Origins: The Seed Talent Budtender's Choice Awards
The Budtender’s Choice Awards, curated annually by Seed Talent, celebrates the retail professionals, brands, and products shaping the future of cannabis.
More than an awards program, this event reflects our commitment to elevating the voices of the frontline experts who drive meaningful customer experiences and influence purchasing decisions every day.
As cannabis retail continues to evolve, budtenders remain one of the industry’s most trusted sources of education, guidance, and product discovery. Their knowledge helps consumers navigate an increasingly complex marketplace, while their recommendations directly impact brand growth, customer loyalty, and overall retail performance.
The Budtender’s Choice Awards place the power of recognition where it belongs—in the hands of the retail workforce itself. Through their votes, Illinois budtenders spotlight the brands investing in education, the products delivering exceptional consumer experiences, and the innovations pushing the industry forward.
This annual celebration honors excellence across the cannabis ecosystem while reinforcing the critical role education, expertise, and authentic human connection continue to play in the modern retail landscape.
Where Education, Experience & Recognition Converge
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 21 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 110,000 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 21 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 Branded Experiences
OCB Elite Rolling Competition: Outdoors, OCB took over the patio with a bracket-style speed-rolling showdown! Complete with Republic Brands’ full array of papers & accessories, the titan of industry has been operating and growing successful for over a century! Led by Tim Salazaar of Karma Club, the competitions were interactive and exciting for everyone involved (and spectators)!
Enliven Edibles Ice Cream Parlor: Enliven Edibles captivated with an Ice Cream Parlor activation that felt like a blast from the past. Complete with live sample of their outstanding confections, the team doled out joy & award-winning edibles all night!
Vapin Ape Comic Pit-Stop: Vapin Ape showed up strong with a unique twist on a nostalgic comic book store – complete with specially-curated comics for the brand + samples of their concentrates!
Premium 30ft. Dab Bar: Dabstract, Puffco, and Cresco Labs featuring Zenco, Stündenglass and an array of Puffco devices featuring potent concentrates, plus live guided dab tutorials on proper technique. This communal dab bar brought the globs! Easily one of the most visited spots all night with fantastic budtender-brand connections over world-class products.
Game-Time with WYLD & Good Tide: WYLD put their unique spin on a classic favorite – channeling the nostalgia of gumball machines! brand merch giveaways/Infused tastings of delectable treats!
Grassroots Live Rosin Press Experience: The iconic Grassroots flower became rosin before our eyes! Pressed on-site, then sampled fresh – Budtenders learned and burned their way through the ornate pop-up gallery to learn all about the Grassroots brand.
MariMed’s Betty’s Eddies, Nature’s Heritage & Vibations Immersion: An inviting lounge setup cozied up to budtenders offering the full variety of MariMed, decked out with and a mega camping-ready door prize.
Drecisco Farms MAJOR Bar Takeover & Infused Mocktails: Showcasing their delectable MAJOR brand, the team at Drecisco Farms gave us all the buzz we needed + an ice luge to boot! The central bar offered low-dose options for thirsty budtenders to enjoy all night long.
The NGW Pop-Up Shop: NGW displayed an array of featuring the whole suite of offerings from Nature’s Grace & Wellness. A huge thank you to Bud & Rita’s Avondale for being the Official Dispensary Partner of the BCA’s!
Revolution Flower Experience : Budtenders were treated like cannabis royalty with the some of the best flower in the game Revolution, accompanied by premium dabs!
Grön T-Shirt & Apparel Pressing + Sampling: An elevated way to sample infused and non-infused Grön chocolates & gummies! Guests walked away with custom totes & shirts to sport their love for the brand.
Botanist & Wana Brands: Canopy USA’s Botanist & Wana Brands lit up the scene with colorful branding, a wonderful team + a wide array of samples of the freshest flower & gummies around! Anytime there’s a volcano running, you can bet it’s time to party!
Redemption Botanicals Elite Patio Sesh: This year, budtender favorite Redemption Botanicals took over with grade-A sampling & showed us what first-class product looks, tastes & feels like!
Fernway Vapor-Topped Beverages: Fernway wow-ed with their signature vapor-toppe mocktails! A delightful concoction topped with Fernway vapor- what’s not to love.
Rythm Infused Mocktails Bar: A must-see station, Rythm brought their signature disco party vibes plus infused beverages. If you know the team at GTI – they always come correct! Not a dry cup in the house.
Lost Farm / Kiva Caricatures: Budtenders could take a load off and get a special caricature done while sampling the very best gummies from fan-fave Lost Farm by Kiva.
Kaviar High End Flower: Kaviar crushed it with sampling outside on the patio where the smoke never stopped, featuring infused pre-rolls in sample bags!
Bloom Patio Vape Zone: The Bloom team showed up in full force with their signature vapes & mega-Bloom photo opp!
Bud & Mary’s IL Welcome: Bud & Mary’s showed us what Batch is all about with an immersive experience. Welcome to Illinois!
The OGeez! Gummy Lounge: Ogeez! came correct with high energy and signature soft, bouncy, delicious edibles in the center of the vendor village!
Ozone & High Wired Lounge: Nostalgic polaroids & Zenco sessions completed this super inviting lounge run by the awesome AWH team!
Special shoutout to Sol Canna & The Dispensary East Dubuque for their sponsorship & support!
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 First Place Winners!
- Best Infused Chocolate Brand: Grön
- Best Infused Gummy Brand: Grön
- Best Infused Beverage Brand: Uncle Arnie’s
- Best Edible Brand (Non-Chocolate, Non-Gummy): Enliven Edibles
- Best Vape Brand: Fernway
- Best Pre-Roll Brand: Dogwalkers Pre-Rolls
- Best Premium Flower Brand: Revolution
- Best Topical / Transdermal Brand: Avexia (Verano)
- Best Cannabis Device Brand: Puffco
- Best Overall Brand: Aeriz
- Best Solvent Concentrate Brand: Rythm (GTI)
- Best Solventless Concentrate Brand: Redemption Botanicals
- Best Everyday Flower Brand: Simply Herb (AWH)
- Best Brand Packaging: IC Collective
- Best Software Platform: Dutchie
- Best Social Impact Brand: 93 Boyz
- Best Brand Education Course: Grön
- Best Seed Talent Reward/Incentive: Puffco
- Wholesale Rep of the Year: James Goltermann, Aeriz
- Budtender of the Year: David Reitz, nuEra East Dubuque
Seed Talent's Promise to the Canna-Community
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 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 group invited to join us!
