London pot shops almost out of edibles already

Cannabis-infused edibles in London are going like hot cakes.

In fact, customers looking to grab pot candies or teas might be out of luck. London pot shops say their recently-arrived shipments of edibles are nearly all gone.

The products were available on store shelves for the first time Friday afternoon. By Sunday, they were almost all sold out at J. London, on Richmond Street.

"We have a handful of chocolate squares left, which will probably be sold out in the next day or two. That's it," said Stephen Keating, a consultant for the store.

At Central Cannabis in west London, there were line-ups throughout the day on Saturday.

"I just have four boxes of peppermints left," said Gareth Roach, the store's assistant manager. "They've been selling fairly crazily."

Cannabis 2.0 products, includingedibles, became legal on Dec. 17, 2019 butdue to regulations andcheckpoints, product deliveries were delayed until last week.

Both London stores were already able to re-order products from the Ontario Cannabis Stores (OCS), albeit a bit less the second time around. But Keating says the limited supply is not surprising.

"The roll-out has been slow, but the market will correct itself," he said. "We would love more products, but we understand that this new market is evolving and we know more products are coming down the pipe."

The OCS divvies up the amount of product available between all retail stores in the province. Like Keating, the agency is also optimisticthat the supply will catch up with the high demand.

"We expect licensed producers to ramp up their manufacturing capabilities and that supply issues will resolve themselves in the weeks and months ahead," OCS director of communications, Daffyd Roderick, said in an email.

In the meantime, the edibleproducts remain a new frontier for the local stores and their consumers.

"We are planning for the demand to continue at the moment. I don't see it going away," Roach said.

Both J. London and Central Cannabis expect to have their second shipment of cannabis-infused edibles in store this weekend.