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In this educational episode of the Legacies Podcast, hosts Tom Ritchie and Wesley Bowles discuss social media security and account safety for cannabis brands. They review recent public posts by the AGLC (Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis) and the OCS (Ontario Cannabis Store), analyzing how regulatory bodies navigate the promotion boundaries they enforce on independent retailers. Jonathan Carfield, founder and CEO of AVEO (AVEO Vapor Devices), joins to share his career journey. Starting in Washington and Oregon’s medical cannabis market, Jonathan moved permanently to Shenzhen, China in 2018 to control manufacturing quality. He explains AVEO’s vape hardware design, focusing on reducing single-use waste by engineering long-lasting rechargeable batteries and sustainable materials. Finally, Aaron Anderson, Vice President of Sales at Tricanna Industries, joins the podcast. Aaron talks about his generational history growing up around legacy cannabis and his transition into contract processing, packaging, and B2B scale operations in British Columbia.
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Check out what’s coming up this week on Legacies.
Jonathan Carfield Says: This rechargeable battery was engineered for 140 recharge cycles. When a consumer buys a single-use disposable with one or two milliliters of oil, they recharge it three or four times and throw it in the trash. It is the most wasteful product on the planet, and we need to solve it.
Aaron Anderson Says: In the early days of legalization, they told us we couldn’t do things simultaneously. If they’re going to legalize cannabis, they’re not legalizing it without me!
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, everyone! I’m your host, Tom Ritchie, joined by Wesley ‘The Wizard’ Bowles. Wes, morning! How are you doing today?
Wesley Bowles Says: Good morning! I had an early morning airport drop-off, so I’m a bit tired, but doing well. We’ve got winter rolling in.
Tom Ritchie Says: Let’s remind everyone that Legacies is powered by Breadstack. Retailers, check out the new Farmer Jane website powered by Breadstack. It looks clean, differentiated, and completely moves away from generic, tired Dutchie iframe menus.
Tom Ritchie Says: Speaking of weather, we’ve already had five or six inches of snow up by me. I had to fire up the snowblower twice already!
Wesley Bowles Says: Just a light dusting down in Burlington so far, but winter is definitely here.
Tom Ritchie Says: Did you see Katherine Witt’s post calling out recent provincial regulator social posts? The OCS posted something slightly offside regarding cannabis benefits, and then the AGLC posted an 8-bit retro video game clip of a character running into a dispensary.
Wesley Bowles Says: That AGLC post was pulled down after significant industry backlash. When private brands and retailers try to market, regulators enforce strict Section 17 compliance against youth appeal and lifestyle promotion. When provincial boards publish retro video game animations, it feels like a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ double standard.
Tom Ritchie Says: Harrison Jordan chimed in with legal perspectives on how regulators attempt to justify educational campaigns, but creating 8-bit video game content pushes straight into youth-appeal territory.
Tom Ritchie Says: It amazes me how many cannabis brands still get their Instagram accounts banned. Brands post clear product shots featuring mandatory red THC stop-sign logos, and within days their account disappears.
Wesley Bowles Says: Meta’s AI computer vision models are trained on millions of images. That standardized red Canadian THC warning symbol is instantly detected. The OCR scanners also read text within images, flagging words like ‘cannabis’, ‘THC’, ‘infused’, or ‘sale’.
Wesley Bowles Says: To protect your account:
1. Never post raw product packaging with the red THC warning symbol—use design mockups via tools like Envato Elements that showcase brand artwork without regulated badges.
2. Avoid trigger words in captions and on-screen text, especially commercial terms like ‘sale’ or ‘discount’, which trigger Meta’s regulated goods policies.
3. If you must share compliant behind-the-scenes product content, post it to 24-hour Stories rather than permanent Feed Reels.
4. Accounts are often flagged based on the cumulative ratio of flagged content over time, or through malicious competitor reporting.
Tom Ritchie Says: That’s why our High Flyer and Legacies accounts are extremely disciplined. We have regulators and platforms watching us closely, and we keep our content educational and clean.
Tom Ritchie Says: We are dropping our Legacies Holiday Special during Christmas week, recorded inside Joint Craft’s sensory evaluation room.
