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As cannabis becomes an increasingly legal industry, entrepreneurs expand in their creativity, crafting unique products to offer in the marketplace. 

New Yorkers are passionate about their pizza, and Mike Libretto is no different. He grew up in the city and, over the last 20 years, he has owned and operated five pizzerias and currently runs Libretto’s in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a cannabis connaisseur, he devised a new idea — creating pizzas that will get you baked.

Libretto branched off of his namesake pizzeria to create a new brand – Spinello’s – whose name literally means ‘little joint’ in Italian. Spinello’s offers frozen take-home pizzas infused with farm-bill compliant delta-9 THC and CBG. 

Combining a favorite comfort food and comfort compound is clearly a winning combination. Spinello’s has received a lot of attention in just the first six months of business, and is now available for purchase at Libretto’s and more than 40 dispensaries in and around the Charlotte, NC area. 

Libretto sat with The Green Letter to share his creative transition from pizza chef to cannapreneur with his innovative THC pizzas. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me all about Spinello’s. What’s it like growing a cannabis pizza brand?

It’s so new. It’s so cool because I’ve only been selling them for six months, and the response to it has just been insane. It’s so much fun. There’s been people that are recognizing the brand already. We go into stores and dispensaries trying to sell our pizzas, and they’re like, “Spinello’s?!” They know the name around here in Charlotte already—it’s pretty wild—and it’s starting to creep across the country, too.

So you just founded the company six months ago, but how long have you been making pizzas?

I’ve been in the pizza business for 20 years. I used to have five pizza restaurants; my first one was in New York City. I’m a New York City guy, and I’m pretty good at pizza. This pizza not only has its experience, but it’s damn good pizza, too, which is pretty fun. We use the same ingredients that we use in the pizzeria in Spinello’s, so it’s the same exact pizza, not a crappy frozen pizza you’re eating just to get high. 

If you want to eat half of it, it’s hard to stop at half. That’s why I have to split one with my wife—I eat half; I can’t eat any more and neither can she.

Did you collaborate with someone in the cannabis business when you branched out to start Spinello’s?

Honestly, I did it in my kitchen. I have a friend who grows THCA flower outside of Asheville, so I went to get some flower. I got a big tub of olive oil and I bought some infusers, and I started infusing oil and making pizzas with it. The trial and error took me a while – close to a year – but I finally consistently nailed the milligram pizza that I wanted and the experience I wanted from one slice to another. The goal is if I eat one pizza today and another pizza in a month, it’s the same experience. Working on that was a big part of it. 

Was that the hardest part of starting the company?

The hardest part is definitely getting the dosage down consistently. We started with a 30 milligram pizza which wasn’t strong enough, then we upped it to a 40 milligram pizza. We started selling those, and we’ve since added an 80 milligram pizza. We laughed about the idea of an 80 milligram pizza when we first made the 40 mg, and people were like ‘we want a stronger one.’

What was the process like jumping into the commercial kitchen combined with cannabis, and what kind of regulatory agencies do you have to check in with?

We make our pizzas in a commissary kitchen, and there are cannabis lab testing facilities we use. One of the important things to me throughout this whole process and as this category grows is to do everything right, now, even though there’s not a lot of regulation. We know regulation is coming. We do testing, and there’s actually a QR code on the package so you can scan and see the actual test results. We’re actually going through some full-spectum testing next because I understand that is going to be the requirement going forward. We’re trying not to be just a run-of-the-mill place that made some pizzas and had a laugh and it was over. I think this brand has some potential.

Where are you currently selling your pizzas?

We sell them out of the restaurant which is in South Charlotte, and we also have almost 40 different retail partners around Charlotte that offer them. People like Apotheca took us on, which is incredible. Crown Town Cannabis is another growing local dispensary, and then there are markets that sell beer, wine, and some cool food that are sticking us in their frozen food section, which is really fun.

What other edible products have you seen that gave you inspiration?

We actually play around in the pizzeria. It’s fun — sometimes we make pinwheels, sometimes we make stromboli, we play around with the dough… We make all kinds of different fun stuff. There are more and more cannabis dinners popping up, and I see good chefs putting together meals that are infused, so it looks like a category that could flourish into something.

Again, the toughest part is the dosing. You want to make sure people know what they’re getting. I’ve heard a lot of stories about people who go to these [cannabis] dinners and come out really damn high. I think it’s a case of easing people into it a little bit. With Spinello’s, you’ve got a round pizza you can cut into four slices. If it’s a 40 milligram pizza, you cut it into four quarters and you’ve got 10  milligrams in each slice, or you could fold it in half and eat the whole thing.

