Kiva Brands and Green Flower, GF Institute Promote Groundbreaking New Cannabis Credential Program

VENTURA, Calif. and OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Green Flower announced that Kiva Brands, along with its Co-Founder Kristi Palmer, would be joining the newly-launched GF Institute as Founding and Steering Committee Members, respectively.

GF Institute (GFI) has been formed to develop and deploy standardized training and credentials built specifically for corporate partners and licensed cannabis operator companies throughout the national supply chain. As more and more domestic, regional, or state-specific cannabis markets come online with voter-approved laws and regulations that enable the cultivation, production, and sale of cannabis products, education programs become increasingly important when recruitment talent pools become more sparsely populated and more competitive for applicants.

"We applaud the work GFI is undertaking with its dual mandates of education and social equity. GFI has created the foundation for successful ongoing training and development within the cannabis industry," said Palmer. "The certificates will help us focus our internal efforts towards company-specific training and proprietary knowledge, allowing us to fast track the onboarding process while ensuring employees have the foundational knowledge no matter their background."

Because much of the recruited talent to this fast-growing industry has little to no pre-existing, formalized cannabis experience or knowledge, every new employee to be trained from scratch, and most cannabis employers simply don't have the bandwidth or expertise to develop industry-adopted programs with the necessary level of rigor and depth to satisfy cannabis regulators.

Programs like GFI's Cannabis Credentials provide employees with a consistent, baseline level of functional knowledge for employee onboarding and a common vocabulary for talking about cannabis as a plant and product, it frees up operational bandwidth so the industry's leaders and managers can focus on core competencies and their own internal SOP development, rather than introducing more operational inefficiencies by trying to become educators instead of driving their own specialized businesses to profitability.

"We believe that consumers deserve to know exactly what they are consuming, which is why we self-impose stringent standards for potency, production, packaging and testing. We believe that the principles of consistency, efficacy, and food safety are fundamental to creating a high-quality edible and support our community commitment to develop educational outreach throughout the country," continued Palmer.

"In a short period of time, Kiva Confections has emerged as one of the top edibles businesses in the country with their family-owned mindset and steadfast commitment to quality ingredients—making them an ideal Green Flower Institute Founding Member," said Max Simon, CEO and Co-Founder of Green Flower. "GFI addresses many of the issues in the cannabis workforce and helps leading employers like Kiva Confections train and develop their employees in the necessary skills, knowledge, and credibility they need to succeed. Well-trained people bring professionalism, industry-adopted credentials bring credibility, and promoting equity in the cannabis education space means ensuring that this historic education program reaches and impacts the people who need it."

To encourage industry-wide adoption, GF Institute invites every Licensed Cannabis Operator across the United States to join this historic push to bring credibility, equity, and professionalism to our industry and become Founding Members of GFI.

The deadline for Founding Member applications is December 31, 2021, with an added financial incentive for brands who act early -- Founding Member brands are granted access to deploy the GFI certificates across their organization as part of the standard licensing fee for Green Flower's enterprise learning and development platform at no additional cost.

More information on GF Institute or the GFI Cannabis Credential program can be found at the GF Institute website, where visitors can download complete program documentation, review course syllabi, and find answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

About Green Flower:
Founded in 2014, Green Flower is the industry leader in cannabis education, empowering thousands of consumers, regulators, and professionals with the knowledge they need to succeed in the emerging cannabis industry today.

Green Flower's content and technology platform powers the cannabis programs of top universities and colleges across the country, provides customized learning and compliance solutions for cannabis businesses of all sizes, and equips individuals with the skills and credentials necessary to make an impact in the modern cannabis industry.

Contact: Adam Summers
e: [email protected] p: 708.223.2336

SOURCE Green Flower