flower Archives - Green Market Report

Debra BorchardtJuly 11, 2022
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5min00

It seems Canadian cannabis consumers prefer to pay higher prices for flower. A new report from Cantor Fitzgerald’s analyst Pablo Zuanic found that most of the Canadian Licensed Producers (LP’s) increased market share with higher flower prices. The only exception to the rule was Organigram (NASDAQ: OGI), which saw its market jump dramatically after dropping prices almost by half.

Flower Power

Zuanic said he analyzed the 35 companies that accounted for 90% of Canadian flower sales in 2Q22 and looked at how those companies’ market share has changed over the last two years. Due to market competition, there are now 126 companies competing in the flower space versus just 53 two years ago.  Consumers are spreading their money around and the once-dominant flower sellers are now seeing lots of competition. For example, in 2Q20 just 10 LPs accounted for 90% of flower sales. Fast forward one year to 2021 and there were 19 LPs and in the most recent second quarter, 35 LPs.

He found that the bulk of the companies gaining market share in Canadian flower actually have prices above the market average, while those losing market share have prices below the market average and in most cases have also cut prices the most. He wrote, “We think the larger players for the most part may continue to lose market share, as price cuts are not enough. Sure, it is not just about better quality, but interesting that the ones gaining share are not price discounters (ankle biters, as called by some) but those with more premium offerings.”

Significant Growth

6 LPs grew their share of flower sales by more than 3pt.  The 6 LPs which grew their flower share by more than 3pt from 2Q20 to 2Q22 had an average price per gram of $5.13, 4% below the average price of $5.36. Zuanic’s hypothesis is that market share was gained with higher prices and this doesn’t seem to track, however, the price is only 4% below average. The losers had much bigger price drops.

Minor Growth

18 LPs grew their share of flower sales by between 1-2pt. The 18 LPs which grew their flower share between 1-2pt from 2Q20 to 2Q22 had an average price per gram of $7.78, 45% above the average price of $5.36.

Market Losses

The LP’s with market share losses ranging from 3pts. to 1 pt all had prices that were anywhere from 14% below the average flower price to 41% below average prices.

Organigram Bucks Trend

The big outlier was Organigram (NASDAQ: OGI) which saw its market share for flower, increasing share from 5% in 2Q20 to 12% in 2Q22. Zuanic wrote, “Organigram gained share by reducing their flower price per gram by 48% over the two-year period from $8.82 (5% premium to 2Q20 average price per gram of $8.37) to $4.56 (15% discount to 2Q22 average price per gram of $5.36).”

Other big losers included Aurora (NASDAQ: ACB) whose flower market share plunged from 21% in 2Q20 to 2% in 2Q22. Also losing share was Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY) whose share decreased from 19% in 2Q20 to 8% in 2Q22.

In Closing

Zuanic believes that Canadian cannabis consumers are maturing and focusing more on quality than they had in the past. Cutting prices doesn’t seem to bring in more sales. It could also be that with more competition, consumers may have a harder time choosing which flower to buy. They could be opting for the higher-priced product in order to assure their money is well-spent.


Julie AitchesonMay 16, 2022
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4min00

In the cannabis market, Flower continues to reign supreme as the dominant category in every market, though according to a recent Headset report, market share is declining in both the US and Canada. Be that as it may, cannabis flower is likely to hold its top spot as the consumer favorite for some time to come as the least processed and most versatile (albeit also the most susceptible to commoditization and price compression) of all categories. Headset’s report looks at changes in market share over time, segments, pricing, demographics, and other metrics of performance in the Flower category. Data was collected from real-time sales reporting by participating cannabis retailers via their point-of-sale systems.

Despite the fact that in Canada, flower market share declined from 78.8% to 42.5% with a less precipitous drop from 41% to 40.4% in the US, Flower’s popularity still trumps Pre-rolls (Canada) and Vape Pens (US), which are next highest-grossing categories in those countries. The market share decline has seen a commensurate drop in price, with the average EQ price falling by -22% in the US and -17% in Canada from January 2021 to March 2022.

