Origins: The Seed Talent Budtender's Choice Awards
An unforgettable gathering of Illinois’ top-trained budtenders and the state’s most celebrated cannabis brands.
Seed Talent curates the Illinois Budtender’s Choice Awards each year as our way to celebrate the industry professionals who take their education seriously – resulting in better customer/patient outcomes at retail & better brand sell-through. The event hinges on our mission to give a voice to the thousands of budtenders that serve as the bedrock of the Midwest cannabis industry. Seed Talent highlights best-in-class brands using Seed Talent to train their retailers, the innovative products that drive cannabis forward, and of course the budtenders who are dedicated to their craft & passion for the plant.
This annual celebration of excellence places the outcome of the awards program in the hands of the budtenders themselves. These are the individuals who directly interact with customers and patients, providing firsthand experience and insights and personal recommendations.
Our Values Behind the Budtender’s Choice Awards
The Budtender’s Choice Awards are a unique opportunity for brands to be recognized for their dedication to quality and customer satisfaction, as seen through the eyes of those who interact with cannabis enthusiasts daily.
- A Budtender-Driven Experience: This awards program puts the power of choice in the hands of budtenders, allowing them to cast their votes for their favorite cannabis brands through the Seed Talent platform. Their knowledge and expertise make their opinions invaluable. Seed Talent collected thousands of Illinois budtender votes in a survey to identify 20 category winners.
- No Pay-to-Play: The Budtender’s Choice Awards maintain the highest levels of integrity by ensuring that the results are not influenced by financial interests. Brands cannot pay for an award; the results are solely based on merit and the genuine preference of budtenders.
- Inclusive Community Celebration: The awards presentation is a live event that gathers the cannabis community to celebrate the brands that have earned the respect and trust of the individuals on the front lines of cannabis sales. It’s a moment of recognition for both the budtenders and the brands.
- Voting Transparency: The voting and category winner selection process is transparent and democratic with open text fill-in submissions. This transparency builds trust among consumers and industry professionals alike.
Celebrating a Highly-Engaged Cannabis Community
Empowering Budtenders
This year’s event honored 350 top-trained budtenders who collectively completed over 77,000 courses on the Seed Talent platform—training directly from brand partners across product knowledge, compliance, and customer experience. These budtenders were not just attendees; they were contributors to the evolving standard of retail cannabis professionalism in Illinois.
Recognizing Outstanding Brands
Thousands of verified budtender votes were submitted to select the top brands across 20 unique categories, ranging from Best Infused Product to Best Packaging Design. These votes represent firsthand trust, engagement, and retail-facing impact—and reflect the brands that earned loyalty on the floor, not just the shelf.
It’s increasingly important to provide recognition about the true grit and dedication it takes to thrive in cannabis today. The countless learning hours budtenders spend training and upskilling with Seed Talent have contributed to infinitely better patient and customer experiences.
Exhibiting brands understand the simple fact that budtenders are their best advocates at retail. When they succeed, brands succeed. They hold the influential power to help brands catch fire across the community, serving thousands of people each week by endorsing the products they believe in.
Highlights & Featured Experiences
Experiential Brand Activations Fuel our Fire
Each sponsor’s experience engaged and delighted our budtenders like never before in a curated show of community, offering onsite education and exciting rewards!
Attendees indulged in infused cannabis products of all forms (beverages, edibles, concentrates, and flower) at the experiential consumption stations, supported by the event pro’s at High Minded Events!
OCB Rolling Pop-Up & Competition: Title sponsor OCB took over the patio with a a bracket-style speed-rolling showdown! Complete with Republic Brands’ full array of papers & accessories, the titan of industry has been operating and growing successfull for over a century!
Verano’s (the) Essence Flower Lounge: Verano’s (the) Essence dominated the chill zone with terpene-forward flower sampling, scent jars, and budtender-led discussions. Volcanos added to the lounge-style vape experience spotlighting temperature control and vapor quality!
Premium 25ft. Dab Bar: Dabstract, Puffco, and Ascend Wellness, featuring Zenco, Stündenglass and Gpen devices featuring potent concentrates, plus live guided dab tutorials on proper technique. This massive shared dab bar anchored the room, with non-stop dabs all night.
Wyld’s Big Buck Hunter Arcade Game: A throwback favorite with leaderboard bragging rights and brand merch giveaways/Infused tastings of delectable treats from Wyld!
Grassroots Gallery with Rosin Press & Dabs: A crowd-favorite – Grassroots rosin was pressed on-site, then sampled fresh! Budtenders could wander through the ornate pop-up gallery to learn all about the Grassroots experience.
