Who Is Cake? A Brand File on the Most-Counterfeited Vape in Hemp
It isn't one company — it's 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 lab reports, and a journalist found one circulating 'Cake' COA that appeared to be forged. The result: you often can't verify what you're holding.
By The Kind Buds Desk · 11 min read · Updated 2026-06-28
Kind Buds Brand Transparency Score
Not 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.
An opinion grade from our transparent 6-pillar methodology, built on publicly sourced facts.
No open, named-lab, batch-specific COA library; reports route to a shared drive, and a journalist found one Cake COA that appeared forged.
The owner is a 'manufacturer & distributor,' but no facility, contract maker, or GMP status is disclosed.
Hemp-derived (the basis of its court win), but no farm, state, or organic disclosure.
Trademark owner AK Futures LLC is identifiable via court and USPTO records — but ownership is actively contested and no principals are named.
US-based, but no verifiable headcount, leadership, or workplace data for the actual brand owner.
No FDA letter or recall, and the owner is the anti-counterfeit plaintiff — but the brand is defined by a vast counterfeit problem.
"Cake" is one of the best-known names in delta-8 vapes — the two-tier cake logo and the "She Hits Different" slogan are everywhere. It's also, by a wide margin, the hardest brand we've tried to grade, because "Cake" isn't one company you can vet. It's a contested trademark, owned on paper by one firm, claimed by another, and copied by a sprawling field of counterfeiters. We still ran it through our six-pillar Brand Transparency Score, and it lands at an F (33/100) — our lowest grade — for one overriding reason: as a buyer, you frequently cannot verify what you're actually holding.
We want to be fair and precise here, because this is a story with a legitimate company in it. The trademark's owner, AK Futures, won a landmark federal court case that helped establish the legality of hemp delta-8, and it is itself the party suing counterfeiters. The F is not a claim that AK Futures is a bad actor. It's a measurement of a brand environment so muddied by knock-offs, a non-existent single official storefront, and unverifiable lab reports that the consumer-protection answer — for anyone trying to know what's in their vape — is "proceed with extreme caution." Here's the receipts-first reality.
The short version
- Our grade: F (33/100), our lowest. Driven by un-verifiability — not by a single company's misconduct.
- "Cake" is contested, not unified. The trademark/copyright is owned by AK Futures LLC, which won a landmark 2022 federal appeals case over it; a second company (TBH Supply) claimed rights and had its counterclaims dismissed.
- The owner fights counterfeits — and there are a lot. AK Futures is the plaintiff in multiple cases against counterfeit "Cake" sellers, and knock-offs are sold widely (including in bulk overseas).
- A journalist found a forged COA. A Leafly investigation reported that one Cake disposable's online lab report "appeared to be forged" — it named a different client and lacked a contaminant panel, which the named lab confirmed didn't match its records.
- No single official site, no open named-lab COAs. There's no universally recognized "official" Cake storefront, and lab reports aren't published as an open, named-lab, batch-specific library — so authenticity and contents are hard to confirm.
| What the public record shows | |
|---|---|
| Trademark owner | AK Futures LLC (Ojai, CA) |
| Created | October 2020 (per the federal court opinion) |
| Ownership status | Contested — a second firm (TBH Supply) claimed rights; its counterclaims were dismissed (appeal pending) |
| Landmark case | AK Futures v. Boyd Street Distro, 9th Cir. (2022) — helped establish hemp delta-8's legality |
| Makes its own product? | AK Futures = 'manufacturer & distributor'; facility/GMP not disclosed |
| Official website? | No single universally recognized official storefront |
| Lab testing | No open named-lab COA library; one circulating COA found 'forged' by Leafly |
| Counterfeits | Widespread; the owner sues counterfeiters |
| FDA action / recalls | None found for the brand |
Cake at a glance — the verified facts
The short version
The defining fact about "Cake" is that a product on a shelf may be genuine, a disputed competitor's, or an outright counterfeit — and you usually can't tell which. That single problem cascades through every pillar of our score: if you can't establish which "Cake" you have, you can't trust its manufacturing, its sourcing, or even its lab report. Our F reflects that un-verifiability, not a finding that any one company poisoned anyone.
There is a legitimate company at the center — AK Futures, which owns the trademark and won a federal case affirming that its hemp delta-8 is lawful. We credit that. But around it sits a counterfeit ecosystem, a second company claiming the name, and a lab-report situation so weak that a journalist documented a forged COA. For a consumer trying to know what they're inhaling, that environment is the story.
Who actually owns 'Cake'? (It's genuinely contested)
On paper, the answer is AK Futures LLC, a California company (Ojai) that, per the federal court record, created the "Cake" delta-8 brand in October 2020 and holds the registered copyright on the logo and trademark filings on the name. AK Futures is a real, identifiable, court-documented entity — that part is verifiable.
The landmark case — and what it does and doesn't mean
To AK Futures' genuine credit: in AK Futures v. Boyd Street Distro (9th Circuit, 2022), a federal appeals court affirmed an injunction in its favor, held that hemp-derived delta-8 (at or under 0.3% delta-9) is lawful under the 2018 Farm Bill, and found AK Futures holds protectible trademarks in "Cake." It's one of the most important delta-8 legality rulings there is, and AK Futures has won further judgments against counterfeit sellers. This is a company enforcing its rights, not hiding from regulators.
Here's the careful distinction, though: that case established legality and trademark ownership — not product transparency. A court ruling that AK Futures owns the name and that hemp delta-8 is legal does nothing to help you verify that the specific cart in your hand is a genuine AK Futures product, made where they say, tested by a named lab. Those are different questions, and it's the second set that our score measures — and where "Cake" fails.
