New Episode
Short Summary
In this episode of the Legacies Podcast, host Tom Ritchie sits down with Emma Andrews, CEO of Nextleaf Solutions. They analyze her experience at the Radicle Femmes event and the importance of open professional networking in the regulated Canadian space.
Emma outlines her career trajectory from natural products marketing to CEO of Nextleaf Solutions. She discusses the difference between managing privately held businesses and directing a publicly traded company (CSE: OILS) under strict quarterly reporting requirements.
Tom and Emma evaluate the “distillate debate,” addressing consumer and budtender biases toward live resins and rosins. Emma explains the scientific and B2B formulation advantages of high-purity distillate for medical products, topicals, and wellness supplements. She details Nextleaf’s early strategy around IP patent protection (holding over 100 patents globally) and its evolution into active product commercialization through the Glacial Gold brand.
Finally, Emma discusses the company’s recent collaborative resolution of a Health Canada marketing inquiry regarding social media placement, which resulted in the addition of the licensed entity designation “Glacial Gold by Nextleaf Labs” to retail labels.
Tom Ritchie Says: Hey, what’s going on, everyone? Check out what’s coming up this week on Legacies! We’re talking consumable bubbles, deer roaming in the backyard, and speaking completely unfiltered on panels.
Emma Andrews Says: I swore more than I’ve ever sworn on a panel before, because you could just be your authentic self!
Tom Ritchie Says: Welcome to Legacies, everyone! We’ve got a fantastic episode this week. We are joined by Emma Andrews, CEO of Nextleaf Solutions, the powerhouse behind Glacial Gold. Emma, welcome to Legacies!
Emma Andrews Says: Thank you, Tom! Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. I have a ton of respect for you, and I know we’re going to have a great conversation.
Tom Ritchie Says: The feeling is mutual. Coordinating schedules across the country is tough, especially with you flying everywhere. How was the Radical Femmes event last week?
Emma Andrews Says: It was phenomenal! I was blown away by the caliber of attendees. I want to give a huge shoutout to David Lobo, President and CEO of the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), who attended. It meant so much to have key decision-makers from the OCS and the SQDC in the room. Beyond that, the dialogue was refreshingly candid. It was a genuinely safe environment where women could share real business challenges without judgment.
Tom Ritchie Says: It looked incredible. And when you submitted your video for our International Women’s Day episode, were those deer in your backyard real or a green screen?
Emma Andrews Says: Completely real! That’s daily life out here on Vancouver Island. I thought about doing a retake because my throat was dry, but you can’t beat wild deer wandering through your background shot!
Tom Ritchie Says: Let’s talk about Nextleaf. I’ve known the company since the early days around 2017 with Paul, when Nextleaf was filing patent after patent for extraction technology. You were there from the start and rose to become CEO. Walk us through that journey.
Emma Andrews Says: I truly have been there since day one. My husband Chris and I used to have rooftop patio sessions in Vancouver with Paul, brainstorming business strategy and coming up with the name Nextleaf. I started as a marketing consultant, touching various brands in the space, before coming onboard full-time as Director of Marketing. I spearheaded our transition into consumer packaged goods (CPG) and revived the Glacial Gold brand in our portfolio.
Emma Andrews Says: In the early days, while other licensed producers raced to build massive cultivation footprints and vertical integration, Nextleaf stayed hyper-focused: we patented our extraction technology. We don’t grow plants, we don’t manage agronomy, and we carry no biological assets. We perfected high-efficiency extraction, and that intellectual property became the foundation of our commercial CPG success.
Tom Ritchie Says: It’s fascinating seeing leaders with marketing backgrounds step into CEO roles, rather than just traditional finance or legal executives. How does that perspective shape your leadership?
Emma Andrews Says: It provides a deep, operational understanding of the consumer, the product positioning, and the market narrative. I often compare notes with Margaret Brodie at Rubicon Organics, who comes from finance—we both bring long tenure within our companies. For Nextleaf, where CPG is our primary revenue driver, I don’t need to be the extraction scientist or the corporate accountant. We have brilliant technical teams for that. My job is strategy, education, and brand equity.
