The Ontario Cannabis Store unveiled its latest products Friday ahead of them hitting retail store shelves on Monday, including edibles such as gummies and chocolates, vapes and one tea.
OCS vice-president of corporate affairs David Lobo said around 60 products will be delivered to locations in limited supply.
"They will be able to start selling those products whenever they choose, and so they may choose to take time, or to bring those out to market right away," he said, although he expects those shipments to sell out very quickly.
The OCS wanted to give the private sector stores a first go at the new products, which will then become available online on January 16th.
The store will not prioritize one region, such as Toronto, over another, so all stores will get the same limited supplies to begin with, which will depend on what sort of orders they get from stores which began Friday.
Lobo said while there will be limits early on, he does not expect shortages to continue for long, as compared to the dried buds when sales first began.
February and March is when he expects the supply issues to be resolved, which is also when other new products will come online.
"We believe that the start of more extract concentrate products, hash, etc., will start to get to market, topical creams at this point, we're looking at late February, to begining to March for products to start," he said. "Again, these are the current updates we have from licensed producers."
As for pricing, the OCS says vapes will have a wide range, due to differences in concentrations and volumes, but will start around $40.
The tea and chocolate bars will both be around $7.
Some critics have pointed to high prices of initial legal products as deterring more customers from leaving the black market, but director of merchandise Kevin Lam says that's a focus for public education around safety.
"The understanding that a lot of the illegal market product has not been tested, has not been verified by our QA (quality assessment) or any QA process for that matter," he said. "Consumers have the assurance that the product produces will be what they're expecting."
As for finances, after an expected loss last year, Lobo said they're expecting to profit by the end of this fiscal year, with more specific details coming in the Ontario Government's spring budget.