugenio Garcia, on Tuesday. “We share a lot of common
values, and he’s really committed to keeping the brand as it is.”

Join us as Apple takes us down memory lane, back to her Oregon kitchen when
only medical cannabis was legal, and weed was far less socially acceptable.
Apple shares insight on how she’s found success by staying lean, efficient,
privately funded and “laser focused” as well as her unwavering passion for
Grön—“her baby,” so to speak—and all that the brand represents. It’s
certainly been a labor of love over the past decade, and now she’s finally
ready to let Grön leave the nest and soar to new heights as the legacy
carries on.
Christine Apple is an architect-turned-chocolatier who launched Grön from
her home kitchen in Oregon back in 2014.

*Eugenio Garcia: To kick things off, can you share Grön’s origin story?*

*Christine Apple: *So, I am a recovering architect. I joke about that. I
graduated from architecture school at the University of Texas in ‘99 and
moved up to Oregon and started working at an architecture firm, and did
that for about 16 years, 14 years—something like that.

On a whim, I started making chocolate edibles in my home kitchen, just
dinking around. What started as a side project kind of grew into a monster
in all the best ways. I actually had a day job as an architect, and I would
make chocolates at night and back then it was medical days, but [cannabis]
wasn’t legal, or “adult-use.” From the social side, it was frowned upon, so
I was kind of living a double life.

At some point—I think 2014 in Oregon—they passed adult-use, and I took a
gamble and cashed in my stock options and left my architecture firm and
bought chocolate machines and said, “I’m going to give this a go.” We’ve
really not taken any outside capital until this past year, which has been
probably one of the defining factors of our success, because the industry
is so volatile. We’re very lean. We run a really efficient machine. And
yeah, it’s been the journey of my life, that’s for sure.

*EG:* *Wow,* *good for you. What is the current footprint of the brand?*

*CA:* We are in nine states right now—Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio,
Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey. We’re currently in
the process of relaunching Nevada and Canada. I think our penetration
across the markets that we’re in is well over 75% on average; most states
we’re closer to 90%. We’re the number one edible up in Canada as well. Grön
is on a on a tremendous growth trajectory. The time was right to be able to
leverage the distribution channels and the real platform that Wyld is able
to offer to continue to grow the brand.

*EG: What does the name Grön mean? Does it have any significance?*

*CA:* It does. So I studied abroad in Scandinavia during college [for
architecture], and it means “green” in Swedish. It’s simply the word
“green.” The funny thing about this is, there was no business plan, there
was no intent to start a business—I just started making chocolate. Then I
had to come up with a name. It was an hour-long exercise coming up with
things that were meaningful to me and looking at cool words. I was
researching chocolate companies, and if you think of all the interesting
chocolate brands, a lot of them have words that are hard to pronounce. From
this side of the world, sustainability is important, and it’s green for the
plant. Grön is kind of a cool word that’s a little difficult to say and the
umlauts make it fun, although difficult to type.

*EG: I love that. And although you’ve expanded from chocolates, Grön soley
offers edibles, right?*

*CA: *Yes, we’ve stayed laser focused. And I think again, that’s another
real strong point to the company and our success and profitability—staying
really laser focused and building the brand. I can look back on it now and
say it takes a long time to mature a brand to a place where it’s really a
brand—a brand isn’t a brand if you don’t recognize it and people aren’t
following it and really understanding it and believing in it, and it takes
years to generate that kind of trust.

*EG: Moving into Grön’s next chapter, how did you and Wyld’s CEO Aaron
Morris come to meet?*

*CA*: So both Grön and Wyld grew up during the Oregon medical days, so my
founder’s story is not very different from his. It was the same timeline.
He and I have lived in Portland for the entire duration of these companies’
existence, and we had never met in person until about six months ago. Seth
Yakatan, a dear friend, actually introduced Aaron and Draper Bender,
president of Grön. They went for coffee, and Draper came back to me and
said, “I have an idea. What do you think about this?” I said, “No way.
You’re out of your mind.” And then I slept on it. And, you know, the
reality is, both these companies—everyone in this industry—is trying to
figure out what to do next.

For years, we’ve been expanding into new markets, and that’s a great
strategy until you run out of new markets to open, and then you’ve got to
figure out how to grow. And this industry is just really stifled by the
federal legislation. Wyld has gone to all the states, and they dominate in
all the states, but they need to figure out how to continue to grow, too.
We have conquered all of the new states, but we kind of passed over those
older legacy states that are more saturated like California, Colorado,
Washington and Michigan. It’s time for us to figure out how to enter those
markets. The reality is: Wyld is the largest player in all those markets.

