Cannabis producers are failing to stand out

Almost a year following legalization, most Canadians don’t know anything about legal cannabis producers, or at least not enough to have an opinion on them.

That’s based on a poll of 1,500 Canadians conducted by Leger in July, with respondents mixed between cannabis consumers and non-consumers. While the survey asked respondents whether they had a “good” or “bad” opinion of different producers, the two most popular responses for every one was either that they didn’t know the producer (at least 50% for all producers and as high as 73% for some), or that they didn’t know enough to have an opinion (between 20% and 28%).

Aurora was the producer viewed the most favourably among Canadians, with 15% having a good opinion of the company and 6% having a bad opinion. However, that’s a slight change from when Leger conducted a similar poll in January, when Aurora had a 21% good opinion and 3% bad opinion. Canopy Growth, the second-ranked producer, had a similar shift: 13% of Canadians have a good opinion of the producer (compared to 17% in January) and 6% have a bad opinion (compared to 3% in January).

Rounding out the most favourably viewed producers was Quebec’s Hexo and Aphria, which both had 7% good opinion and 3% bad opinion. One thing the top-performing producers had in common is that the amount of respondents who didn’t know anything about them went down slightly from January: Aurora went from 55% to 50%, Canopy from 58% to 54%, Hexo from 70% to 68% and Aphria from 71% to 67%.

Overall, distinctions between licensed producers in Canada remains low. Outside of the top four, the differences between good and bad opinions among the 15 other producers in Leger’s results was within the 2.5% margin of error.

The biggest shift in favourability came for CannTrust, which was embroiled in a scandal around unlicensed growing rooms in the time between the two studies. In January, 9% of Canadians had a good opinion of the company and 3% had a bad opinion, placing it third among producers in terms of overall favourability. In the time since, results have shifted to 6% having a good opinion and 7% having a bad opinion, ranking it at number 19.