The lab-testing problem (and a documented forged COA)
This is the heart of the F. For a brand this large, the lab-report situation is alarmingly weak:
- No open, named-lab, batch-specific COA library. Claimed-official Cake sites route their "lab reports" to a shared cloud drive with placeholder contact info, and authenticity is pitched mainly through packaging QR codes rather than a public, searchable COA database.
- A journalist documented a forged report. In an investigation, Leafly reported that a Cake disposable's online COA "appeared to be forged": it listed a different company as the client, showed a non-matching address, and lacked any contaminant or heavy-metal results — and the named lab on the document (Encore Labs) confirmed the on-file report differed from the online version.
Manufacturing, sourcing, and who's behind it
Beyond the legality basis, almost nothing is disclosed. The owner, AK Futures, is described as a "manufacturer and distributor," but it names no facility, no contract manufacturer, and no GMP certification. Its hemp sourcing — the farm, the state, any organic credential — is not disclosed (only the legal basis that genuine product is hemp-derived and under the 0.3% delta-9 line). And the company's principals and leadership are not publicly named, with no verifiable headcount, Glassdoor, or workplace data for the actual brand owner. The entity is traceable through court and trademark records; the operation behind it is a black box.
The record: a clean owner in a dirty ecosystem
The owner's formal record is, notably, clean and even sympathetic: we found no FDA warning letter and no recall for the Cake vape brand, and the litigation runs the opposite direction from most brands we cover — AK Futures is the plaintiff, repeatedly suing counterfeiters and winning. That's a point in the legitimate owner's favor.
The bottom line
In our view, "Cake" is less a brand you evaluate than a buyer-beware situation you navigate. The legitimate trademark owner is real, court-recognized, and actively fighting the knock-offs — and if you could guarantee you were buying genuine AK Futures product from an authorized source, much of this would look different. But you usually can't guarantee that. There's no single official storefront, the ownership is contested, the company internals are undisclosed, there's no open named-lab COA library, and a journalist has documented a forged Cake lab report. Add it up and, as a consumer, the thing you most need — confidence in what you're inhaling — is the thing "Cake" can't reliably give you.
Our honest advice: for a vape, prefer brands where you can verify the maker and pull a named-lab, batch-specific COA — like 3Chi or TRE House. If you encounter a "Cake" product, treat its authenticity and its lab report as unconfirmed until proven otherwise. An F (33/100) — earned by un-verifiability, not by a verdict on the legitimate owner. The full methodology shows every point.
Questions, answered
Is Cake delta-8 legit or fake?
Both exist, and that's exactly the problem. The 'Cake' trademark is legitimately owned by AK Futures LLC, which won a landmark federal case affirming its hemp delta-8 is lawful and which actively sues counterfeiters. But counterfeit 'Cake' vapes are widespread, there's no single official storefront, a competitor also claimed the name in court, and a Leafly investigation documented one Cake COA that appeared forged. The result: a 'Cake' product you find may be genuine, a disputed competitor's, or counterfeit — and you often can't tell which. We grade it an F (33/100) for that un-verifiability.
Who owns Cake (the vape brand)?
On paper, AK Futures LLC, a California company, owns the 'Cake' trademark and copyright and created the brand in October 2020 — and it won a landmark 2022 federal appeals case (AK Futures v. Boyd Street Distro) establishing both its trademark rights and the legality of hemp delta-8. However, ownership is contested: a separate company, TBH Supply, claimed rights to 'Cake She Hits Different' and had its counterclaims dismissed (an appeal is pending). The legitimate owner is identifiable, but its principals and internals are not publicly disclosed.
Are Cake's lab tests (COAs) trustworthy?
Often you can't trust them, and that's central to the F. There's no open, named-lab, batch-specific COA library for 'Cake' — claimed-official sites route lab reports to a shared cloud drive. More seriously, a Leafly investigation reported that one Cake disposable's online COA 'appeared to be forged' (it named a different client, gave a non-matching address, and lacked a contaminant panel), and the lab named on it confirmed the on-file report differed. To be fair, that attaches to a specific report in a counterfeit-heavy market, not proof the legitimate owner forges tests — but it shows why a 'Cake' COA can't be taken at face value.
Is Cake a scam?
We won't put it that way, because it would be imprecise and unfair to the legitimate owner. The 'Cake' trademark is owned by a real, court-recognized company (AK Futures) that won a major legality case and sues counterfeiters — that's not a scam operation. One consumer-review outlet did headline its write-up 'Beware of This Scam Company,' which we note as their characterization, not our finding. The accurate framing is this: 'Cake' is a heavily counterfeited, contested brand where you frequently can't verify whether a given product is genuine or what's actually in it — which is its own serious consumer-protection problem, distinct from calling any one company a scam.
Should I buy Cake vapes?
We'd be cautious. The core issue isn't that genuine Cake product is necessarily bad — it's that you usually can't confirm a given 'Cake' vape is genuine, can't identify who made it, and can't rely on its lab report in a market full of counterfeits and at least one documented forged COA. For a product you inhale, that's a lot of unverifiable risk. If you want a vape, we'd point you to brands where you can verify the manufacturer and pull a named-lab, batch-specific COA — and treat any 'Cake' product's authenticity and testing as unconfirmed until you can prove otherwise.
How did you research this, and is it fair?
Every claim is from a public source — the 9th Circuit opinion, USPTO and court dockets, a Leafly investigation (with the named lab confirming), and consumer-review outlets. We were careful to credit AK Futures as the legitimate, court-recognized owner and anti-counterfeit plaintiff, to attribute the forged-COA finding to Leafly (about a specific report, not 'all Cake'), and to attribute the 'scam company' language to the outlet that wrote it rather than adopt it. We make no claim of misconduct by AK Futures. The F reflects that a consumer can't reliably verify a 'Cake' product — see the notice at the foot of this page for corrections.