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Deion Medina, Co-Founder and Jonathan Low, Co-FounderThis statement rings particularly true for Vertical Supply Co., a full-service cannabis packaging and ancillary provider. Founded by individuals with first-hand experience in cannabis cultivation, extraction and retail, Vertical Supply brings insider expertise to an industry where operational complexity and regulatory volatility are the norm.
“We are in cannabis, have been in cannabis, and we understand clients' pain points even before they tell us,” says Jonathan Low, co-founder. “Our goal is to make everyone's life easier.”
Vertical Supply is a one-stop solution for companies struggling to balance complex packaging and hardware supply chain needs. It delivers end-to-end solutions, including custom packaging, vape hardware, logistics, promotional products, compliance and in-house design. This eliminates the need for multiple vendors and streamlines the entire process. Its global network of partners allows it to source materials and components worldwide, providing clients with flexible, cost-efficient and scalable manufacturing solutions that deliver regulatory-ready products tailored for changing market demands.
Its packaging services comprise a range of options, including jars, pouches, boxes and labels across all cannabis product categories. An in-house design team creates packaging concepts that align with clients’ brand goals while ensuring full compliance with cannabis regulations, including child-resistant features, state-specific labeling requirements and FDA approvals. These production-ready designs seamlessly move to manufacturing partners, accelerating the transition from concept to finished product for clients.
Vertical Supply also offers a comprehensive range of vape hardware, including customizable empty vape pens, cartridges and pods designed for brands. Complementing its core services is a selection of promotional products, like branded lighters, apparel, rolling trays and dispensary display materials, designed to enhance brand visibility and extend consumer engagement beyond the product itself.
Unlike its competitors, who are often sub-brands of legacy packaging firms, Vertical Supply’s cannabis-first perspective enables it to anticipate client pain points and adapt quickly. As a result, it can tailor packaging and ancillary products to fit operational processes, regulatory demands and market preferences without going through a trial and error process. Its mission is to handle the operational backend for brands so they can focus on growth instead of fulfillment.
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We are in cannabis, have been in cannabis, and we understand clients' pain points even before they tell us. Our goal is to make everyone's life easier.
“Our prior experience enables us to build smarter, more practical solutions, helping us connect with our customers,” says Deion Medina, co-founder.
Real-world scenarios where Vertical Supply’s services have proven to be a game-changer for clients are plenty. In one instance, a leading cannabis flower company facing a decline in the market turned to Vertical Supply for support. It recommended expanding into the vape category and managed the entire process, from sourcing advanced hardware and presenting tailored technology options to developing a fully customized form factor and overseeing production and logistics. Within two years, the brand successfully established itself as one of the top three vape brands in the U.S.
The name Vertical Supply reflects its focus on serving vertically integrated businesses, aiming to provide everything essential for their operations. As the industry expands into more categories, it is positioning itself to support the new segments while exploring new technologies and different form factors.
A deep understanding of regulatory frameworks combined with a forward-thinking approach has cemented Vertical Supply Co.’s position as a strategic partner for long-term success in a highly regulated and competitive industry.
Packaging Decisions Are Quietly Reshaping Cannabis Margins
Packaging discussions in cannabis rarely stay confined to packaging. Delays in child-resistant certification can stall launches for weeks. Poor inventory coordination leaves operators sitting on obsolete printed materials after a compliance revision. Vape hardware inconsistency creates downstream problems that surface at retail counters rather than procurement meetings. Many operators enter vendor relationships assuming they are buying containers, labels or cartridges. The real purchase is coordination.
That pressure has intensified as cannabis brands expand product counts without expanding internal procurement infrastructure. A single operator may carry flower, infused pre-rolls, concentrates and disposable vapes across several markets, each with different labeling obligations and packaging standards. Internal teams end up managing separate packaging suppliers, design revisions, freight timelines and hardware sourcing simultaneously. Friction accumulates in handoffs rather than headline failures.
Procurement teams are now more careful with suppliers who treat cannabis as just a side business. Packaging companies from other industries may know manufacturing, but they often have trouble keeping up with retail demands, dispensary needs, or changing compliance rules in different areas. Buyers want suppliers who really understand how cannabis products move from cultivation to store shelves, since packaging now impacts launch timing, how products look in stores, and inventory risks all at once.
That has changed the practical standard for evaluating packaging partners. Buyers tend to prioritize suppliers that can consolidate sourcing across multiple packaging formats instead of introducing additional vendor layers. The appeal is less about convenience than administrative control. Coordinating jars, folding cartons, labels and vape components across disconnected providers creates approval bottlenecks that compound during new product launches or state expansions.
Design support has also become harder to separate from procurement itself. Brand teams still control visual identity, yet many operators lack the internal bandwidth to manage repeated packaging revisions tied to regulation updates, SKU expansion or hardware compatibility changes. Suppliers that can bridge design coordination with manufacturing timelines reduce revision cycles that otherwise create avoidable delays.
Vape hardware has introduced another layer of scrutiny. Hardware selection now carries implications for defect rates, customer complaints and long-term brand positioning. Procurement teams increasingly evaluate whether a supplier can narrow the field of viable hardware options instead of pushing buyers through fragmented sourcing exercises with inconsistent quality control. That matters more in a market where product failures circulate publicly within days.
Cost discipline remains central, though buyers have become more skeptical of low-price sourcing models that create downstream instability. A cheaper packaging run loses value quickly if timelines slip, compliance details are missed or replacement inventory arrives inconsistently. Predictability has become more valuable than aggressive quoting in many purchasing conversations.
Vertical Supply aligns closely with the coordination pressures cannabis operators are dealing with right now. Its background across cultivation, extraction and retail appears to shape how it approaches packaging decisions and vape hardware sourcing. Vertical Supply combines packaging procurement, in-house design support and vape hardware sourcing under a single supply structure rather than treating them as disconnected services. Its emphasis on vendor coordination, compliance awareness and hardware selection reflects the friction points weighing on multi-SKU cannabis operators. For buyers trying to reduce procurement complexity without adding another intermediary layer, Vertical Supply presents a credible packaging partner.
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