Emma Andrews Says: My personal mantra is ‘lead with ease, not ego.’ The early years of cannabis were dominated by ego-driven vanity metrics and aggressive empire building. We chose the path of least resistance: running a disciplined, authentic, sustainable business that prioritizes profitability over noise.
Tom Ritchie Says: As CEO of a publicly traded company on the CSE, how do you handle the pressure of quarterly reporting compared to privately held businesses?
Emma Andrews Says: It is a deeply humbling process! Every quarter, you lay out your operational results for the public. Most of my previous career in natural health was with private companies, which enjoy the quiet confidence to weather downturns and test long-term strategies away from the peanut gallery. That said, public reporting enforces strict checks and balances, builds transparency, and rebuilds investor trust in a sector that desperately needs it.
Tom Ritchie Says: There are analysts who dig deep into SEDAR filings and Headset data. I’ve connected with analysts like Mark who understand financial statements inside and out, separating the solid operators from companies burning cash without direction.
Emma Andrews Says: Exactly. We deeply appreciate informed investors who take time to understand the fundamentals. In an emerging industry, smart portfolio management means diversifying your risk across sound business models rather than betting on single hype cycles.
Tom Ritchie Says: Let’s dive into the distillate debate. There has been a lot of criticism online directed at distillate, with some voices claiming live rosin and resin are inherently superior. Where is that coming from?
Emma Andrews Says: It’s an important conversation. Yes, live rosin and full-spectrum resin are closer to the raw plant and preserve broader terpene profiles. That is an undeniable fact. But you have to match the ingredient to the specific product formulation and the target consumer.
Emma Andrews Says: Distillate is the most standardized, consistent, and repeatable compound you can formulate with. In medical and wellness applications, patients need an exact, measurable milligram dosage of specific cannabinoids every single time. Furthermore, distillate serves as an approachable, affordable entry point for newer consumers who may find pungent, terpene-heavy dabs overwhelming. For products like topicals or standard edibles, paying a massive premium for rosin often provides zero noticeable increase in efficacy. There is a distinct time and purpose for every extract.
Tom Ritchie Says: In retail, budtenders sometimes project their personal smoking habits onto customers, dismissing value products or soft gels because they personally smoke top-shelf flower.
Emma Andrews Says: It’s crucial for budtenders to check their biases. If a senior citizen walks in looking for CBD soft gels for joint mobility or CBN for sleep, they aren’t looking for high-terpene dabs. Formulators must meet consumers where they are. That’s marketing 101.
Tom Ritchie Says: Glacial Gold has built immense brand equity across Canada, but Nextleaf also supplies wholesale oil to numerous commercial LP partners. How do you communicate the relationship between the brand and the parent license holder?
Emma Andrews Says: That connection is essential. Quality assurance, testing parameters, and formulation standards all reside with the licensed producer—Nextleaf Labs—not just the brand. When consumers buy Glacial Gold, our message is ‘Trust the Process.’ Whether they buy our vapes or our soft gels, they are relying on Nextleaf’s pharmaceutical-grade extraction standards.
Tom Ritchie Says: You mentioned previously receiving a compliance letter from Health Canada regarding social media branding.
Emma Andrews Says: We treated it as a badge of honor! Health Canada scrutinized our social channels and required us to ensure our licensed entity was clearly visible. If you look at our Instagram and LinkedIn now, it’s explicitly ‘Glacial Gold by Nextleaf Labs.’ We welcomed the clarity because we want consumers to recognize the licensed producer behind the product, even though enforcement across Canada’s thousand-plus licenses can feel inconsistent.
Tom Ritchie Says: It often feels like the most visible operators draw the closest regulatory inspection while smaller players fly under the radar.
Tom Ritchie Says: As consumers mature, are they paying closer attention to who actually manufactures their products?
Emma Andrews Says: It is highly demographic-specific. A recreational consumer purchasing a vape pen might focus on potency and flavor. But our wellness consumers—those buying soft gels, capsules, and CBD drops—behave like natural health shoppers. They read labels, verify packaged-on dates, and examine carrier oils, exactly like they would when purchasing vitamins or omega supplements.
