Cannabis company rebrands edibles to 'Supply Chain Chaos' flavor after delayed holiday shipments arrive in backlogged California port

• Due to the supply-chain crisis, some holiday orders have just been unloaded at major US ports.
• That includes tins for Kiva's "Holiday Punch" cannabis edibles, originally scheduled to arrive in November.

Kiva Confections is looking to make light of shipping bottlenecks that delayed orders of its holiday-themed cannabis edibles tins by rebranding them to "Supply Chain Chaos" flavor.

The cannabis company's "Holiday Punch" tins were among the thousands of backlogged items recently unloaded from containers at California's Port of Long Beach. According to Kristin Rasmussen, brand marketing director at Kiva Confections, the tins were originally slated to reach Kiva in November before hitting dispensary shelves throughout December, but didn't make it off the boat until early January as a result of the supply-chain crisis.

With the holidays come and gone, Rasmussen said the marketing team decided to use the opportunity to rebrand the edibles from "Holiday Punch" to "Post-Holiday Punch: Supply Chain Chaos." In a sign of the times, the packaging's original winter wonderland label was covered with a sticker of hulking container ships stuck at sea.

"Instead of wasting the packaging and product that had already been produced, we decided to be transparent with our retailers and consumers that this product was intended to be released during the holidays, but we were impacted by the same supply-chain issues plaguing many industries right now," Rasmussen told Insider.

The average amount of time a vessel waited in Los Angeles's port backlog this month was just under 18 days, according to the most recent port data. On Thursday, 53 vessels were waiting to dock — down from a backlog of over 100 ships at the beginning of the month.

Still, the Omicron variant threatens to make the historic backlog even worse, as 1 in 10 port workers in Southern California were unable to work due to COVID-19 during the second week of January, the Wall Street Journal reported.

On top of dealing with supply-chain issues and the labor shortage, Rasmussen told Insider that the cannabis industry is also "navigating high taxes, regulatory red tape, and a thriving illicit market."

Ultimately, despite the delayed shipment, Rasmussen said she is optimistic about the product's new look: "By embracing it and being transparent, we're hoping fans of this limited edition flavor will show up and be amused."