Union Chill: Honoring a Legacy of Community and Integrity

Union Chill: Building a Legacy Beyond Loss

In the cannabis retail space, where competition is fierce and regulations shift like sand, one New Jersey company chose to honor its founder by doubling down on the values she believed in most. Union Chill Cannabis Company raised $4.2 million in 2025, but the real story isn't about the funding round—it's about a team that refused to let tragedy derail a vision rooted in community, integrity, and social responsibility.

Laurie McHugh founded Union Chill with a mission that went beyond selling cannabis products. She wanted to build something that reflected her commitment to economic success paired with genuine care for the communities they'd serve. But in 2023, just months after opening their doors, McHugh passed away suddenly. What could have been the end of Union Chill became, instead, a crucible that tested whether her vision could survive without her.

The Vision Takes Root

Union Chill launched as something deliberately different in the cannabis retail landscape. While many dispensaries focused purely on transactions, McHugh had envisioned a retail platform that balanced profit with purpose. The idea was simple in concept but demanding in execution: operate with integrity, prioritize community benefit, and create genuine economic opportunity in a space historically marked by regulatory uncertainty and social inequity.

The early days were typical startup chaos. Navigating New Jersey's complex cannabis licensing system alone was a years-long project. The regulatory environment required meticulous documentation, community engagement plans, and compliance protocols that would make most entrepreneurs' heads spin. But McHugh and her team treated these constraints not as obstacles but as opportunities to build the right culture from day one.

"Tragically, our original founder, Laurie McHugh, passed away suddenly a few months after we opened. We're working hard to continue growing and making her vision and focus on community, integrity, social responsibility, and economic success a reality."

These words, from Matthew Borish, the company's vice president of marketing, reveal something crucial about Union Chill's resilience. The team didn't just inherit a business—they inherited a mission statement that had become personal.

The Pivot Point: Keeping the Vision Alive

When McHugh's death occurred, Union Chill faced an inflection point that would define its future. The easy path would have been to sell the company, fold it quietly, or strip away the community-focused elements that made it distinctive. After all, the cannabis retail market rewards efficiency and volume, not necessarily values-driven operations.

Instead, Borish and the team made a different choice. They stepped into leadership roles, absorbed the grief, and committed themselves to continuing what McHugh had started. This wasn't a strategic decision made in a boardroom—it was a cultural one, made by people who had come to believe in something larger than a paycheck.

The milestone that validated this decision came in 2025, when Union Chill successfully raised $4.2 million in funding. In a year when venture capital for retail startups was notoriously difficult to access, the company secured fresh capital. The timing mattered. It signaled that investors were willing to back not just the cannabis opportunity, but Union Chill's specific approach to it.

What Success Looked Like During Uncertainty

The funding round represented more than money. It was validation that a team could execute on a founder's vision even after losing that founder. It proved that Union Chill's operational foundation—built on community trust, regulatory compliance, and transparent practices—was strong enough to weather catastrophic personal loss.

By 2025, Union Chill had moved beyond survival mode. They were expanding, serving more customers, and building out the infrastructure that would allow them to scale the model McHugh had envisioned. The company's product offering grew, their reach extended, and their reputation as a responsible operator in the cannabis space solidified.

What made this possible wasn't just the new capital, though that certainly helped. It was the team's unwavering commitment to the original mission. Every hire, every product decision, every community partnership was filtered through McHugh's values. In some ways, her absence made those values more central, not less. The team had to articulate and defend what she'd built.

Three Lessons for Founders Building Mission-Driven Companies

Union Chill's journey offers powerful lessons for anyone building a company rooted in purpose alongside profit:

1. Your values are your most scalable asset. When circumstances force your team to operate without you—whether through expansion, illness, or tragedy—a strong value system keeps everyone aligned. Union Chill's team didn't need McHugh's voice in the room because her values were already woven into how they made decisions. For founders, this means spending time early on articulating not just what your company does, but why it matters and what principles guide tradeoffs.
2. Community isn't a marketing tool; it's a survival mechanism. Union Chill's focus on community trust and social responsibility became its greatest asset when the company faced internal crisis. The people they served believed in what they were doing. Investors saw that faith reflected in how the community showed up for the company. Mission-driven businesses that actually live their mission create networks of goodwill that commodity businesses can never replicate.
3. Succession planning starts on day one, even for founders. This might be the hardest lesson because no founder wants to imagine the company without them. But McHugh had instilled values so clearly that her team could step forward and lead even in grief. They knew what she would have wanted. They'd internalized her approach to decision-making. Founders should think about how to embed their wisdom into the organization, not just in their own decisions but in the decision-making capacity of the people around them.

The Road Ahead

Union Chill's story isn't finished. With fresh funding and a team committed to a vision forged in adversity, the company is positioned to prove something important: that you can build a profitable cannabis retail platform without sacrificing integrity, that community investment and financial success aren't opposed, and that founders' legacies can live through the people they inspired.

Borish's commitment to making "her vision and focus on community, integrity, social responsibility, and economic success a reality" isn't nostalgia or tribute. It's a deliberate strategic choice to compete on authenticity in a market hungry for it. Union Chill isn't just selling cannabis—they're selling the idea that business can be different.

For Laurie McHugh, that was always the point.

What is your biggest takeaway from this journey? Have you built something rooted in values that went beyond profit, or led a team through unexpected loss? Share your thoughts in the comments below!