Dialed In Gummies’ Max Vansluys stands at the edge of innovation in Missouri’s edible market

Max Vansluys, President of Dialed In Gummies. Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

With the cannabis industry growing and expanding across the country, brands work to bring new products to the market while keeping the customer experience at the forefront. Dialed In Gummies—a Colorado-based company under Sun Theory—lies at the heart of innovation in Missouri’s gummy edible scene.

Dialed In Gummies are available at dispensaries across the state with four “innovations”, as well as their classic hybrids, indicas, and sativas. They offer award-winning rosin-based gummies that are solventless, chemical-free, and made in small batches to ensure quality.

The Pitch spoke with Dialed In Gummies President Max Vansluys to discuss the brand’s expansion into Missouri, his early career, and what separates the brand’s products from other edibles on the market.

Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

The Pitch: Could you tell me your background, a little bit about yourself, and how you got into the cannabis industry?

My name is Max Vansluys, President of Dialed In Gummies. My cannabis journey was a little bit unique for most people to get to where I am. I actually started as a budtender. When I moved to Denver from California, the sole intention was to get into the cannabis space. It seemed like there were a lot of really great brands out there, so I decided to jump in on the retail side to be able to learn all the brands quickly and quickly became the manager for both stores downtown and on South High Street.

That was for a few months where I then met what was the owner of Dialed In Gummies, the individual who then sold it to Sun Theory. But me and Jason (Manegold) was his name, we hit it off. I told him, ‘Look, I’ve got a lot of experience in management, definitely have a ton of cannabis experience, not necessarily in the license world, but experience,’ and basically, he gave me an opportunity of a lifetime; allowed me to come in and basically gave me a VP of Operations, which was a very inflated title, to say the least, but I was happy to take it.

When I first started, we were on 113 store waiting lists. We literally could not make the product fast enough. This was back in early 2021, so I went and put my HR hat on, and we basically brought on a weekend shift, and then a few months later, brought on a night shift. We were able to dilute that list to zero and then start to bring on new clients and not have to put them on a waiting list. So we went from around 45 to 50 stores when I first came on to almost 200 by the end of year two, and then that grew exponentially in year two, year three, and year four.

In Colorado, I think we’re now in over 500 doors in the state. Just recently, we launched in Ohio. That was in December of 2024, so we’re just six and a half months into Ohio’s launch, and we’re already in 100 of the 134 stores. And then we just launched in Missouri about six weeks ago, and we’re already about to crack door 100 out of, I think it’s 234, so we’re definitely making some waves in some of these new markets that we’re in now. We’re getting ready to launch into two new emerging markets in the very near future, so I would say by the end of July, early August, the goal is to be in five total markets.

Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

Every state is different, so what were the challenges of expanding into Missouri?

I’d say the big one for us was that we’re known for our very bright, colorful labels; all these fun patterns, and it has a lot of uniqueness. Whereas Missouri only allows you to have two colors on your label, so that right away was a big change for us, and still have the Dialed In feel, but not have the same labels that we’re known for.

Then, just getting labels approved. It’s a pretty lengthy process in the state of Missouri. It takes anywhere from 30 to 60-plus days to get a label approved, whereas in Colorado, as long as you’re under the guidelines that the state requires you to have, you can pretty much put out any label anytime you want, so that was a big learning curve for us.

I would also say just finding the biomass in a state like Missouri, that’s very vertical in how it’s run. A lot of the biomass that a lot of these growers are growing is being used for internal product lines, and a lot of them have other companies that they’re running through their own processing license to bring in additional revenue, so they’re all gobbling up a lot of the biomass.

For us, we’ve always been a company that sources all of our biomass from multiple different vendors. It’s always kind of brought up that collaboration over competition motto that we’ve run with, and finding the right collaborators and the right providers of biomass was a little challenging at the beginning, but we’re definitely hitting strides right now, and we’re starting to work with even more material providers in the state.

We’re getting ready to actually launch our first LTO, which is a limited-edition batch that will be a collaboration between us and a flower brand called Farmer G that is under the Agri-Genesis Sunrise umbrella, if you will, so really excited about that; That’ll be dropping here pretty soon.

Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

You mentioned having already been in over 100 doors in Missouri. Has the reception been pretty positive otherwise?

We were very well known on the western side of Missouri because of Kansas and it being only around an eight-hour drive from Denver, so we had a lot of budtenders, buyers, managers who were very familiar with our product line because they’ve traveled to Denver in the last three to four years and have tried our product.