- Marimed’s Betty’s Eddies, Nature’s Heritage & Vibations: A campfire lounge setup invited budtenders to take a seat and experience the full variety of MariMed, complete with and an outstanding camping-ready door prize.
- Drecisco Farms SweetBuzz: Showcasing their delectable fast-acting confections by experienced producers, the team at Drecisco Farms gave us all the buzz we needed!
- Bedford Grow – A Look Inside the House of Brands: From Lula’s to Dabstract, Bedford Grow produces pharmaceutical-grade, high quality, flower, caramels, chocolates, gummies and more for some of Illinois’ best products!
- Free-Flowing Lounges by Culinary Cannabis Co., Leafwell, and Acreage Holdings gave the community a soft landing with delectable products! Culinary Cannabis Company brought the realness with beautiful infused sweet treats, Leafwell taught folks about the ease & power applying for medical cards online, and Acreage crushed with their Botanist setup – a fan fave!
- Elevated Organics Hijnx, Phoetera Grove & SnackBar Ballon Creations & Henna Art: Dazzling the senses with art-a-plenty, Elevated Organics brands made a splash together showcasing their novel formulations from topicals to vapes to edibles.
- The NGW Pop-Up Shop: NGW displayed an array of featuring the whole suite of offerings from Nature’s Grace & Wellness.
Revolution Royalty Photoshoot: Budtenders were treated like cannabis royalty with professional portraits in a luxe throne setup by Revolution, accompanied by permium dabs!
ContractCanna’s Infused Bar & Mocktails: Custom mocktails crafted with cannabis terpenes and low-dose infusions included Artet, Senorita, CQ, Keef, served up in ice-cold cans and mixed drinks! The central bar offered up the ContractCanna suite of brands for thirsty budtenders to enjoy all night long.
- Grön Specialty Chocolate Fondue: An elevated way to sample infused and non-infused Grön chocolates & gummies!
Breeze Canna Terp Tap & Claw Machine: Skill-based terpene education meets carnival-style fun with branded prizes. The Breeze Canna signature Vapor on tap served up 4 different strains in reusable cups, a truly novel experience!
Abstrax Tech Sensory Terpene Education: Smell, match, and learn with an aromatic journey into strain profiles. Sign up for the FREE Abstrax Tech Academy today on Seed Talent and explore all the wonders of in-depth cannabis science!
The Cannabist Company Professional Infused Joint Rolling Station: Instructional rolling sessions using branded infused materials and tutorials on handcrafted canna-gars by the talented Tim Salazar. The Cannabist Company boasts Amber Extracts, hedy Edibles & Triple 7 Flower.
These activations transformed brand booths into living, breathing education hubs that empowered budtenders to absorb product knowledge in the most memorable way possible! We’re all about the experiential, interactive ways of learning at Seed Talent.
Congratulations to the Winning Brands!
- Best Infused Chocolate Brand: Nature’s Grace & Wellness
- Best Infused Gummy Brand: Lost Farm
- Best Infused Beverage Brand: Uncle Arnie’s
- Best Edible Brand (Non-Chocolate, Non-Gummy): Enliven Edibles
- Best Vape Brand: Rove
- Best Pre-Roll Brand: Dogwalkers Pre-Rolls
- Best Premium Flower Brand: Revolution
- Best Topical / Transdermal Brand: Avexia
- Best Cannabis Device Brand: Puffco
- Best Overall Brand: Aeriz
- Best Solvent Concentrate Brand: Revolution
- Best Solventless Concentrate Brand: RYTHM
- Best Everyday Flower Brand: Tales & Travels
- Best Brand Packaging: IC Collective
- Best Software Platform: Dutchie
- Best Social Impact Brand: 93 Boyz
- Best Brand Education Course: Puffco
- Best Seed Talent Reward/Incentive: Puffco
- Wholesale Rep of the Year: James Goltermann, Aeriz
- Budtender of the Year: Josh Wagner, Verilife Galena
Seed Talent's Promise to Fan the Flames of Tradition
All the budtenders in attendance this year brought uncharted energy, passion and enthusiasm! Events like these are what make the cannabis industry so incredible and steadfast.
Thank you Phil Cooper and High Minded Events for continuing to normalize cannabis consumption experiences across the nation!
And to those who couldn’t make it, fear not! We totally get it, life happens. But guess what? We’re already cooking up plans for an even bigger bash next year.
Keep crushing courses on Seed Talent and you could land in the top 10% invited to join us in 2026!
