Anyone who has been in cannabis for any length of time will share a lot of truths with you. These truths are always subject to experience, and the most significant and influential factor of the experience is the environment. Cannabis is a game of inches. Even if you are zeroed in on a specific state, the environmental differences from one city to another can vary drastically.
Take Illinois, for example: if you told someone from the Prairie State that the people in Cairo have the same culture and lifestyle as the people in Chicago, you’d get laughed out of the room. Why would their consumption habits be any different?
The cannabis industry in Illinois is a microcosm of the industry in the US. In the population hubs of the bigger cities, the larger operators dominate, while the more rural areas better support the smaller brands and retailers. Let’s take a deeper look specifically at Chicago.
Before starting with an examination of the top-performing retailers, here is some context on the three main types of dispensaries:
- MSO’s (Multi-State Operations) leverage their capital to achieve economies of scale, the likes of which SSO’s (Single-State Operators) and especially Independent operators are often unable to compete with.
- SSOs only operate within one state but are usually backed by corporations and vertically integrated
- Independent operators are mostly locally owned and generally don’t grow their own supply. The metrics used here are dollar sales for 2026 YTD for Chicago in descending order.
Retailers are the curators and the ultimate forward-facing consumer distributors, but the trends start with the brands. The brands make the decisions on what to cultivate and provide to those retailers. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of this market, it’s necessary to look separately at the brands within their respective categories. Here are the top brands by category for the 2026 YTD, based on total sales.
This industry is and always will be a face-to-face business. A large part of the aforementioned experience has forever been built on the foundation of conversations with people that only happen in person. If you will be in Chicago for IgniteIt on June 14-16th and you care about data, come see us for a full day of analytics and networking on June 17th at Hoodie’s annual Sessions event. Use Code BeardedHoodie for a very special discount.
Chris is a cannabis data strategist who blends sharp market insight with decades of experience in sales and storytelling to help brands grow smarter.
After cutting his teeth in financial services, he moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles and pivoted into legal cannabis, selling emerging brands into dispensaries while consulting for a global innovation agency.
Over the past six years, Chris has helped shape how cannabis operators use data, first at BDSA, now at Hoodie Analytics, translating complex information into real-world growth. In 2024, he joined the Beard Bros Media team.