The state actually allows you to give out non-medicated gummy samples so that people can try our flavors, our texture, our mouth feel. That is undoubtedly why we are as popular as we are still to this day. Sure, us being rosin-based is definitely a contributor to that, but overall, the flavor and texture of our gummies are what make us stand out among most edibles in the market, and that’s because we do use a gelatin-pectin mix, whereas most edible lines are just purely pectin.

Mostly the reason why pectin is so widely used is its operational efficiency because it sets very fast and doesn’t melt. You don’t have to worry about having any product waste due to high temperatures, with it being a pectin-based gummy, but we believe in and will stand by that pectin can only allow you for so much of an enjoyable experience, whereas our gummies, the number one thing that we hear is that our gummies taste too good. And there are a lot of users that end up eating maybe one or two more than what they wanted to. It’s never a bad thing. They just end up getting the munchies.

Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

You have a couple products branded as “innovations”. Can you tell me what’s innovative about them?

The first one that launched the innovation line is our 1:1:1, which is a sleep product. It is a combination of THC, CBD, and CBN, five milligrams of each cannabinoid in a gummy, so each gummy will have 15 milligrams of total cannabinoids. What we did with that gummy in particular that made it the innovation is that a lot of sleep products out there, they advertise that their product is nano emulsified, AKA fast acting. Generally, what you hear is that they’re just nanoing all three cannabinoids so that it hits you fast. The only problem with that is that you don’t know which one of those cannabinoids your body is going to absorb through the blood-brain barrier first, so there’s no real telling of what is going to be the last cannabinoid that your body starts to process and break down.

What we did was we actually took that scenario and made it very simple. We nanoed just the CBN. By nano emulsifying just the CBN, we’re allowing that cannabinoid to be chopped down as superfine molecules so that it goes through the blood-brain barrier first, which allows it to be the first cannabinoid that your body feels, making you nice and tired. Then, the CBD and the THC, being a traditional size molecule, are going to come behind it, and it’ll take your body a little bit longer to process that because of the size of the molecule. So they’re actually keeping you asleep, rested, and relaxed throughout the night. And since the CBN is the first to onset, it’s actually going to be the first offset. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s as close as we can get to guarantee that you won’t wake up with that CBN groggy hangover feeling because you’ll just wake up with the tail end of the CBD and the THC.

Now what we recently just brought into the Missouri market is a 5:1 CBD to THC, and we went pretty hot on the dose of CBD for that, because we feel that a lot of the products that are out don’t put enough CBD in the product for you to actually truly feel it. We decided if someone wants to cut these in half and do only 25 milligrams of CBD, they have the ability to do so, but we want to make sure that we’re giving an effective dose for most people who really need it, for the pain, muscle aches, any types of anti-inflammatory relief.

Then you’ve also got our other 1:1:1, which is more focus-based. It’s gonna have THCV, THC, and CBC. Again, five milligrams of each cannabinoid. What’s really unique is that the THCV kind of acts as a stimulant, almost like an outside suppressant at times as well. I don’t even like to call it a high, because, for me, it’s more uplifting than it is your typical high that you experience from THC. It’s great for getting things done around the house.

Then we have our 2:1, which is CBG and THC—20 milligrams of CBG, 10 milligrams of THC. It makes you very light-hearted, very carefree. I take this and my wife gets annoyed with me because everything in the world just doesn’t seem to bother me any longer. Those four products all live in the state of Missouri, in addition to our classics, which are just our hybrids or indicas and our sativas.

We actually do have a flavor rotation that we use for those so that we’re not giving the customer a chance to have flavor fatigue, which is what you see a lot in edibles. We went a little bit outside the box; We’ve got starfruit, guava, rocket berry, blue ice. We’ve got some very unique flavors that seem to intrigue the customer just by reading the words. Now they want to know how it tastes.

Photo Courtesy of Dialed In Gummies

What’s something that most people don’t know about the cannabis industry?

I think a lot of people assume that with cannabis, everyone’s just here smoking all day, and it’s got to be the most relaxing, carefree job in the world, when in fact, this is probably one of the most regulated spaces that you can operate in, up there with like medical alcohol.

Most people think that it’s extremely relaxing. It’s actually very challenging at times but rewarding most of the time.

For a lot of us who are in the space, we do it for the love of the plant. We want to be able to continue to provide the best product for the people who need it to help them with whatever they’re going through in life, and for me, that’s why I do this. That’s why I’m in cannabis—because I know how much it’s helped me. I know how much it’s helped individuals around me, including family members and a lot of the individuals who are on the Sun Theory team. We all have our own unique cannabis story that really brought us into this world, and what makes us really passionate about building the products that we do within it.

Interview edited for content and clarity.