Mindy Segal Baking for Medical Marijuana Patients

 

Chicago Celebrity Chef Mindy Segal is getting into a newer, greener business. The Chicago-based James Beard Award winner owns Mindy’s HotChocolate in Bucktown, Illinois, and she’s going to start baking with a new ingredient.

She’s partnered with Cresco Labs, a cannabis cultivator and processor in Illinois, and she’ll be making a line of baked goods for them using modified recipes from her cook book, “Cookie Love.”

The bill to legalize medical marijuana in Illinois passed two years ago, but the industry has only been open for business in the last month. Cresco Labs will be operating three centers in Illinois.

Baked goods are relatively new to the medical marijuana industry, but it provides a viable solution for those who don’t like to or want to smoke, and Segal will be a pioneer in the industry. According to the Chicago Tribune, she’s the first James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef to bake for the medical marijuana industry.

Despite medical marijuana’s legality, there is still a stigma attached. People like Segal, with her brand recognition and credibility will help to take away that stigma. Medical marijuana is prescribed for about 40 different conditions, including cancer. Segal plans to work with different strains and dosages, experimenting until she gets it right.

And while she’s the first, she certainly won’t be the last. The marijuana-infused food industry is only going to grow, and soon its edible component may not be limited to baked goods.

Segal’s kitchen will be in one of Cresco Labs’ cultivation centers and she be supervising. She plans to start in Illinois, and hopes to sell her products in five other states soon.

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