Candy-styled sweets, corn syrup–filled gummies, oily munchies—junk foods still dominate the world of weed edibles. But consumers are maturing, as are their palates. More are seeking wellness-focused cannabis edibles that don’t add unnecessary sugar. Enter, Super Chill, a California-based brand whose infused fruit chews for those wanting healthy ingredients and quality, full-spectrum cannabis extract.
With a texture similar to chewy Airhead candies, Super Chill’s fruit chews and jellies boast seasonal, locally sourced fruit and herbs, plus high-quality rosin. The hands behind these crafted bites? Jenn Miguelez and Andre Santiago.
Prior to starting Super Chill, the partners (both in business and life) ran an infused fortune cookie business in Miami that employed guerilla marketing techniques like posting “missing” fortune cookie signs flyers around the city complete with tearable number tabs to call and order. The project’s runaway success inspired them to move to LA to do things for real in California’s legal market.
“Having worked with different products and getting feedback from people the past 10 years, we knew we wanted to create something plant-based and something that tasted so good, you wouldn’t even second guess if it contained anything artificial or gross,” says Santiago. “I eventually stumbled upon the fruit chew recipe just as a friend had given me a bunch of rosin and asked if there was anything we could do with it.”
Santiago and Miguelez source the fruits from local farmers markets, and they grow the herbs for the jellies at home. “We’ve built relationships with different farms, so when they have seasonal things we’ll grab them and incorporate them into our recipes,” said Miguelez. “Then we have a huge herb garden in our backyard where we grow all the herbs for our jellies like the oregano and strawberry basil flavors.”
The edibles genre has long been plagued by ingredients that produce a negative user experience—and we’re not talking about just sugar. Until recently, almost all edibles used a type of cannabis extract called distillate. The process that creates distillate strips cannabis of all THC’s balancing chemical counterparts, leaving only THC alone in most cases. The CBD, terpenes, and other cannabinoids naturally present in the plant are no longer present, which add delightful nuance to your high and also help keep THC’s side effects of anxiety and paranoia in check.
Without the balance that comes with the full suite of organic compounds, you run the risk of a Maureen Dowd-esque edible meltdown. While distillate just gets you high on straight THC, rosin has a radiant, full-spectrum high that interacts wholly with your endocannabinoid system. Created without the use of a chemical solvent like butane, ethanol, or carbon dioxide, rosin extracts the plant’s desirable compounds more gently via combination of heat and pressure. The original chemical fingerprint of the flower is preserved. Because of this pure and potent expression of the flower, rosin has taken off as the product du jour in the edibles and dabbing spaces.
Now Santiago and Miguelez continue to perfect their decarbing process, which activates the cannabis for edible consumption. They want to make sure their ingredients work in unison with the terpene profile of the rosin.
Sequestering edibles to products that are bad for you supports the narrative that cannabis is indulgent and solely recreational. For people who value their health and use cannabis daily, Super Chill is helping to normalize cannabis use in a beneficial way.
“We wanted to have a product that was fully plant-powered,” says Santiago. “Our brand is a tribute to farmers, plants, food, and everything that we feel makes Super Chill, super chill.” (Full Story)