Canadian cannabis consumers love nothing more than to weigh in on our country’s legalization rollout. In Ontario — often cited as having one of the worst of all the provinces — that often means a whole lot of criticism.

From the ill-conceived storefront licence lottery to complaints about quality and pricing, there’s been no shortage of issues to shake one’s head at. But the Ontario Cannabis Store has been hard at work listening to feedback, adjusting prices and perhaps most importantly, collecting data about these all-important early days for the burgeoning sector.

On Monday, the OCS released a report revealing a few surprising (and not-so-surprising) insights into what types of products and brands customers have been buying, and from where, in its first full fiscal year (April 2019 to March 2020).

These are some of the clear winners from this important initial report (PDF).

Storefronts

Newly licensed retailers are still opening stores and existing storefronts are pivoting to new services like delivery and curbside pick-up through the pandemic — all good things, according to the OCS report.

Despite the low number of storefronts in Ontario (which grew from nine to 53 in the last year) compared to less populous provinces, consumers have not been discouraged. Of the total 35,100,000 grams of cannabis sold in the province between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020, 27,900,000 grams (or 79 per cent) were sold through bricks-and-mortar retailers.

Cannabis 2.0: Aurora Drift, Canna Farms and Redecan

A few months ago, we theorized about why some brands were more sought-after than others on the OCS website. The latest report gives us a better sense of the types of products people were likely searching for.

Aurora Drift has emerged as a market leader in the edibles category, with 27 per cent of edibles sales on OCS.ca and 25 per cent in storefronts; Canna Farms has emerged as a market leader in the less competitive concentrates market with 59 per cent of sales on OCS.ca and 68 per cent in stores. And Redecan’s vapes are a clear favourite, likely because of the brand’s higher THC potency, with 14 per cent of vape sales on OCS.ca and 24 per cent in stores.

Dried flower

We’ll likely continue seeing an increase in the total market share of the new 2.0 products as prices are corrected and more competition comes online — they were only introduced last winter. But many consumers preferred dried flower over oils in the first year of legal sales in Ontario, with $47,300,000 or 5,500,000 grams sold on OCS.ca, and $227,600,000 or 22,300,000 grams sold through storefronts.

Although Aurora, San Rafael ‘71, Redecan, Edison, Pure Sunfarms and Tweed top the list’s most popular brands, there isn’t a clear winner among them  — evidence of stronger competition among the offerings in that category.

Quality control

The cannabis industry has had its share of compliance infractions and complaints, but the OCS says the number of complaints pertaining to quality decreased over the course of the year.

There was a total of 71 quality assurance complaints pertaining to accessories, and 2,881 for cannabis products over the course of the year. “The top product complaints the OCS received were related to dryness, underweight products and potency range,” notes the report.