The early days of the Covid-19 pandemic saw an early surge in Flower sales, but that trend reversed itself in early 2021, bringing market share to its current status at lower than pre-pandemic levels. In Canada, Ontario (home of densely-populated Toronto) sees a substantially larger proportion of total sales in the Flower category than other provinces, while in the US Maryland (47.5%) and Michigan (48.9%) hold down the higher end of market share. Last year this distinction went to Nevada at 56.3%, which has since fallen to 46%. Headset’s data shows that every market has declined in market share since last year.

Prices Plunge

EQ pricing for Flower in Canada dropped steadily throughout 2021, plunging by 17% from January 2021 to March 2022. In the US, that drop gained momentum starting in September, declining by -22% in the same period. 

Male customers typically spend more of what’s in their wallet on flower than their female counterparts, with male Baby Boomers leading generational categories with a wallet share of 49.3% in Canada and 50.6% in the US. Gen Z holds the least wallet share, spending just a bit more than 1/3 of their total cannabis budget on flower as opposed to other products.

While Flower is in no danger of losing its ranking as the dominant product category for consumers in the US and Canada, the decline in popularity reflected in Headset’s data demands a response from cannabis companies to keep prices and demand steady. Finding creative ways to market toward women and less enthusiastic consumers in the Gen Z, Millennial, and Gen X generations while maintaining the loyalty and enthusiasm of its more robust male and Baby Boomer base may go a long way towards reversing the downward trend in Flower in the year to come.


Julie AitchesonSeptember 3, 2021
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4min00

It’s that time of the month again when cannabis industry wholesale marketplace LeafLink releases LeafLink Insights Flash—a roundup of data-driven insights regarding category sales, state-by-state performance, and pricing analysis designed to help businesses identify new opportunities and accelerate growth. Every month brings its own set of highlights that point to important trends, market shifts, and recommendations for what it all means for businesses. This time it could be that the category winner flower is losing its market share power.

The August 2021 Insights Flash yielded some key takeaways, including the fact that the wholesale cannabis industry grew by 43% in July 2021 YoY (Year over Year), with top-performing brands like Item 9 Labs, Jeeter, Spectra, Platinum Vape, CannaPunch, and LTRMN leading the charge. Average sales per seller grew 1% year over year, with the average spend per buyer increasing 6%. But all was not rosy for cannabis’s most popular consumable. Flower took a hit this summer, seeing the largest drop in platform market share from June 2021 to July 2021. Despite a 6% dip in sales and a .74% drop in market share, flower held its dominant position for the month of July with 36% of GMV. Pre-rolls saw the largest increase during July, gaining .84 percentage points month over month and making it the first time the category led in share growth since 2020.

Within the US, Nevada gained the top spot as the fastest-growing state in Gross Merchandise Value (i.e., the volume of goods sold via customer-to-customer or e-commerce platforms), with a 25% increase in GMV compared to the same period a year ago. LeafLink gathers market-specific information and conducts comparative analyses for key states each month, with Alaska, Oregon, California, Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan joining Nevada for inclusion in the data collection. This analysis showed, among other things, that although Nevada retailers in the 2nd quintile spent 27% more than those in the same quintile in Alaska, the difference in the order of frequency ends up making this group of retailers worth 171% more on a monthly basis in Alaska.

LeafLink’s Insight Flash also charts consumer trends to create a visual representation of the competitiveness of seven categories of cannabis products (flower, cartridges, pre-rolls, topicals, accessories, concentrates, and edibles/ingestibles). This information, which this month demonstrated that (for the first time) a single state (Nevada) had both the most and least competitive categories. Ingestibles in Nevada made up 14% of sales while being sold by 54% of brands in the state. Flower made up 36% of sales while being sold by 26% of brands. This type of data helps industry professionals to position themselves to capitalize on where the market is headed based on current trends, as well as painting an overall picture of the cannabis industry’s current overall trajectory.


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