Cannabis concentrate packaging is not one item. A compliant setup is usually four things that have to be specified together: the container, a child-resistant closure, an outer carton carrying the state warning, and an insert that stops the container moving inside it. Buy them separately and they tend not to fit.
Here is what each part does and the order to decide them in.
Quick answers
Container. Glass jar for most concentrates, parchment or an envelope for flat product.
Closure. The child-resistant part. The jar is just a jar.
Outer carton. Where the state warning and your branding live.
Insert. Holds the container still so it arrives upright and unbroken.
Specify all four together, because the insert depends on the jar and the carton depends on the insert.
Start with the concentrate, not the jar
What you are packing decides the container, and nothing else should be chosen first.
Badder, budder, sauce, sugar. Anything soft and sticky goes in a jar. Thick-walled glass is the default because it is non-reactive, does not absorb terpenes, and looks like the product is worth what you charge.
Shatter and flat sheets. These do not want a jar. They want parchment and an envelope, because a slab in a round jar gets handled, warmed and folded into something that no longer looks like shatter.
Vape cartridges. Worth saying plainly because people forget: a cart is a concentrate product, and it needs the same compliance thinking, just in a different format. That sits with vape packaging rather than here.
The materials question, glass against silicone against plastic, is a longer conversation and we wrote it up separately in concentrate jars and dab containers. The short version is that silicone rarely passes child-resistant testing and absorbs terpenes, so it is a dab mat material rather than a retail one.
The closure is the compliant part, not the jar
This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it is worth being blunt about.
The glass is just glass. The lid is what carries the certification. When a supplier says a jar is child-resistant, what they should mean is that the closure has been tested to CPSC 16 CFR 1700.20 and there is a report to prove it.
So ask for the report, on the closure, by name. Not a line in an email saying "CR compliant." A supplier who cannot send the documentation on request will not be able to send it when your state regulator or your dispensary buyer asks you for it, and at that point it is your problem rather than theirs.
There is more on how the test actually works, and what the different closure types are, in child-resistant caps and closures explained.
The carton is where compliance and branding live
Most states require an outer carton carrying the warning symbol, the THC content and the other mandated copy. That carton is also the only surface big enough to carry your brand properly, because a jar label is small and curved.
Two things to get right.
Size it to the jar and the insert, not to the jar alone. A carton sized to a bare jar will not close once the insert is in.
Leave room for the warning copy at design stage. State requirements change, and the single most expensive mistake here is a beautiful carton with no space left for a mandated symbol that has to go on it. Build the dead space in deliberately rather than discovering you need it.
If the carton is doing more work than the jar in your lineup, custom packaging boxes covers the structures.
The insert is not optional
A jar loose in a carton arrives rattling, and sometimes arrives broken. A fitted insert, paperboard or moulded pulp, cut to your jar diameter, is what makes the package feel considered when the customer opens it rather than cheap.
It is also the part people leave out of the brief and then add late, which is when it costs the most, because by then the carton is already sized.
Decide in this order
Concentrate type, which gives you jar or parchment.
Container size, in grams of product rather than millilitres of jar.
Closure, with the CR report if your state requires it.
Insert, cut to the container.
Carton, sized around the container and insert together, with warning space planned in.
Doing it in this order means nothing gets re-tooled. Doing it backwards, starting from a carton you liked the look of, usually means doing it twice.
What to send for a quote
Four things and you can be priced:
What the concentrate is, and the fill weight.
Container preference, if you have one, or ask to be advised.
Whether you need a certified child-resistant closure.
Which state or states you are selling into, because that drives the carton copy.
We quote the jar, the carton and the insert together rather than separately, within two business days, because quoting them apart is how you end up with parts that do not fit. Child-resistant closures come with the CPSC 16 CFR 1700.20 documentation in the box.
Prices are ex-works, so freight and duty are quoted alongside the unit price rather than hidden in it. We publish real per-unit numbers for the lines we run most on our pricing page, and concentrate sets are quoted individually because the spread between a 1g jar and a full set with a rigid carton is wider than any single range could honestly describe.
Where to go next
For jars, parchment, envelopes and what we print, see cannabis concentrate packaging.
For certified closures across every format, see child-resistant packaging. For cartridges, see vape packaging.