Wesley Bowles Says: We’ve got a fantastic multi-brand feature planned with plenty of exclusive behind-the-scenes clips dropping across the holidays.
Tom Ritchie Says: Today we have two heavyweights on the show: Jonathan Carfield, founder of AVEO (formerly AVD), discussing sustainable vape hardware and biodegradable bioplastics, followed by Aaron Anderson of Tricanna Industries, an industry legend with deep legacy roots and extensive beverage alcohol CPG experience.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, Jonathan Carfield! Thanks for joining us from overseas.
Jonathan Carfield Says: Thanks for having me, Tom and Wes! Great to be here.
Tom Ritchie Says: Take us back to 2014 in Washington State. How did you and your wife Paula first encounter the cannabis space?
Jonathan Carfield Says: In 2014, we were living and working in South Korea. Paula’s parents owned a convenience store near a popular campground on the way to Mount Rainier in Alder, Washington. They ran into operational challenges, so we flew back to help manage the store.
Jonathan Carfield Says: Campers came in constantly smelling like cannabis. Paula’s mother suggested stocking smoking accessories. We sourced glassware from the Smoke and Tobacco Expo in Las Vegas, put it on the counter, and it sold out instantly. We applied Coca-Cola style planogram merchandising—building organized, turnkey glass and accessory display cases for convenience stores.
Jonathan Carfield Says: A customer suggested placing those display cases inside medical dispensaries. Within 12 months, we were distributing accessories to 270 dispensaries across Northern California and Washington, becoming major distributors for brands like Grav Labs and Chameleon Glass. Dispensaries appreciated our reliable weekly delivery routes and began asking us to distribute infused cannabis products as well.
Jonathan Carfield Says: We started distributing infused edibles like Oakor sublingual breath strips, and then partnered with X-Cell, a Santa Barbara brand producing pre-filled CO2 oil 510-thread glass cartridges. The product exploded in demand, but the hardware failure rates were severe—leaking tanks, burnt coils, and inconsistent heating elements adapted from nicotine e-cigs like KangerTech and Joyetech.
Jonathan Carfield Says: When Washington State transitioned from the medical collective model to state-licensed adult-use, dispensaries were shut down overnight. We pivoted into becoming a licensed producer/processor, operating under BioTrack traceability. That hands-on processing experience proved that cannabis oil required purpose-built hardware, not repurposed nicotine e-cigarettes.
Jonathan Carfield Says: CCELL came to market with porous ceramic heating elements, which was a massive improvement. We approached CCELL to distribute their hardware across the Pacific Northwest, but they turned us down. I told them: ‘If you won’t let us distribute your hardware, I will go to China and build a company that competes directly with you.’
Jonathan Carfield Says: In spring 2018, Paula and I sold our licensed cannabis assets, took our savings, and permanently relocated to Shenzhen, China. We hired a translator named Marilyn Ma and an experienced Canadian hardware engineer. We visited over 15 manufacturing facilities to understand component-level engineering—silicone gasket tolerances, heating core porosity, airflow channels, and automated quality control.
Jonathan Carfield Says: In 2018, we launched AVD (Advanced Vapor Devices). We scaled from our initial factory in Bao’an to Fuyong, and eventually partnered with a tier-one manufacturing campus in Zhengzhou—mirroring Foxconn’s precision production ecosystem. We owned the intellectual property, design engineering, and manufacturing, while working with a US distribution partner to handle commercial sales.
Jonathan Carfield Says: As AVD gained massive market share, CCELL filed an International Trade Commission (ITC) patent infringement action against nearly 30 companies, naming Paula and me personally. We engaged top IP attorneys and proved our proprietary designs did not infringe on their patents.
Jonathan Carfield Says: That experience taught us that assembling standard cartridges wasn’t enough; we needed to build an advanced materials science and intellectual property company. When our US distributor sought a merger that didn’t align with our long-term vision, we parted ways and established **AVEO** as an independent materials and hardware technology leader.
Jonathan Carfield Says: Traditional petroleum plastics take 80,000+ years to break down and degrade into toxic, airborne microplastics. Recycled ocean plastics are often cost-prohibitive for high-volume consumer packaging.