Tom Ritchie Says: My wife is a registered holistic nutritionist, and she inspects every supplement label with a magnifying glass. In cannabis, Health Canada’s packaging restrictions make it difficult to include educational details alongside mandatory warning blocks.
Emma Andrews Says: That’s why context matters. British Columbia has a well-established culture of label reading, whereas other markets behave differently. Furthermore, forward-thinking retailers like Imagine Cannabis and Inspired Cannabis intentionally curate dedicated wellness sections, specifically seeking out Glacial Gold as a cornerstone brand.
Tom Ritchie Says: That dedicated curation directly drives retail basket size. If a customer visits to buy flower or a vape, a knowledgeable budtender can easily cross-sell a bottle of sleep soft gels or a topical balm if there is established brand trust.
Emma Andrews Says: Transference of brand trust across formats is the foundation of our product catalog. A consumer who trusts Glacial Gold for daytime focus soft gels will readily pick up our CBN formulation for evening relaxation.
Tom Ritchie Says: Nextleaf recently rolled out RSO capsules and minor cannabinoid formulations. How do you approach new product development without falling into costly R&D traps?
Emma Andrews Says: We only develop products that are commercially viable at scale. We aren’t interested in vanity SKUs that generate minimal volume. Our extraction process was engineered for massive scalability.
Emma Andrews Says: We also operate an agile ‘BC-First’ rollout strategy. In Ontario, when you receive a provincial listing, you have a six-month runway to prepare inventory, samples, and marketing. In BC, once accepted, you deliver within thirty days. Because we have over 80% retail distribution across BC, we test minimum viable products rapidly in our home market, prove out consumer velocity, and then present proven performers to Alberta and Ontario. That operational discipline is why Nextleaf has remained consistently profitable.
Tom Ritchie Says: Glacial Gold hits its ten-year milestone this year, having originated in the legacy market in 2015 as a shatter brand before evolving into a legal soft gel and vape leader.
Emma Andrews Says: It is incredible looking back. We evaluated launching a limited-edition anniversary shatter, but ultimately our focus remains on products that deliver consistent, daily utility for modern wellness consumers.
Tom Ritchie Says: You spent five formative years at Vega during the explosion of plant-based nutrition. What parallels do you see between Vega’s journey and where cannabis is heading?
Emma Andrews Says: At Vega, we literally built the plant-based protein category in Canada from the ground up through relentless point-of-sale education. I traveled to dozens of cities educating retail staff on amino acid profiles and plant nutrition. Over time, that category-building work established Vega as a dominant global brand.
Emma Andrews Says: Cannabis is on the exact same long-term trajectory. The ultimate breakthrough will occur when non-intoxicating cannabinoids like CBD, CBG, and CBN receive Natural Product Numbers (NPNs) from Health Canada, allowing them to sit on pharmacy and natural health store shelves alongside other adaptogens. In the meantime, operators must build disciplined, profitable businesses so they are still standing when that market expansion occurs. Patience is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Tom Ritchie Says: Emma, your insights on scalable manufacturing, regulatory patience, and consumer trust are unmatched. Thank you so much for joining us on Legacies!
Emma Andrews Says: Thank you, Tom! This was a fantastic conversation. Appreciate you having me!
Jump to 01:28
Jump to 04:12
Jump to 03:35
CEO
Emma Andrews is the CEO of Nextleaf Solutions and an experienced CPG marketing and corporate strategy executive.
View Guest Profile ↗
Cannabis Extraction & Patent Licensing Firm
Nextleaf Solutions is a publicly traded Canadian cannabis extraction, product formulation, and intellectual property licensing company. The company holds over...
Learn More About Partner ↗Nextleaf Solutions is a publicly traded extraction, formulation, and IP licensing firm that holds over 100 patents and commercializes products under the Glacial Gold brand.
Distillate is highly purified and standardized, removing organic plant matter to deliver precise, repeatable cannabinoid dosing ideal for medical products, Softgels, and oils.
Nextleaf collaboratively addressed a social media marketing inquiry by Health Canada, taking corrective actions including printing the licensed entity name ('Glacial Gold by Nextleaf Labs') on packaging.
