CBD flowers at 100 g: the lowest prices per gram

A price per gram only makes sense alongside the tier it applies to. The pages show a grid of five or six tiers, from 2 g to 100 g, each line carrying its unit price and its discount calculated from the 2 g rate. The figure kept here is always the one on the 100 g line, never an average and never a starting price.

The cannabidiol content kept is the one on the analysis panel, identified by a batch number and measured by HPLC. That precision is not cosmetic: on several pages, the description paragraph rounds the value, while the panel gives the measurement for the batch on sale. Where the two differ, the panel prevails, and it is the panel the page title repeats.

Finally, the cost per gram of cannabidiol is a division, set out every time: price per gram divided by the content as a decimal. For Carrot Cake, 0.99 ÷ 0.078 = €12.69. None of these values is a market range.

Translated into an order total, that gives €99 for 100 g of Carrot Cake, €136 for the five references at €1.36/g, €150 for Skywalker Og and €170 for Orange Bud. Measured Δ⁹-THC stays below the threshold on all eight: 0.2% for five of them, 0.3% for Carrot Cake, Purple Runtz and Skywalker Og.

Above that leading group, the catalogue tightens into two clusters. Eleven references share €2.05/g at 100 g, among them Wedding Cake and Forbidden Fruit at 12.3% CBD, Runtz USA at 12.2% and Super Boof at 9.6%. Eight others sit at €2.40/g, among them Strawnana Og at 13.3%. The top of the grid goes to Super Sour Diesel and to a second Reaper Eye page, batch PG-26-5D6E, both at €5.47/g for 7.5% cannabidiol, that is €72.93 per gram of CBD. One and the same variety name can therefore carry two pages, two batches and two prices.

The flower that is cheapest per gram of material is not the cheapest per gram of molecule. The demonstration comes down to two divisions.

Carrot Cake costs €0.99 a gram and assays at 7.8%: 0.99 ÷ 0.078 = €12.69 per gram of cannabidiol. Green Crack costs €1.36 a gram, that is 37% more, but assays at 11.9%: 1.36 ÷ 0.119 = €11.43. The gap in concentration, 4.1 points, outweighs the gap in price. Green Crack therefore moves ahead, and stays the cheapest on cannabidiol among the 34 references with a 100 g tier.

The same calculation disqualifies two tier neighbours. Purple Runtz shares Green Crack's €1.36/g but assays at only 6.9%: 1.36 ÷ 0.069 = €19.71, that is 72% more at an identical price. Reaper Eye, at 7.7%, gives 1.36 ÷ 0.077 = €17.66. At equal material price, the measured content makes all the difference.

Higher up the grid, Orange Bud illustrates the opposite effect: €1.70/g, the highest price in this table, but 13.6% CBD, the highest content, hence 1.70 ÷ 0.136 = €12.50, better than Carrot Cake and than Pineapple Express. Skywalker Og holds the same level with 1.50 ÷ 0.122 = €12.30.

Three factors can be read straight off the pages, and none is sufficient on its own.

The tier. This is the most powerful lever. The discount shown at 100 g runs from 71 to 74% of the 2 g rate: Carrot Cake goes from €3.45 to €0.99/g, Green Crack from €4.95 to €1.36/g, Skywalker Og from €5.45 to €1.50/g, Orange Bud from €6.45 to €1.70/g. No other factor divides a price by four.

The growing method. It does not dictate the price, but it colours it: in the table above, six of the eight cheapest references are grown in the open field or under glass, only two indoors on substrate. Those growing methods are set out in our guide to indoor, outdoor and greenhouse, and the case of so-called "hydro" flowers in our hydro comparison.

The format and the batch. Smaller calibres come out of the same batches as whole buds and cost less per gram, a subject taken up in the small buds guide. And content varies from one harvest to the next: two points of difference between two batches shift the cost per gram of cannabidiol without the price moving at all. Market markers are gathered in our price barometer.

Half the catalogue stops short of it. Out of 72 flowers, 34 offer a 100 g tier, 34 stop at the 50 g tier, and 4 show no sliding scale at all. The lowest price recorded at 50 g is €0.68/g on Watermelon, batch PG-26-832A, below the floor of every 100 g tier. Since that flower assays at 13.8% cannabidiol, the division gives 0.68 ÷ 0.138 = €4.93 per gram of CBD, that is less than half the best result obtained at 100 g. The largest tier is therefore not always the best line on the grid.

Two references often cited for their content-to-price ratio belong to that second group: Fruit Cake, 11.6% CBD, batch PG-26-03CD, and NYC Diesel, 11.7%, batch PG-26-7C6E. Both cap out at 50 g for €1.92/g, and therefore have no price at 100 g. Presenting them as 100 g offers would be inaccurate.

Storage becomes the real constraint at that volume: one hundred grams of flower keeps all the better when temperature and humidity stay stable, as set out in our article on storing flowers. These products are not foodstuffs and remain restricted to adults, as the FAQ points out.

• Phytogrammes, Carrot Cake page, batch PG-26-0E1A (2 g to 100 g grid, HPLC)
• Phytogrammes, Green Crack page, batch PG-26-8540 (€1.36/g at 100 g, 11.9% CBD)
• Phytogrammes, Skywalker Og page, batch PG-26-8CA2 (€1.50/g at 100 g, no 50 g tier)
• Phytogrammes, Orange Bud page, batch PG-26-29A9 (13.6% CBD, €1.70/g at 100 g)
• Phytogrammes, NYC Diesel page, batch PG-26-7C6E (grid capped at 50 g)
• Phytogrammes, CBD flowers category (72 references, tiers and content by batch)
• Légifrance, arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (authorised varieties, 0.30% threshold)
• Conseil d'État, decision of 29 December 2022, no. 444887
• European Commission, plant variety catalogues and databases
• FAO, "Good Agricultural Practices for greenhouse vegetable crops" (protected cropping)
• ISO/IEC 17025, requirements for testing and calibration laboratories