Uber Eats Launches Cannabis Store Deliveries in Toronto

Recently, Uber’s regional branch in Canada announced that starting this week, Toronto residents will be able to order from the city’s cannabis stores through the Uber Eats delivery service.

“We are partnering with all major stores in the city, such as the Leafly brand, and we plan to continually expand the range of certified cannabis businesses we serve. We aim to work with small and medium-sized businesses in the city, not just large brands,” said Lola Kassim, General Manager of Uber Eats in Canada. “Our area of expertise is courier deliveries. It makes sense that we can’t ignore expanding into such a promising market as the legal cannabis industry.”

Currently, all adult users of the service in the Toronto area (that is, those aged 19 and older) can place orders for delivery from three stores in the city: Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis, and Shivaa’s Rose. In the future, the service plans to expand cooperation with other private establishments in the city that have regional CannSell certification.

It’s also worth noting that deliveries will be handled by private couriers working for individual stores. The platform itself will primarily act as an order aggregator and sorter for businesses that lack the resources to process orders themselves or wish to outsource these needs to another company.

“We also hope our project will have a social impact. We believe that the ability to easily purchase and have cannabis delivered from multiple stores will significantly reduce the number of people who still use local dealers. In addition, the service can greatly improve access to therapeutic cannabis products for residents in all areas of the city and help small businesses find new customers,” Ms. Kassim added. “If the project succeeds in Toronto, we will definitely expand it to other major cities in the country and, eventually, to all communities in Canada.”

According to city representatives, this program is essentially a return to a previously tested delivery system that was developed and implemented during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.