The Origin of Siam Green: From Ethical Eggs to Cannabis with Purpose

The story behind one of Thailand’s most trusted dispensary chains and the main behind it all.

“We bring a lot with us as we move throughout our careers.” Gaurav Sehgal, Co-Founder and CEO of Siam Green Cannabis Co recalls his days in the past as he reminisces his journey from eggs to weed.

“It’s crazy to think back about how many fields I’ve been involved in. From working with my brother in publishing, travel, and hospitality, to forming and selling my own events company in 2009, to then forming a social media business in 2015, to joining a social enterprise organic egg project in the North of Thailand that till date is still supporting the livelihoods of overlooked hilltribe farmers. Following this I got involved in the launching of several other companies in the same group including bottled organic coconut water, chia seeds, noodles, rice, and much more, selling in Thailand as well as exporting all over the world.” 

Expanding into Thailand’s Cannabis Scene

“My journey began with joining a cannabis company that was established and just starting to grow its roots as the Senior Vice President of Operations where I helped to get its wheels in motion – hiring staff, constructing facilities, setting systems, and getting people fired up. Great company with great minds – but after close to a year,  I realized I had a personal mission that needed to be fulfilled, one that required some autonomy. After politely bowing out, I created a business plan and went on a fund raising journey to create a line of CBD-based health products. At the time, this did not exist yet in Thailand. I teamed up with a few others, found interested investors, some stayed, some left along the way – there were different business plans and ideas thrown around, but nothing was quite moving forward because we could not agree on a final business plan. 

June 9th, 2022 crept up out of nowhere, recreational THC became not only legal, but rampant.  Clearly many were waiting for this day, as a few shops opened on the 22nd itself.  It was the talk of the town – social media feeds were filled with people at dispensaries buying weed, smoking it, and almost parading around town with it.  The investors I had gathered had agreed to put in funds ASAP if we shift the goal to cannabis retail – larger market, immediate revenue, less education needed, direct access to consumers, and still provides an avenue to launch products whenever we plan to. I said let’s do it, but we need to fill a few gaps in the current market.  We need to focus on serious quality control, destigmatization, and education. Many stores I visited were clearly not operating as professional businesses, but more living rooms where the owner would hang out, indulge, sell, without any real quality control processes, no concern of contamination, mold control, all of which can seriously harm consumers.  The final straw was when I was on a trip to the South of Thailand scouting for locations.  When you’ve been in food and beverage manufacturing for almost a decade, mold and contamination become your arch nemesis, and you quickly develop eagle-eye vision for these things.  Walking past a store where jars of cannabis were placed in tropical, humid heat, I could see serious mold growth in more than a few of the jars. In English, I pointed this out to the guy behind the counter purposely so he wouldn’t know I’m actually fluent in Thai, to which he replied, “Thank you sir! I’ll throw this away immediately.” Much to my unpleasant surprise, he hands the jar to his staff and in Thai, says, “Turn this into pre-rolls, let’s sell it quickly.” A part of me wanted to report this to the health department, but a bigger part of me wanted to take all of his jars and personally see to their destruction.”

Bringing all of my knowledge in management, quality control, and nascent markets, my partners & I made sure we hired the best team, provided them (and still continue to til this day) with weekly cannabis education, covering everything from politics to health to quality control and beyond, built stores which are more of an inviting retail experience with a big health focus, than your run of the mill smoke shop, and kept our values and our ethics strong, always making sure that the end consumer is the targeted focus of every business decision. Siam Green continues to grow on this trajectory. Never have we compromised on quality for the sake of profit. Never have we compromised on trying our best to provide each and every customer the most amazing experience possible, and never have we compromised on learning and growing as we go.  All of our flowers are also stored in high-tech temperature & humidity controlled units that notify several of us instantaneously if anything ever goes wrong, or thresholds are not held. We maintain strict standards when not only choosing to work with a farm, but even specific harvests from that farm.  We have bullet-proof SOPs on the entire supply chain from receiving product to handing it over to the customer, on hygiene, contamination control, and more.

In the process of this, I happened to (almost accidentally) start a cannabis industry professionals online network.  What began as a small Whatsapp group of close, like-minded industry professionals called Thai Cannabis Network quickly grew into a network of 500 industry members which now also contains a sub-group of vetted industry leaders. The goal is to gradually raise the image of cannabis in Thailand, maintain standards, keep operations legal, and grow together.

When you keep the end consumer in mind, you don’t stray from the path that your mission set you on, and you have laser sharp focus on attaining goals, profits will come; and they did for Siam Green, within the first year. We wanted to get the highest quality products to as many people as possible, so we never have and never will be lax on our choosing both product or location – it’s not about the number of locations – this is a much easier strategy – it’s really about how many people can you provide the highest quality products and services to. 

A note on the last point – as many will argue this. So I want to be very clear – my destigmatization mission is not for the argument of “everyone should smoke weed and get high because weed is better than alcohol (even though it very clearly causes less organ damage and death).” It’s “if used productively, cannabis can be a fantastic tool for health, economy, social, political, and environmental welfare,” and I invite anybody to challenge me on that point, should you feel the need.

The Siam Green promise is that we will always take your feedback into account, it will reach every level of management, and that we will always strive to bring you the best of the best, in terms of quality, experience, and knowledge!