Through several trials and tribulations, the European cannabis market has had a rocky road to success. But fortunately for Niklas Kouparanis, it looks as though everything is truly beginning to blossom now.
Kouparanis, the Bloomwell Group founder and CEO, first joined Germany’s medical cannabis industry in 2017 as sales and marketing director at Cannamedical Pharma in Köln before founding Frankfurt-based Farmako in 2018. Since launching Frankfurt-headquartered Bloomwell in 2020, Kouparanis has turned the company into one of Germany’s top medical marijuana businesses.
In April, Germany passed laws that greatly expanded the medical program, decriminalized possession, and set up an adult-use landscape. Adult-use members can grow limited amounts of their own cannabis at licensed marijuana clubs.
Understandably, Kouparanis is enthused.
Why are you bullish about Germany’s new medical marijuana law?
“That is the big game changer. Medical reclassification means cannabis is no longer a narcotic substance in Germany. Cannabis can be prescribed as a normal medication similar to ibuprofen, which is very easy to get. You don’t have to be chronically ill anymore. You don’t need to have some kind of treatment record proving that you already went to a doctor. Now, you can get it with a migraine, with a sleeping disorder. You can get cannabis pretty easily prescribed.
That opens up a total addressable market of around 30 million people in Germany. Not all of them will consume cannabis, but I expect the market to go from 300,000 patients up to 5 million or 6 million patients in the next 12 to 24 months.”
Do you expect new businesses to enter this new medical landscape?
“The medical cannabis market needs to have a tremendous amount of patience and regulatory knowledge. That’s why we don’t see so many companies popping up at the moment. Over time, I expect some smart entrepreneurs to come into the market. It will attract a lot, and some will fail.
With 84 million inhabitants, Germany will become by far the biggest medical cannabis market in the world—and, I think, the most attractive in terms of growth for anyone who wants to have a foothold in Germany.”
How are Germany’s illicit operators impacting the regulated market?
“A lot of people got burned investing in the U.S. and Canadian markets because of the illicit market. The big difference is that Germany is an import market. In places like California, cultivation was very expensive because of taxes. So, the cannabis was very expensive … and it fueled illicit growth. We don’t have that in Germany.
We import cannabis from Colombia, South Africa, Canada, North Macedonia—very low-cost production countries; not Canada, but the rest—where we can basically import cannabis for a very low price and can offer it for less than the illicit market can. We offer cannabis for 5 euros ($5.41) per gram on our platform. The illicit market prices in Germany are 10-12 euros. Even under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) regulations, highly regulated, pharmaceutical-grade cannabis already is cheaper than illicit-market prices.”
Will there be opportunities for U.S. or other non-German companies?
“The development of the U.S. market is pretty much stuck. Everyone in the U.S. is now hoping for rescheduling. But we are already there in Germany. The smart players see the market as a global market; they are already approaching us.
Everybody wants to be in Germany now, and they want to be in the medical game because there’s no possibility to get into the recreational game—except for seeds, for example, because there is no real legalized market.
So, yes, 100% there’s big opportunity in Germany. And I think the future is Europe. It’s no longer North America.”
