How Quality Roots is scaling a family-owned cannabis retail legacy across state lines

About Quality Roots

Quality Roots is a family-owned, multi-location cannabis retailer that opened its first store in April 2020 and has quickly become a standout brand in Michigan's competitive cannabis market.

With eight thriving locations in their home state and a new store opening soon in New Jersey, Quality Roots is successfully growing its footprint into new markets.

Founded by Aric Klar (CEO) alongside his brothers Jonathan (COO) and Michael (CIO) and their father Mark, Quality Roots was created with a clear vision: to offer high-quality, consistent dispensary experiences that keep customers coming back.

While cannabis retail is a new chapter for the Klar family, they’re no strangers to brick-and-mortar business. Before their venture into cannabis, the Klars owned and operated pharmacies and toy stores, gaining years of valuable experience building customer trust and loyalty in retail.

“We wanted to change the persona of cannabis retail. In Michigan, when cannabis retail started, it was medical only," Jonathan said.

"Shops were in spots where people wouldn't typically travel, and the experiences had a low impact. Dark rooms, no windows, not a lot of customer service. When you go into Quality Roots dispensaries, it's designed to be free, open, and welcoming."

While a guided approach works for some dispensaries, Quality Roots wanted consumers to choose their own shopping experience.

“The thing that makes Quality Roots different from most dispensaries in Michigan is the focus on brick-and-mortar retail. Quality Roots resembles your standard, non-cannabis retail experience. You have free reign over the way you shop. You can browse independently or find somebody on the sales floor to guide you through,” said Jeremy Johnson, CMO at Quality Roots.

Smart scaling from Michigan to New Jersey

Quality Roots has been on Flowhub since day one.

"It took a lot of sweat and tears to open that first door," Aric added. "But once we got it open, we quickly realized how important it was to find the best partners like Flowhub to help us get where we want to go."

After the first store opened in Battle Creek, Quality Roots quickly grew to 8 stores across Michigan and the 9th location in New Jersey is opening soon. Today, nearly 200 staff members at Quality Roots use Flowhub daily.

Quality Roots relocated experienced managers from Michigan to New Jersey to ensure their new team could hit the ground running—immersing themselves in the market, refining store culture, and staying compliant in a new state.

While the store location was new, their technology didn’t have to change.

As their trusted POS partner, Flowhub keeps every store connected under one system. With a single login, Quality Roots can seamlessly manage operations across multiple states, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and smooth expansion.

Built-in compliance at the core

Technology is the most crucial compliance tool a dispensary has, and it becomes even more vital for multi-state operators like Quality Roots who must comply with multiple sets of regulations.

"Knowing that our tax structures, from excise to sales, are calculating properly across state lines is a huge dose of confidence," Jonathan shared. "We're required to report those numbers and pay a portion to the state."

"The last thing we want is for the state to come to us and say, 'Hey, you shorted us,' and for our documentation to be missing or inaccurate. Trusting that your technology can do the job right is so important."

Cannabis-specific POS providers keep you compliant amidst unique regulatory requirements, but the best dispensary POS systems also prioritize features that grow your dispensary and don't weigh operations down.

Staying agile with mobile apps and real-time analytics

Flowhub's mobile apps like Stash, Greet, and View quickly become fan favorites for busy cannabis retailers like Quality Roots.

With over 500 SKUs on store shelves at any time, inventory management needs to be fast, seamless, and accurate. That's where the Stash app comes in handy.

"Before the Stash app, we'd audit inventory from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM," Jonathan told us. "Sometimes you're closing down the store early just to audit. You're losing valuable time that could be spent selling products. The seamless data and workflows give my inventory and purchasing team the power to stock new inventory confidently."

The ability to efficiently manage inventory is just one piece of the puzzle. To make data-driven decisions and optimize store performance, Quality Roots turns to Flowhub’s View app and visual dashboards for real-time insights.

As Aric says, Quality Roots depends on Flowhub's View app to see "everything."

Quality Roots leverages the clean data at their fingertips to create new growth marketing opportunities.

“It's a huge advantage to see how stores perform minute by minute quickly. I’m a par-level fiend," he laughed. "I constantly review our inventory levels, ensuring every data set pulls correctly. All the reporting mechanisms that Flowhub has built without me needing to go and build them myself have been incredible.”

“Flowhub's the reason I can send 200,000 mailers to customers across Michigan. Customer information has been retained perfectly. Flowhub understands the customer experience and how important it is for retailers to access that data, so customers can come back and experience more."

Competing in a cut-throat market

Michigan's competition is especially steep. Adapting to customer shopping patterns and personalizing the experience has set Quality Roots apart. As markets evolve, understanding who your customers are, what they want, and even predicting their future shopping habits is key to staying ahead.

"I deeply respect these Michigan retailers who also built profitable dispensaries even through the compression period of 2021-2022," Aric reflected. "We understood how to get granular during a tough time, check KPIs, and ensure our P&Ls are strong."

With Flowhub, Quality Roots can create a tailored shopping experience for every customer. The system instantly recognizes whether someone is visiting for the first time or is a returning shopper, giving budtenders the insights they need to offer personalized service and suggest relevant products.

"When a customer walks into my store for the first time, my budtender knows it the second they check in because of Flowhub," Aric said. "If they've been there before, our team can see their purchase history, spending habits by category, and preferred brands. That information allows us to curate a more tailored shopping experience that keeps them coming back."

Flowhub's ease of use plays a major role in running efficient dispensary operations from front to back of house.

Dispensary deals and promotions are integral to any growth strategy, but shortsighted discounts can lead to a race to the bottom. Quality Roots has found success in updating their discounts every few months using Flowhub Deals.

"It's important to know your market," Jonathan told us. "Different markets have different competitors with different price points. Some markets have a lot of customers who buy in bulk, but others have a small percentage of such customers. Knowing the individual markets helps us create effective promotional strategies."

"We have a store in Hamtramck, Michigan, where you see more daily consumers," Jeremy added. "You'll see people coming in sometimes twice a day for pre-rolls or eighths at that location. Then we have more rural stores. They're shopping like they would at Costco and coming in once a week to stock up."

"The efficiency of building, testing, and analyzing deals is huge," Jonathan continued. "We can look at reports to see what's working, what isn’t, and what we can improve next time. There isn’t one deal or special that always works—it depends on the market. Our goal is to always understand what people want, provide the best price, and incentivize larger purchases."

Most importantly, the discounting process is seamless at checkout.

Grow your dispensary like Quality Roots

The right technology acts as a reliable, always-on partner for dispensary growth.

“Flowhub helped us transform our SOPs, made them simpler, and helped us realize things we didn’t need to do,” Aric said. “Most point-of-sale providers in any space build and then forget. They forget that software is something that constantly needs to be maintained.”

As Quality Roots grows, Flowhub will proudly power every dispensary transaction.

Thank you so much Aric, Jonathan, and Jeremy at Quality Roots for sharing your success story with us. We’re huge fans of Quality Roots and are here to support you as you continue to grow! 🚀