The province of Ontario is officially going crazy for Original Stash.
That’s the new 28-gram dried flower product from Hexo that was released on the OCS’s website last week in time for Black Friday.
Suffice it to say, the old school 28-gram—or one ounce—package size has been a hit.
The process of selling inexpensive cannabis in bulk is a new tactic from Hexo, a company that made headlines in November after discovering unlicensed cannabis cultivation rooms at a now-shuttered Niagara, ON facility. The facility had been acquired from Newstrike Brands earlier this year.
The Original Stash product retails for approximately $125 in Quebec and $140 in Ontario, both with tax included.
The company has made changes to its product lines over the years, previously selling $15 grams of medical cannabis under the Hydropothecary brand. Now, Hexo carries cheaper strains under its namesake brand on both the medical and recreational sides.
Twitter user WhatsMyPot, using publicly-available data from the Ontario Cannabis Store, found that as of Dec. 1, just over 40,000 grams of the product had been sold. At $5 a gram, that meant the product amassed $200,000 in sales, which isn’t bad for a single new SKU over one weekend.
Update:
Just shy of 40kg of Original Stash product been absorbed by the Ontario market since it’s debut on Thursday night.
During the peak on Friday, 1 of every 3 grams sold by OCS was OS220.
It sold out for a few hours today.. How much more of this have they got, I wonder? ???? pic.twitter.com/J5uoVIfs9M
— WhatsMyPot ???????????????? (@WhatsMyPot) December 1, 2019
WhatsMyPot, a husband and wife team focused on providing “original research” to its followers, figured that at the peak of the pandemonium on Black Friday, one of every three grams sold by the Ontario Cannabis Store was from an Original Stash ounce.
The 28-gram product briefly went out of stock on Dec. 2 and 3, but is now in stock as of press time. Could this signify the beginning of a “price war” between products? The OCS has announced no less than 70 price drops since legalization.
Consumers should be on the lookout for more inexpensive bulk cannabis options in the future. There’s no telling how far the average bulk sale price will drop on the Canadian market.
Harrison Jordan
Harrison Jordan is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and enjoys reading and writing about the regulatory affairs of cannabis in Canada and around the world.