The Ontario Cannabis store released their annual year in review today, covering April 2020 to March 2021, showing significant industry growth in the province. 

Ontario sold 99,100,000 grams of cannabis, the bulk of it being sold through private retailers. 81,500,000 grams were sold in stores while another 17,600,000 were sold on ocs.ca.

The number of stores in Ontario increased significantly over the past year, with 800 currently operating. The average distance to a store for residents in Ontario is now below 6.5 kilometres, down from almost 20 kilometres less than a year ago. The provincial distributor expects 1,000 stores to be authorized to open by this September. 

Ontario’s legal share of the recreational market nearly doubled from 20% during the 2019 – 2020 fiscal year to 37.6% in this past fiscal year. This last quarter, Ontario’s legal share of the recreational market increased by 1% point compared to Q3, reaching 44%.

Dried flower continued to lead sales, with over 59% of sales, followed by vapes at 16% and pre-rolls at 12%. Edibles made up 4% of all sales, as did oils. Capsules and beverages were both 2% of sales, as were cannabis concentrates like hash, rosins, resins, shatters, etc. Topicals made up 1% of sales, and seeds less than 1%. 

Vape sales represented an increase of 795% in sales from last fiscal. 74% of these sales were attributed to 510 cartridges while disposable vape pens continued to see a steady decline each quarter. Soft chews dominated the edibles category as chocolate, baked goods and hard edibles declined in sales. 

Of dried cannabis sales, 3.5 gram allotments continued to dominate, while larger categories like 28 grams have slowly increased in sales. Bulk categories like 14, 15 and 28 grams grew from 12 to 84 SKUs this past year. 

So-called “soft chews” or gummies dominated the edibles category, showing significant increases, while beverages and chocolate showed declines. 

The average price per gram also decreased to $6.17 per gram on the OCS.ca and retail stores reduced their prices to $8.87 per gram on average by the end of the fourth quarter.