The Brand Files

We grade the biggest hemp, CBD, and THC brands so you know who you're actually buying from — who owns them, who makes the product, how they lab-test, and what their record really is. 22 brands, one transparent 100-point system, ranked.

Highest so far: Cycling Frog (82/100). Lowest: Cake (33/100). We score what brands disclose — and what they hide.

  1. B82Cycling Frog82/100Our highest grade. Parent Lazarus Naturals owns its Oregon hemp farm, extracts on-site, and makes Cycling Frog in its own cGMP plant — using naturally-occurring delta-9, not chemical conversion — with named ISO-accredited labs and per-batch COAs. The only real drags are soft and off-product: a weak Glassdoor and a settled data-breach suit.
  2. B81Hometown Hero81/100A veteran-owned brand that grows its own Texas hemp, posts full-panel batch COAs, and went to court to defend delta-8 — held back mainly by a self-asserted (not third-party-certified) GMP claim and thin public workforce data.
  3. B803Chi80/100A pioneer that makes its own product in an audited GMP lab and is fully open about who's behind it — held back by weak workplace reviews and middling customer ratings.
  4. C77Koi CBD77/100A genuinely transparency-forward veteran: named family founders, a public ISO-accredited lab, and an independent Top-10 transparency ranking. A strong C, just shy of a B — held back by an old FDA letter, two old consumer suits, and independent tests showing it over-labels potency about a quarter of the time.
  5. C71Cann71/100Excellent, accredited, full-panel lab reports and unusually open funding — undercut by a 2025 prosecutor settlement over THC labels that tested off by more than 10%, and a manufacturer it won't name.
  6. C71Mood71/100A huge, well-marketed catalog with named labs and a traceable founder — dragged down by manufacturing opacity and a serious but unproven COA-related lawsuit allegation.
  7. C70TRE House70/100Genuinely strong, named-lab, full-panel, batch-specific testing and a clean formal record — sitting next to unnamed founders, a blank 'manufacturer' field on its own COA, and a roughly two-star consumer reputation.
  8. C70Urb70/100The most ownership-transparent brand we've scored — a wholly-owned subsidiary of a public, SEC-reporting company, with strong COA access — pulled back to a C by a self-contradictory sourcing story, an unnamed lab on the COAs, and a settled class action over delta-9 potency labeling.
  9. C70Wyld70/100The best-selling edible in America — bootstrapped, US-made, and traceable to named founders — but it gates its lab reports behind an email request, leaves its testing labs unnamed, and has had two labeling recalls.
  10. C67CBDfx67/100One of the bigger, more transparent CBD names — a named entity and founders, public COAs with QR traceability, CO2 extraction, and an A+ BBB. Held to a C by unnamed testing labs, self-asserted (not certified) 'cGMP' and 'organic,' and a 2022 FDA warning letter.
  11. D62Delta Extrax62/100Real ISO-accredited lab reports and a big product range — undercut by white-label opacity, an 'F' BBB rating, a 2025 state attorney-general lawsuit (unproven), and a lab page that even hosted a different company's COA.
  12. D61Delta Munchies61/100Genuinely good lab transparency — a named, ISO-accredited lab, full-panel COAs, and QR batch verification — held to a D by a 2023 FDA/FTC warning letter over child-appealing 'copycat' packaging and a wall of undisclosed sourcing and manufacturing detail.
  13. D60Brez60/100A viral, founder-led THC + lion's mane tonic with real growth and a named, public founder — held to a D by footer-buried, potency-skewed lab reports, a co-packer it never voluntarily named, and a live class action over its auto-renewing subscriptions.
  14. D60Exhale Wellness60/100A popular, well-reviewed brand (8,600+ Trustpilot reviews at ~4 stars) that's still radically opaque — it won't name its testing lab, its manufacturer, or its own founders, lists three different addresses, and leans on paid 'best-of' PR.
  15. D58Galaxy Treats58/100Better lab transparency than its candy branding suggests — named, accredited labs and a clean enforcement record — but a wall of undisclosed basics (no legal entity, no facility, no GMP, no sourcing, no headcount) keeps it at a D.
  16. F56Just Delta56/100More traceable than most — a named founder, a known operator (Just Brands), and a NASDAQ-listed acquisition history — and well-liked on Trustpilot with no FDA action. But weak product-integrity transparency (self-asserted certs, an unnamed lab on the delta-8 line, independent-audit COA gaps) and a cluster of CBD-overstatement lawsuits land it at a high F.
  17. F54STIIIZY54/100America's best-selling cannabis brand is legitimate, regulated, and operationally open (named founders, a known parent, 61 dispensaries, an anti-counterfeit system) — but a confirmed Category-I pesticide recall, a ~380k-person data breach, and a thin voluntary-COA trail (especially on the hemp line) drag its transparency-and-record score to a high F.
  18. F52Binoid52/100Legitimate products and a traceable, founder-run company — but an 'F' BBB rating with dozens of unanswered complaints, a 2.4-star Trustpilot, lab reports that name no lab, and marketing claims that don't match the public record.
  19. F52Cookies52/100An iconic, legitimate, globally licensed cannabis lifestyle brand — but measured on our consumer-transparency rubric it scores low: it publishes no brand-level COAs (testing is dispensary/state-level), its manufacturing is licensed out to partners, and its public record is dominated by a dense web of unproven partner/investor disputes. A rubric-limited grade, not a verdict on product quality.
  20. F36Torch36/100A hugely popular but radically anonymous smoke-shop vape brand: no named founders, no named factory, and — most importantly for a disposable vape — COAs that never name the lab and don't confirm a full heavy-metal and residual-solvent panel. A real counterfeit problem and a BBB 'F' round it out.
  21. F35Diamond CBD35/100A real, identifiable company whose corporate structure is unusually well-documented (it was a public filer) — but with the most adverse verifiable record in these files and below-best-practice lab transparency. The F reflects that record and those gaps, framed precisely: nearly everything adverse is historical, disputed, or settled.
  22. F33Cake33/100Not one company but a contested trademark buried under counterfeits — the legitimate owner won a landmark federal case, but there's no single official site, no open named-lab COAs, and a journalist found one circulating 'Cake' COA that appeared to be forged. As a buyer, you often can't verify what you have.

Every grade is opinion based on a disclosed, repeatable methodology. We don't take payment for coverage, and affiliate links never move a score. See exactly how the points are assigned, or send a correction.

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