What is a brand ?
The word “brand” has become watered down, especially in the cannabis space. There are so many of them, with few being memorable in any way. This is because of a number of reasons. Much of which boils down to consistency and cultural relevance.
Caked Culture - It's a lifestyle
Legalization
Legalization and semi legalization has every opportunist rushing into the space, trying to cash in. With high barriers to entry and lack of public education, it’s created a wild Wild West type of free for all. Where everyone has their own “brand”. What these “brands” really are, is people putting a product they know nothing about, into a well decorated package, knowing the consumer likely will not know the difference either.
How most cannabis brands work today are either a grower purchasing a strain from a public nursery or something like that, to then grow and likely white label to someone who wants to start a brand. The brand team / owner is more like a strain promoter, than a brand. No different from a candy brand buying bulk candies from Costco and putting them into their own packaging. Sometimes that packaging gets them a premium price for that same bulk candy that everyone else has access to. When everyone has access to the same resources and supply chain, it makes the game more about who has the better marketing abilities vs consistency, quality and leaving a memorable impression. To us thats middle man or broker at best, but that’s not a brand. A brand needs to be vertically integrated with its own proprietary genetics, cultivation and in-house QC.
A true brand comes to fruition through its soul and a soul cannot be manufactured, funded or created without cultural support and impact. It’s organic and in our case, created us.
We are not a couple buddies outta retirement looking for our next hobby or trained and defected from legal industry, with a degree in growing tomatos. We’re also not working with or affiliated with a publicly traded company or equity fund of any sort. We’re legacy to the bone gristle.
Who are we
Caked, at face value, is a reference to the amount of crystal / tricombs/ frost on a bud.
It is a common term in our circles that is and was once a data point of progress and then became our stamp, stickered on our packs. Not only a stamp of quality but one that sets us apart from the rest. Before legalization until present, our name was and is synonymous in many of the high end cannabis markets, with having some of the most unique and high end LOUD, STICKY and FROSTED packs. These markets stretched all over Canada and …..
. For years we built our reputation of being those guys with the next level quad packs and genetic progression. Whether it was our specific hempstar cut in the very early 2000s, or our epic lime green, Green Crack in the mid to later 2000s. From “Trainwreck “ to PK ( purple kush ) all the way into the mid 2010s, when different exotic strains really got their legs and became their own sub brands. We were growing and or quarter backing them. We could go on and on with the headlock we had on these and many other strains and markets over the past 25 years.
What is Legacy
During the times, before legalization, before the “grey market” dispensary rush, it was a whole different type of game .. The police raids, the robberies, the violence, the gangster element came with the territory. There is something to be said for those who were able to navigate through those elements and still manage to push the needle, in a make shift basement grow, that shouldn’t have worked, but somehow did. There was no high tech grow equipment. It was all makeshift setups in basements and crawl spaces, with random gardening equipment. Yet somehow was still able to pump out absolute quality. When you would gamble that valuable square footage and risk it all rolling the dice popping a bag seed or home made breeding project, all in hopes of finding that new new. When you have that much on the line and your trading the potential profits just in hopes to find that new strain. Thats passion that cannot be recreated, bought or manufactured in the safe legal landscape now. It’s crazy to us that now, with all this high tech grow equipment, most of your cultivators can’t grow a comparable quality product. Instead they have just scaled the ability to grow mass quantities of mids.
This made those who lived through it and continued in the space, thicker skinned, more resilient and in many cases, territorial towards non legacy boomers. As the weak would usually end up becoming food. This would draw a line in the sand for who the real players were. Growers, brokers, smugglers etc. We were all outlaws. These are the legacy players and the stripes earned in order to be considered one. Right before legalization and once legalization came, is when it became much more safe and attracted a whole new breed of characters with a much lower risk tolerance into the space.
What makes Caked different
Caked is a representation of our eye for perfection, dedication to the plant and its evolution through the raids, losses and dues we’ve paid over our last 20+ years in the game. The hardness and hustle built into a true legacy player, will only be understood by those who lived it and is unmatched by those who didn’t. It’s an underground fraternity of the fearless who refused to quit and much of the time put their love for the plant and its progression, over profit. It’s also a representation of us and our lifestyle through music, fashion and culture. It’s what we like, what we smoke and how we smoke it. It’s our story, struggles and wins all rolled up together.
Our Genetics and Cultivation
With the exception of a couple of our true legacy kush / landrace cuts, everything is phenod and or bred by us, through out the years. These are cuts that have survived the dark side of the industry or our own unique representation of each strain we chose from seed, in house. We may offer some of the same strains as other brands, but ours is how we feel it should be represented and is unique to us and our pallet.
A critical part of our identity, all starts with our passion for Gentics. Not only having the genetics that are hot right now or in the past, but curating and progressing the genetics of tomorrow. Our vertically integrated and exclusive genetics program keeps us relevant and allows us to really incubate and curate the next waves and trends in the industry, while taste making and showcasing each strain’s unique expression through our lens. As well as maintaining and preserving the profiles and flavors of the past. Cannabis has a personal relationship with each consumer’s preferences . This is through things like taste, smell, structure and effect. These differences and identifiable characteristics are what we build our menu around, offering flavor and effect profiles for just about everyone.
The second part of our system is cultivation and the protection of our genetics. All of our genetics are ONLY grown and processed by us, organically, in our own facilities. This allows us to properly QC all products and maintain consistency. All of our flower is organic and all of our extracts are solventless. We feel the purest form and highest quality of an extract, can only be achieved through solventless extraction. We offer a full melt hash, live rosin and 100% pure rosin cartridges.
Our Partners
medical program or were invited to one of our hosted events. We have had a number of opportunities to attach our brand to a bunch of different avenues in a few different counties, but none we felt complimented the brand and shared in the struggles and vision, like the Mohawks. We have exclusively partnered with the Mohawks in 2 different countries. We brought our genetics, experience and SOPs to a few of their facilities in both Canada and the USA. Alongside them, we QC and hand select only what passes the high bar we have set. We provide the materials, recipes and packaging for them to make it official. Everything is cultivated, selected, packaged, processed and sold EXCLUSIVELY on their territory and affiliates territory. We have trained and have our team fully licensed and compliant cultivating on both sides of the boarder.
All USA products are cultivated, packaged and selected with our First Nations partners on Native land in the USA
All Canadian products are cultivated, packaged and selected with our First Nations partners on Native land in the Canada
Our Portfolio Events
Not all weed is created equal !! We are true designer weed brand. We focus on flavor and experience over all else. We let the other guys chase the lab numbers and percentages. The truth is that every persons experience, is going to be different depending on their bodies genetics and the strain being consumed. A 30% canabanoid strain may have a much lessor psychedelic effect than a 20% strain. It totally depends on the person. Although we provide that information as a data point, we don’t want people to get distracted by big brands cheap marketing ploys. If anything, it’s the terpenes that have more of a correlation on effect but there is still a lot of unknown around that.