Jonathan Carfield Says: AVEO engineered a proprietary **hemp-reinforced bioplastic** compounded with a US-developed organic enzyme. The enzyme attracts natural microorganisms present in living soil and marine environments, reducing the polymer chain so microbes fully consume the plastic as organic fertilizer within **3.5 years**, leaving zero microplastics behind.
Tom Ritchie Says: Three and a half years compared to 80,000 years with zero microplastic residue—that is a massive breakthrough for consumer packaged goods across multiple industries!
Jonathan Carfield Says: Single-use disposable all-in-one vapes have taken over both cannabis and nicotine because of consumer convenience. But traditional disposables hardwire a rechargeable lithium-ion battery to a plastic tank, forcing consumers to discard a battery capable of **140 recharge cycles** after just 3 or 4 charges.
Jonathan Carfield Says: We developed the **AVEO Earth** modular platform:
1. The internal chassis contains the battery, USB-C charging port, microprocessor, and LED indicators in a single reusable module.
2. The oil tank snaps into the chassis without hardwired soldering, allowing clean separation.
3. Using our patented unlocking tool, retailers and processors can pop open returned devices in 15 seconds, replace the ten-cent shell and tank, and reuse the battery chassis.
Jonathan Carfield Says: In states with bottle-deposit programs like Michigan, return rates reach 70%. If a brand recovers 50% of devices, they can rebuild them at **40% of the cost of purchasing new units**, aligning environmental sustainability with substantial bottom-line profitability.
Tom Ritchie Says: Jonathan, what you and the AVEO team are building solves one of the biggest environmental challenges facing modern vaporization. Thank you for staying up late and sharing your story with us!
Jonathan Carfield Says: Thank you so much, Tom and Wes! Appreciate the platform.
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome back! We are joined by **Aaron Anderson**, Chief Commercial Officer at **Tricanna Industries**! Aaron, welcome to Legacies!
Aaron Anderson Says: Thanks for having me, guys! Great to be here.
Tom Ritchie Says: Aaron, you’re a true second-generation legacy operator. Tell us about growing up around cannabis in British Columbia.
Aaron Anderson Says: I have baby photos from the 1970s with my parents where you can spot massive outdoor cannabis plants growing in the garden behind us! Growing up on a farm in BC and moving to Victoria and Vancouver, cannabis was completely normalized in my household. My mom would give me bags of weed as a teenager to keep me from drinking bootleg alcohol at parties because it was safer.
Aaron Anderson Says: In the early 2000s, I moved to Halifax for college while serving a conditional sentence. The East Coast market was still dominated by imported hash, and pounds of BC flower were commanding $3,000 each. The local market traded purely in grams—10g, 50g, 100g bags—so we had to master metric conversions quickly.
Aaron Anderson Says: During a college accounting group project at my house, parole officers stormed in for a curfew check. Word spread across campus that I had connections, and soon I was moving 50 pounds a month of BC bud to college students.
Aaron Anderson Says: Right near graduation, police intercepted a six-pound shipment delivered via undercover officers posing as UPS couriers. Facing a minimum one-year sentence in Nova Scotia, my lawyer utilized a legal provision allowing a guilty plea to be entered in any Canadian province. We transferred the case back to BC, where a judge granted a conditional sentence with a 9:00 PM curfew, allowing me to complete my marketing diploma and enter the workforce.
Aaron Anderson Says: I took an entry-level marketing role at a craft brewery for $24,000 a year just to establish legitimate CPG experience. I joined **Parallel 49 Brewing** when they were six months old with 650 hectoliters of capacity. Over five years, we scaled the brewery across three-quarters of a city block, operating 28 100-hectoliter tanks and four 400-hectoliter tanks.
Aaron Anderson Says: Working with provincial liquor control boards taught me how enterprise CPG logistics, purchase orders, general listings, and SKU velocity truly work.
Aaron Anderson Says: When adult-use legalization was announced, I joined a publicly traded licensed producer in November 2017. Everyone assumed existing medical operations would be grandfathered in, but liquor boards treated legalization as a complete regulatory reset.
