We watch our competitors. Closely.
Not in a paranoid way. Not in a way that keeps us up at night. In the way that anyone serious about what they do watches the people around them doing the same thing. You'd be naive not to.
And here's the thing - most of what we see genuinely impresses us.
The UK CBD scene in 2026 is the best it has ever been. The quality of what's available to UK consumers right now would have been unimaginable five years ago. And that didn't happen because one company got it right. It happened because a whole collection of vendors, breeders, growers and enthusiasts started competing - properly competing - on quality. This post is about that. And it's a shoutout to everyone involved.
We Started This Race by Being Honest
If you've read the founding story post you'll know how Originals CBD started - a Reddit post about the state of the UK market, a refusal to stock anything that didn't meet a standard we'd hold ourselves to, and a lot of early mornings sourcing from America when everyone else was still selling European hay.
The standard we set from day one was simple: if we wouldn't use it ourselves, it doesn't go on the site. That meant turning away a lot of product early on, frustrating our own marketing team, and spending months building supplier relationships before we had anything to sell. But it also meant that when we did start stocking, people noticed the difference.
That commitment to quality is something we see reflected across the better end of the UK market now. And that's genuinely exciting rather than threatening.
When Everyone Stocks the Same Thing - That's Actually a Good Sign
Here's something worth understanding about how this market works. When multiple serious vendors independently land on the same source, the same breeder, the same genetics - that's not a coincidence. It's market validation. It means something is genuinely exceptional enough that people who know what they're looking for are all finding their way to it.
The US sungrown wave is the clearest example of this. Oregon's Rogue Valley, the breeders behind the genetics, the cultivators who've spent years perfecting outdoor growing at that level - these aren't secrets that one vendor stumbled on and guarded jealously. They're the result of a whole community of serious buyers, all doing their research, all arriving at the same conclusion: that American CBD genetics grown in the right conditions represent the current high watermark for what this plant can produce. When multiple vendors independently reach that conclusion, the consumer wins. The best product stops being exclusive to one retailer and becomes genuinely accessible to anyone willing to seek it out.
For the consumer that's brilliant news. It means competition on quality rather than just price. And it means the floor for what's considered acceptable keeps rising because everyone is benchmarking against the same increasingly high standard.
The UK CBD consumer in 2026 is sharper than ever too. People who know their terpene profiles. Who ask where flower was grown and by whom. Who read COAs and understand what they're looking at. Who email us with detailed, knowledgeable feedback about strains they've tried. That shift in consumer sophistication is driving everything - it's what makes the race for better genetics worth running, because the people buying the end product increasingly know the difference between good and exceptional.
When Benzil writes a review and talks about the genetics behind a strain, when customers reference specific terpenes in their feedback, when someone emails to ask which HAG cultivar a particular flower came from - that's the community this scene has built. And it's genuinely exciting to be part of it.
The Vendors Genuinely Raising the Bar
I want to be specific here because vague compliments mean nothing.
H-town Hemp deserve a mention for what they've done with French genetics. They brought in CBD flower grown by Loud - award-winning French growers who I had the pleasure of meeting in person at Spannabis. Genuinely decent people. Genuinely good flower - I saw it myself and I give them full credit. That's a bold sourcing decision and it's paid off. It adds something genuinely different to what's available in the UK market and that's good for everyone.
Green Budz, Aunt Mary's, Zellow and The CBD Flower Shop all deserve credit too. Consistent stock, consistent quality, always pushing for something better. The UK CBD consumer is better served because these operations exist and care about what they do. Some of them we've worked alongside in various ways. Some we've just watched with genuine respect from a distance.
The vendors who are pushing synthetic alt-noids out of the conversation - whoever you are, thank you. The best thing that's happened to this industry is the growing consumer sophistication that comes from having genuinely good natural product available as an alternative. Every vendor stocking real, properly grown, lab-tested CBD flower is doing their bit to make the synthetics look as unappealing as they are.
What Collaboration Actually Looks Like
The thing I'm most proud of that doesn't get talked about enough is the Strain Specific CBD Oil we made with Improved Health.
Most CBD oils are made from anonymous industrial hemp biomass. No strain name, no terpene profile, no way of knowing what plant it actually came from or how it was grown. The industry has gotten away with this for years because most consumers don't know to ask the question. The Improved Health collaboration was about doing the opposite of that - taking actual Bubba Kush 59 hemp flower, sungrown in Oregon, and cold-pressing it directly into organic MCT oil. No solvents. No isolates. The full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a named strain from a known source, preserved in liquid form.
We know exactly what went in and came out of that bottle. That shouldn't be remarkable in 2026 but in the CBD oil market it still genuinely is.
The person behind Improved Health runs the whole operation himself. That's something I have a lot of respect for - the sheer amount of work that goes into doing this properly as a one-person operation is considerable, and the quality of what he produces reflects that. We speak regularly, we support each other where we can, and the friendship that's come out of working together is honestly one of the better things to come out of running this business.
That's what collaboration in this industry can look like when it's done with the right people for the right reasons. Not a business transaction - a shared commitment to doing something properly in a space where it's easy to cut corners.
The Genetics Race Is the Best Thing Happening in UK Hemp
Here's what makes all of this genuinely exciting rather than just competitive.
The race to source the best genetics - the best breeders, the best growers, the best farms - means that the floor for what's acceptable keeps rising. A strain that would have been considered exceptional three years ago is now just solid. The Rogue Valley sungrown flower we stock today is in a completely different category to what was available when we started. And the breeders doing this work - Thomas Swanson at High Alpine Genetics, Floyd at Hoku Seed Co, the team at East Fork Cultivators - are raising their game every single season because the demand for better exists and keeps growing.
When Benzil sends us a review and talks about how a strain hit him, when customers email us genuinely excited about something they've tried, when we open a new sample and it's better than we expected - that's the feedback loop that drives everything. It's inspiring. It makes us want to push harder, source better, find the next thing before anyone else does.
That's the race worth running. And we're glad so many others are running it with us.
A Genuine Thank You
To every UK CBD vendor doing this properly - stocking real product, being honest about what it is and where it comes from, treating customers like adults who deserve accurate information - thank you. You're making this scene what it is.
To the breeders and growers making the genetics worth fighting over - we see you, we appreciate you, and we'll keep finding ways to get your work in front of UK customers who understand what they're looking at.
The UK hemp scene has never been in better shape. Long may it continue.
Stay Relaxed, Stay Original.