There are so many similarities with what these companies are it just, it
really makes sense with the synergies between the two companies, both being
Oregon-based, and we share a lot of common values, and he’s really
committed to keeping the brand as it is. I couldn’t think of someone that
could be better positioned to carry it forward.

*EG: It’s January 2026 and we have the pending completion of Trump’s
executive order to reschedule cannabis that he announced at the end of last
year. How has that announcement changed your 2026 plans or affected your
business?*

*CA:* It hasn’t affected us at all to be honest, you know, we’re a private
company. There’s been news and talk for years and years and we kind of just
blur out the noise and keep moving forward. For us right now, it’s strictly
business as usual, delivering excellence and bringing products to the
people who want them. That’s what we do.

*EG: With Grön, we’ll go back to your slogan, “the best-tasting edible on
the planet.” Where does that come from? Is it in the ingredients? Is it the
process? How do you live up to that?*

*CA:* Well, from the very beginning, when I started making chocolate at
home, one of the reasons that the product took off was because it actually
tasted good. And edibles are traditionally not very good. They taste like
weed. And you’ll never make something taste better by adding cannabis to
it. It’s my opinion, and there may be some people that disagree with that,
but I think the majority of people agree.

There are three pillars to any product success: It has to taste good, look
good and feel good. And you have to hit all three pillars. Every product
that we make, that we put on market, has to. So, we’ve spent a lot of time
with flavor and terpene profiles and adding different levels of acidity,
which counters the cannabis flavor. It’s been a really fun journey.
[image: Gron THC Pearls]The Grön umbrella offers four product lines,
including Pearls, Megas, Pips and Chocolate.

*EG: A lot of conversations I’ve had in 2025 with industry leaders have
been surrounding this big question of “How do we survive? How do we
thrive?” It’s been a bit of a challenging four years for a lot of companies
and leaders, and one of the answers to that was, “It’s time to team up.”
It’s time to create alliances and think of business more in that vein
rather than people playing in their own silo. And so, with your decision to
team up with Wyld, what were some of the biggest decision-making factors
behind that?*

*CA:* Everything that I’ve done with this brand from the time it started
has been intentional, and it’s to put the brand first so that it can carry
on for generations. I look at where it’s at now, and I said, “What is the
brand’s best opportunity for success to continue to grow and grow rapidly?”
Wyld has the platform to be able to do that, and they’re the only company,
I think, in this entire space, that can do it better than I can. And I mean
that. I believe Aaron can do this better than I can, and he will accelerate
the brand’s growth.

I am Grön’s biggest fan, and I will be her cheerleader until I die, and I
want to see this brand carry on as a legacy brand in this cannabis space.
This industry is still really young, and there’s a lot of volatility, and
most brands won’t make it. You saw it with the tech world. Who’s left?
Google? I want Grön to be a lasting brand. And selfishly, that is what’s
critically important to me: setting her up for long term success. And I
believe that this does that. So I’m really pleased that we were able to
pull this together.

Remarkably Grön and Wyld, don’t eat each other’s market share on shelves.
When we go to markets together, we actually grow the category, so we’re
bringing consumers in. We see it in all the all the markets that we’re in,
it’s remarkable. Combined, the two companies are close to 30% of the market.

*EG: You’ve spoken of Grön as a “she,” giving her an identity. How did you
come up with that?*

*CA: *Well, probably because I reflect a lot of birthing and raising this
company as if I’m raising a child. This has been 11 years of my life—fully
committing this brand to a point where it can stand on its own and has the
stability and an identity of her own. And, she *is* female. She’s fun, and,
I mean the brand has a has a personality. It helps us connect with
consumers. There’s not a lot of females in this industry, and Grön is one
of ‘em.

*EG:* *What’s one of the most important things in creating a brand identity
and differentiating yourself?*

*CA:* What’s so important is finding something that is relatable to people.
People follow brands that they love and trust. It’s a commitment to clean,
honest, transparent communication, and that comes through your marketing
and the relationships you have with consumers and retailers. I think part
of our reputation in the industry has come from that—making sure that we’re
being honest, that we’re delivering excellence every single time, that we
take care of people and that we take care of our products and that we’re
being good stewards of the planet. All of those things come through, and
people like it. People want to buy things they like and believe in.

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