Aaron Anderson Says: Three weeks before legalization day on October 17, 2018, Health Canada and the RCMP suspended the LP’s license due to non-compliance. My personal shares and family savings were locked under trading halts. I attended an industry micro-cultivation conference hosted by David Brown, met directly with Health Canada compliance directors, and resolved to build a sustainable path forward in legal operations.
Aaron Anderson Says: In 2019, I audited and toured over 90 licensed producer facilities across Canada. I saw everything from $100M pharmaceutical-grade vaults to retrofitted sheds with white poly lining.
Aaron Anderson Says: Many LPs delayed sales applications for 15 months because they misunderstood Health Canada’s requirement to submit two packaging lots, assuming they needed to cultivate massive commercial crops first. Other agile operators acquired compliant biomass, packaged sample lots, and secured sales amendments within four months.
Aaron Anderson Says: In late 2019, we worked alongside Shelter to pioneer brand-licensing partnerships—processing and dropshipping products through partner sales licenses while our own amendments were pending. That structure generated $4.3M in top-line revenue in Q4 2019 alone.
Aaron Anderson Says: In September 2023, I joined **Tricanna Industries** in Mission, BC. Rather than burning capital trying to dominate front-facing retail hype, Tricanna built an efficient B2B co-manufacturing engine.
Aaron Anderson Says: We process over **100 kilograms of flower weekly** into standard and infused pre-rolls on behalf of top-ten Canadian licensed producers. B2B contract manufacturing represents over 35% of our P&L and provides stable, predictable cash flow.
Aaron Anderson Says: Dried flower sales remain steady in total dollar volume, but flower’s relative market share is gradually compressing as convenience-driven formats like infused pre-rolls, vapes, and ready-to-drink beverages grow.
Aaron Anderson Says: Cannabis purchasing mirrors craft beer consumer behavior:
– At Parallel 49, we maintained three core flagship beers and produced 52 rotating seasonal releases annually.
– Craft consumers buy their reliable, go-to flagship 50% of the time, and explore experimental new releases for the remaining 50%.
– LPs like Woody Nelson (with Rainbow Driver) or Carmel (with Animal Face) have successfully built core flagship loyalty, while other brands rely on seasonal cultivar rotations to maintain shelf presence.
Aaron Anderson Says: Sourcing flower requires realistic wholesale pricing aligned with provincial retail ceilings. If a distributor pitches a 28g SKU to the OCS, wholesale input costs must be negotiated around $0.95 to $1.25 per gram to maintain healthy retailer and producer margins.
Aaron Anderson Says: Provincial boards enforce strict sell-through velocity thresholds:
– OCS and BC Cannabis evaluate SKU performance over 10 to 12 weeks.
– A brand must move approximately 30 cases per week just to prevent delisting, and 60+ cases weekly to secure secondary SKU allocations in subsequent product calls.
– Success requires deep collaboration across cultivators, B2B processors, sales brokers, and retail budtenders working as a collective rather than operating in adversarial silos.
Tom Ritchie Says: Aaron, your deep legacy roots and CPG operational discipline provide invaluable guidance for anyone navigating Canadian cannabis. Thank you for joining us on Legacies!
Aaron Anderson Says: Thanks, Tom and Wes! Really enjoyed the conversation.
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Founder & CEO
Jonathan Carfield is the founder and CEO of AVEO, specializing in cannabis vape hardware manufacturing and supply chain operations.
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Vapor Device Manufacturer
AVEO (AVEO Vapor Devices) is a manufacturer of vapor hardware and devices specializing in cannabis vape technology. The company develops...
Learn More About Partner ↗Vape pens are often discarded after a single cycle, creating significant environmental waste. AVEO designs rechargeable batteries capable of 140+ cycles, allowing consumers to reuse the battery and return components via recycling networks.
Tricanna Industries operates a licensed facility in British Columbia providing B2B processing, contract packaging, and extraction. This infrastructure allows small, craft cultivators to package, brand, and bring products to retail markets without investing in processing equipment.
Social media platforms use automated algorithms to enforce strict guidelines against promoting regulated goods. Images with red THC symbols, trigger words like 'cannabis' or 'THC', and copy containing 'sale' can trigger automated account bans, requiring brands to use stylized graphics and branding mockups.