Is there much competition for you at the moment?

No, there isn’t, which is nice. We’re trying to get ahead of it. We’ve got a file for a patent, so we’re technically patent-pending, and we’ve got all of our trademarks in line. We’re trying to make it into a legitimate company and do everything the right way.

Have you had to jump over extra large hurdles to do things the right way?

No. That’s the thing about hemp products now — there are no hurdles yet. The hurdles are coming, and we will welcome the people that are serious about this market and having a future in this market. They’re going to be ready for the regulations when they come. At this stage of developing something, it’s kind of on you to make sure that it’s done right. You’ve got to take it seriously and you’ve got to do it right.

What’s been the most exciting moment for you in these six months?

It was actually just in the last couple weeks — we signed a lease on a warehouse to start making more pizzas, which is going to be fun. I have no idea how many we’ll be making; it’s so new now that it’s so up and down. There are weeks that we sell a ton, and it’s awesome that we have like 40 people selling us, but it doesn’t bring any consistency. There are weeks we sell more than we could ever imagine, and then there are weeks that they’re all stocked up and maybe not ready for new orders, but it’s a struggle sometimes to keep up with the demand, which is actually pretty cool. We don’t ever want stress in our lives, so we try to pace it, but it’s fun.

What’s cool with the warehouse is that it’s going to be a nice step forward for us to ship around the country. We have a lot of people reaching out to us asking if we ship to other states or other places outside of Charlotte, and we don't right now but it’s something we’re working toward.

Are you talking about shipping wholesale orders or direct-to-consumer?

The ability for you to go online, place an order, and I can ship you a pizza is going to be the first step. We got a nice big fancy freezer and we’ll load it up so people can place online orders. We’ve got dry ice we’re learning how to work with, and insulated boxes we’re learning how to use. It’s all a learning process, but we’re learning what we need to learn so we can start shipping.

Considering you’re working towards shipping to other states, what is your perspective on what you hope or anticipate federal rescheduling of cannabis to look like?

That’s something I’ve honestly got to teach myself more about. We play by the rules, so I’ve got to learn those rules a little bit more. I don’t think it’ll take long since we’re still a couple months away from shipping, and I know I’ll squeeze that knowledge in before it happens. Federal is so up in the air. It could be years before there’s any type of direction federally, but North Carolina is a good state. There are plenty of hemp-supporting states around the country that support hemp farmers. They understand that hemp is an industry, and there are states that frown upon hemp but somehow legalize marijuana. Fifty different states, 50 different outlooks on the industry, and everything’s so in your face these days it could drive you crazy. South Carolina might be restricting serving sized and package sizes to a very low number where it would be prohibitive to work in that state. That’s a state right next to us and I want to work in that state, but we’ve got to learn about it.

How many people do you currently have on your team?

We have a bunch of employees in the pizza restaurant, and there are a handful of them that love the brand and the idea. They come over to the commissary and help pack up the pizzas. We just hang out, turn on some music, put cheese and sauce on the pizzas, wrap them up, and sticker them. It’s fun because there’s a camaraderie to it, and it feels good because you all know that you’re working towards something fun. It’s not often you work towards something and not get complacent, so it’s fun that we all have a dream of what this company can become. That’s definitely an exciting part of it.

Do you have a vision of other products you’ll be offering in the future?

They’re all fun visions right now, but they’re not business visions yet. Right now, we’re just trying to make the pizza business happen without overdoing it. Once we get a nice foundation and we’re comfortable… With growth comes uncertainty and it gets a little hairy sometimes. It gets a little uncomfortable sometimes. You don’t want to grow too fast, and we want to keep a pace. Maybe we do subscriptions one day where we offer a couple pizzas and you get a grinder in the box. There’s fun things we can do with this, but right now they’re just pipe dreams. 

What is your vision for the industry as a whole?

You see all the drinks coming out now; you see big companies are getting behind these drinks. I hear Anheuser-Busch is buying companies out west. Johnson Brothers and Adams and all of our local distributors are selling THC drinks, and they’re becoming a big part of their portfolio fast. The fact that these companies that have people working for them that are probably smarter than me that are making big investments into this industry, so that comforts me. That lets me think that this industry has a future to it, and it’s moving in the right direction. 

I was talking with somebody earlier today that was like, “It’s the new gold rush.” I thought that was a great analogy; it made me laugh.

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