Flower Union gummies are derived from four ingredients. (Courtesy Flower Union)
Jon Spadafora admires Kind Bars.
“There were two choices on granola bars before: chocolate and tasted good, and healthy and tasted terrible,” said Spadafora, the former president of Veritas Fine Cannabis.
“It was the simplicity of the ingredients that was key,” he said. “You don’t need to have it all jumbled up and filled with GMO crap.”
Veritas, one of Colorado’s first weed wholesalers, shuttered this summer. Now, Spadafora is focusing on his company Flower Union, which he started in August with Veritas co-founder Toby Ripsom.
He aims to do the same thing that Kind did, he said, but with edibles.
“There are a bunch of products that are great, but there’s never been a lot of talk about what’s inside of it, no discussion about simplicity,” Spadafora said.
The Denver-based business’ 10 mg gummy uses just four ingredients: flower, water, a pectin-based gummy material, and an ingredient made by New Mexico-based Azuca that makes the weed water-soluble. You can actually see the bits of pot in the gummy, much like you can see every ingredient in a Kind Bar, Spadafora said.
Jon Spadafora
Many edibles on the market today use dyes and artificial sweeteners and give delayed, unpredictable highs, Spadafora said. Flower Union’s offers a five-to-15 minute onset and a consistent come up and come down. He compared the experience to understanding how one or two beers will affect you when you know you have to drive home after.
“When you eat an edible now, It can take you on this long meandering journey where you don’t know when you’re not gonna be high,” Spadafora said. “The thing with us and Azuca’s tech is that it makes it sessionable.”
The taste also is true to whichever strain is in the gummy rather than being masked by flavored sweeteners. This, he said, makes it the IPA of edibles, as the strong cannabis profile of the gummy compares to the hoppiness of beer.
There are several types available, including Boost, Balance, Unwind and Create. Each name corresponds to the effects of the strain.
“Most of the gummies on the market are using the trim of the product, the byproduct of the flower that’s created,” Spadafora said. “But with whole flower, hopefully, this is the revolution of the edible.”
Flower Union hit the shelves early last month. Spadafora said the company is currently selling only out of smaller dispensaries in Denver and Boulder so his team can spend time explaining the product to budtenders and customers — in the hopes of growing a following of knowledgeable, dedicated users.
Expansion is planned. The gummy will debut in New Jersey, which legalized recreational weed in 2021, this February, Spadafora said. And Flower Union is working on a more potent medical-grade gummy and a 2 mg microdose gummy, as well as cannabis-infused beverages.
“We’re launching at the worst time of the year in a tough market, but the maturity of that market and consumer presents a positive for us,” Spadafora said of the Centennial State, where marijuana has been legal since 2012. The industry boomed during the first year of the pandemic but has cooled the last few years.
Spadafora and Ripsom, who co-founded Veritas in 2014, saw that decline first-hand, laying off staff and closing facilities beginning in 2022. The company, which was one of the first notable wholesale retailers in the state, officially closed in August.
Now with Flower Union, the two aim to correct some of the mistakes that led to Veritas’ shuttering.
Instead of operating and producing out of their own facilities, as Veritas did, Flower Union outsources to heavily vetted, local players. Director of Operations Seamus Dineen, who had the same title at Veritas, leads that effort.
“It means we don’t control as much of our destiny and as big a piece of a pie, but we aren’t responsible for the 140 employees and over 100,000 square feet in facilities,” Spadafora said.
In terms of growing, one of the issues with Veritas was a lack of investment in less-labor intensive cultivation technology, Spadafora said. That caused its bud to eventually sell for higher prices than many competitors.
“We’re now doing things that are hard for others to do, but with Veritas, we never said that we were the only ones that could grow good weed,” Spadafora said. “We weren’t looking to see where we were exposed, but with this we’re looking for all the things we don’t know and will continuously evolve.”
Along with the nicheness of the product, the gummy-making process is much more replicable, allowing the company to be up and running in a new market in months, he said. Because of this, Spadafora believes Flower Union will soon give highs in any state marijuana is legal.
“We created this product and company to produce something without having a huge footprint and paying top dollar to make,” he said. “This will be a first in any market it goes to, and we won’t be reliant on just one customer base.”
Flower Union is backed by one main investor, who declined to disclose his name because of the federal illegality of the plant. Spadafora expects Flower Union to be cash-flow positive by the end of Q1, he said.
“I believe in not too long that this will be a product that people will know and be demanding,” he said.
