The owner of Essex County’s only legal and operating cannabis farm is seeing high demand for his harvest.

Genuine Grow owner and CEO Andrew Marshall, who opened his Montclair cultivation business in September, said the marijuana from his first two harvests quickly sold out in an industry where cultivators often find themselves sitting on too much cannabis.

“We don’t have enough product,” Marshall, 30, told Montclair Local during a recent interview. “It’s selling out very fast, but it’s a good problem to have. We’re excited for the future, especially with being able to get a manufacturing license.”

The town council issued Marshall a resolution of support for manufacturing in February 2025, and last month helped out by aligning its cannabis license renewal dates with the state’s, he said.

The state has issued him the manufacturer license, and Marshall said he is waiting on the final approval to begin that side of operations. It will allow for preparing edibles, hash and infused products, where now Genuine Grow only packages and sells the flower that it grows, he said.

While standing in between rows of marijuana plants under the bright lights of the indoor farm, Marshall said, he is confident he will find homes for each plant in his next crop.

“Every table is its own strain. So right here, we’ve got Mercy and over here is Sans Souci, and they all grow a little differently,” Marshall said above the whir of commercial dehumidifiers and air-handlers. “We’ve got Golden Goat, and we’ve got 8-Inch Bagel.”

He pointed to one plant that stretched up to the lights, then highlighted another plant with a “chunkier bud structure.”

Marshall, a Montclair High School graduate, who previously worked in television production, entered the cannabis industry about four years ago. Montclair Local then reported the undertaking required jockeying through a halting bureaucracy of state and local licensing processes.

With many of the regulatory hurdles behind him, the daily challenges are different. Key is controlling the environment, which Marshall had set to 76 degrees with 62% humidity — conditions that prompted a Montclair Local reporter to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“We’re constantly fighting and trying to raise or lower the humidity,” Marshall said. “We had a dry and cold winter. So, we were constantly trying to bump up the humidity inside. And now it’s springtime, and we’re constantly trying to decrease the humidity.”

Keeping the plants healthy doesn’t end there, he said, as they must keep out pathogens and pests. That’s the reason he had this reporter don a fully-body protective suit.

That’s not to say all pests are bad.

“We release nematodes on a regular basis, which are microscopic worms which eat the bad pests that like to destroy cannabis plants,” Marshall said. “There are a lot of factors that come into play when managing an indoor grow.”

An independent operator, Marshall considers his product to be high quality when compared to the large commercial operators.

“We’re creating a name for ourselves in New Jersey, but we are definitely very small batch in quantity and in the amount of people who are working here. It’s just myself and my best friend,” he said, referring to his head of cultivation, Michael “Tito” Sirianni. “We’ve got 100 plants over there. That only equates to a certain amount of product every harvest that we’re able to put out.”

Larger corporate grow operations, Marshall said, pump out thousands of pounds a week, quantities that Genuine Grow doesn’t reach in a year.

“At the scale we’re able to grow at, we’re able to keep the quality much higher and for the certain connoisseur or cannabis user who wants a better product, they’re going to be looking for our type of product,” Marshall said.

He said he remains the only operational cannabis grower in both Essex County and Montclair. Regulations and economics are key factors. In Essex County, only 10 of the 22 towns permit any cannabis business. Most of the state’s growers are in Central Jersey and South Jersey, Marshall said.

“The real estate is cheaper,” he said. “The cost of business is cheaper. And there are more licenses available.”

Marshall’s exclusivity as the only operating cannabis cultivator in Essex County could change. West Orange Farms lists a facility address in North Bergen and also holds a state license for an address on Grove Street in Montclair despite having no facility in West Orange, according to the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s list.

An office manager answering a phone number connected to the name on the license said they have no working operation at the Montclair location. She did not have additional details.

A much larger operation, Canna P Farms LLC, secured the Newark Planning Board’s site plan approval in 2024 for a 67,467 square foot cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility in an industrial area of the city’s East Ward, according to a press release. The site is nestled between the New Jersey Turnpike, I-95, and Routes 1 and 9, city records show.

However, the facility is not listed on the state CRC’s directory of licensees. And efforts to reach the owner for this article were not successful.

Meanwhile, Marshall’s local customer base may soon expand.

Kush Connection’s Jake Kushner confirmed he is close to opening at 665-679 Bloomfield Ave., Montclair, on the site of what was long a car dealership for DeCozen Chrysler Jeep Dodge. Kush Connection secured planning board approval in 2025. Last week Kushner said he plans to open in about four weeks.

“I’m excited to have this dispensary be, hopefully, a vibrant part of the Montclair landscape,” Kushner said. “We’re going to stay involved in the community and be something that the town can be proud of, have one of the better dispensaries in the state.”

Kush Connection plans to have a diverse menu of products, including Genuine Grow’s cannabis, he added. (Look for more on that in a subsequent article.)

“Andrew’s a friend. I graduated from high school with him. We love the idea of having a product that’s grown in Montclair and sold in Montclair,” Kushner said. “It will definitely be one of our higher tier products.”

Marshall said he, too, is looking forward to the opening.

“We will be there for opening day to promote our made-in-Montclair product and that’s really the whole brand that this is made in Montclair. We are Montclair and this is Montclair,” Marshall said. “We’re putting Montclair on the map.”

Email reporter Matt Kadosh at matt@montclairlocal.news

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