Flower Union gummies are derived from four ingredients. (Courtesy Flower Union)
Jon Spadafora admires Kind Bars.
“There were two choices on granola bars before: chocolate and tasted good, and healthy and tasted terrible,” said Spadafora, the former president of Veritas Fine Cannabis.
“It was the simplicity of the ingredients that was key,” he said. “You don’t need to have it all jumbled up and filled with GMO crap.”
Veritas, one of Colorado’s first weed wholesalers, shuttered this summer. Now, Spadafora is focusing on his company Flower Union, which he started in August with Veritas co-founder Toby Ripsom.
He aims to do the same thing that Kind did, he said, but with edibles.
“There are a bunch of products that are great, but there’s never been a lot of talk about what’s inside of it, no discussion about simplicity,” Spadafora said.
The Denver-based business’ 10 mg gummy uses just four ingredients: flower, water, a pectin-based gummy material, and an ingredient made by New Mexico-based Azuca that makes the weed water-soluble. You can actually see the bits of pot in the gummy, much like you can see every ingredient in a Kind Bar, Spadafora said.
Jon Spadafora
Many edibles on the market today use dyes and artificial sweeteners and give delayed, unpredictable highs, Spadafora said. Flower Union’s offers a five-to-15 minute onset and a consistent come up and come down. He compared the experience to understanding how one or two beers will affect you when you know you have to drive home after.
“When you eat an edible now, It can take you on this long meandering journey where you don’t know when you’re not gonna be high,” Spadafora said. “The thing with us and Azuca’s tech is that it makes it sessionable.”
The taste also is true to whichever strain is in the gummy rather than being masked by flavored sweeteners. This, he said, makes it the IPA of edibles, as the strong cannabis profile of the gummy compares to the hoppiness of beer.
There are several types available, including Boost, Balance, Unwind and Create. Each name corresponds to the effects of the strain.
“Most of the gummies on the market are using the trim of the product, the byproduct of the flower that’s created,” Spadafora said. “But with whole flower, hopefully, this is the revolution of the edible.”
Flower Union hit the shelves early last month. Spadafora said the company is currently selling only out of smaller dispensaries in Denver and Boulder so his team can spend time explaining the product to budtenders and customers — in the hopes of growing a following of knowledgeable, dedicated users.
Expansion is planned. The gummy will debut in New Jersey, which legalized recreational weed in 2021, this February, Spadafora said. And Flower Union is working on a more potent medical-grade gummy and a 2 mg microdose gummy, as well as cannabis-infused beverages.
“We’re launching at the worst time of the year in a tough market, but the maturity of that market and consumer presents a positive for us,” Spadafora said of the Centennial State, where marijuana has been legal since 2012. The industry boomed during the first year of the pandemic but has cooled the last few years.
Spadafora and Ripsom, who co-founded Veritas in 2014, saw that decline first-hand, laying off staff and closing facilities beginning in 2022. The company, which was one of the first notable wholesale retailers in the state, officially closed in August.
Now with Flower Union, the two aim to correct some of the mistakes that led to Veritas’ shuttering.
Instead of operating and producing out of their own facilities, as Veritas did, Flower Union outsources to heavily vetted, local players. Director of Operations Seamus Dineen, who had the same title at Veritas, leads that effort.
“It means we don’t control as much of our destiny and as big a piece of a pie, but we aren’t responsible for the 140 employees and over 100,000 square feet in facilities,” Spadafora said.
In terms of growing, one of the issues with Veritas was a lack of investment in less-labor intensive cultivation technology, Spadafora said. That caused its bud to eventually sell for higher prices than many competitors.
“We’re now doing things that are hard for others to do, but with Veritas, we never said that we were the only ones that could grow good weed,” Spadafora said. “We weren’t looking to see where we were exposed, but with this we’re looking for all the things we don’t know and will continuously evolve.”
Along with the nicheness of the product, the gummy-making process is much more replicable, allowing the company to be up and running in a new market in months, he said. Because of this, Spadafora believes Flower Union will soon give highs in any state marijuana is legal.
“We created this product and company to produce something without having a huge footprint and paying top dollar to make,” he said. “This will be a first in any market it goes to, and we won’t be reliant on just one customer base.”
Flower Union is backed by one main investor, who declined to disclose his name because of the federal illegality of the plant. Spadafora expects Flower Union to be cash-flow positive by the end of Q1, he said.
“I believe in not too long that this will be a product that people will know and be demanding,” he said.
