LoginStorz & Bickel Celebrates 25 Years With Launch of New VEAZY Vape
In the world of cannabis technology, few brands carry the legacy and trust of Storz & Bickel. For over two decades, their iconic Volcano vaporizer has set the standard for quality and performance, earning a reputation as the gold standard for both cannabis medical patients and connoisseurs alike. While the brand’s legacy is built on its classic devices, Storz & Bickel continues to innovate. Today, the brand is launching the new VEAZY, a true game-changer for the personal dry herb vape market.
The new Storz & Bickel VEAZY Vaporizer delivers consistent, flavorful vapor in just 40 seconds using the company’s patented hybrid heating technology. It’s also the brand’s smallest and most affordable device, priced at just $249 and weighing 0.3 lbs. Users can fine-tune settings and easily personalize sessions from their phone or laptop via Bluetooth to the S&B web app. Plus, the quick USB-C charging system means you can easily recharge the device when you’re on the move. The VEAZY is the perfect blend of style and substance: It fits nicely in the palm of your hand but still packs a punch with S&B’s patented mini hybrid heater blending conduction and convection.
Cannabis Now Founder Eugenio Garcia sat down with Jürgen Bickel, co-founder and managing director of Storz & Bickel, to discuss the brand’s 25-year journey from a small German workshop to a global industry leader. In this conversation, Jürgen shares the company’s foundational principles, his new role as a public-facing advocate for the brand, and an exciting first look at the VEAZY, the company’s latest device set to redefine accessibility in the space.
Eugenio Garcia: Jürgen, welcome. Thank you for being here with me. Storz & Bickel is one of the few brands with a true legacy. In my opinion, cannabis is still a new industry, but we’ve been at it for over a decade now in its modern sense. However, your brand has a rich history, and I’d love to learn a little more about the company’s beginnings and how it got started.
Jürgen Bickel: Of course. This was 25 years ago, or even a little bit before. The starting point was my partner, or ex-partner, Markus Storz. He started to develop the Volcano. I met him from time to time during this process, and I also tested a few things with him. But at that time, I was still living in South America and was not too close to it. In November 2000, he brought out the first series of the Volcano. I was one of his first clients. I bought a Volcano for myself. I quit smoking tobacco at that time, and I brought it with me to Peru.
A year later, I came back to Germany. My time in South America was over, and Markus needed help, so I helped him out because I knew the device. We attended trade shows together, and then we decided to co-found Storz & Bickel. We were just the two of us then, and then the journey started. 25 years later, we have about 150 employees here and have had a great time and a great experience.
EG: Twenty-five years ago, how did you develop the technology for the Volcano? How has it transitioned over 25 years, given that you must have over 20 or 30 products now?
JB: It started with a heat gun. It became clear at the time that you don’t have to burn the flower to consume it. At that time, it wasn’t immediately apparent to everyone that THCA needed to be decarboxylated; all we knew was that it worked. We found out that you need a minimum of 180 degrees Celsius to release the THC, and you need less than 230 degrees Celsius because above that, it also burns. This is your window and to stay in that window, you must have exact temperature control. This is how it started.
EG: The balloon is such a signature part of the Volcano experience. What was the rationale behind that design choice, and what benefits does it offer the user that other methods don’t?
JB: To this day, people still ask, “What is it, a balloon or a bag?” But it’s just a way to hold the vapor you have already produced so you only need to inhale. You can almost not do anything wrong once you have the bag in your hand. It’s very easy, and it’s also a resistance-free inhalation. All this made it very special from the very beginning.
EG: There’s a huge medical benefit to these devices. How do you think about it from a medical point of view, as far as the technology and your presentation of the products?
JB: We’re located in Tuttlingen, Germany, which calls itself the world center of medical devices.. So, from the very beginning, it was clear that we wanted to have a medical device like everybody else in this town. Another point for us from the very beginning was that somebody who is slightly disabled needs to be able to use it. It was also important that a patient could use it and that you could replicate the dosage. One balloon always has the same amount. You have local mobility; you don’t have to touch electricity or heat or glass. You can bring it to a patient in a bed. All of this was thought into the design from the very beginning, and it worked very well.
It’s not only the medical device status we like. We also certify our household devices that are not medical devices. We certify them with a UL norm. The UL 8139 is the vaporizing norm. We send 100 devices to a lab where somebody else tests them, doing drop tests, water tests, electric tests, and venting tests. We do this to get a third-party approval for our device. This is our way to ensure quality and demonstrate the diligence we bring into the development process.
EG: Speaking of the development process, how does the process of creating new devices or enhancing technology work for you?
JB: We get a lot of customer feedback, and we take all feedback seriously to see if there is something that everybody doesn’t like or what everybody wants to have. We review it, but the baseline remains an internal process.
For the Venty, for example, we said, “Okay, the MIGHTY+ is nice, but we would like something a little bit faster with more airflow.” So, this was clearly an internal idea. In the cannabis industry, if something isn’t widely available and a lot of people don’t know about vaporizers, it’s difficult to get good feedback. You have some experts who know a lot of devices, but this is only a few people, and they are already experts. This isn’t somebody on the street you can ask. The feedback you get is always that people want it to be cheap and small, which makes it a little bit difficult.
We develop a lot of these ideas in-house; Markus and I both use cannabis and we’re the first ones who test it. We stand behind it, and if I don’t like it or if I think it doesn’t work, then we don’t do it. This is our internal review process. But of course, the whole community brings in ideas, and all this together brings us to a new device.
EG: You mentioned just now that everyone wants it cheaper and smaller. A company that comes to mind when you say that is Apple. They revolutionized technology across
the world. I don’t know if you’ve heard this before, but a lot of people compare Storz & Bickel to Apple. They say Storz & Bickel is the Apple of the cannabis space.
JB: I’ve heard that. It’s nice to hear.
EG: With Apple for many years, after Steve Jobs passed, there wasn’t a lot of personality behind the brand. For Storz & Bickel, for many years, everyone knew the Volcano and the product, but nobody really knew who was behind it. There was no public face of the brand. Maybe it’s just me, but in the last year or two, we’ve seen you, Jürgen Bickel, really out there as an entrepreneur and a leader in the space, as a spokesperson not only for your brand but for the industry as a whole. You’re very active on social media. I’ve seen you speaking on panels and doing a lot more interviews. Is that a perception, or have you truly taken your message and the brand to the streets in the last few years?
JB: That’s absolutely true. Of course, in the past, the legal situation in the States and in Europe was much more difficult, and you may not have wanted to go out and present yourself as a big cannabis entrepreneur. This has changed in the last few years. I can talk more openly than the company can. I can use the word “cannabis.” I can show the consumption. I also want to show people what it is like. I don’t want to give a wrong image. Everything that is happening on social media is authentic. I’m a user at the end of the day, and I’m testing the device. I’ve tested tons of devices, and I want to transmit this message. I am who I am, and this is the company behind it. This is to build trust with people and say, “You can spend this amount of money. I assure you this is something good. This is not something you will regret at any point.”
EG: The economy around the industry has been challenging. What I’ve seen is that a lot of companies, specifically from Europe, were looking at the US for expansion. Now that Germany has legalized, a good number have reversed their focus back to Germany or Europe. Germany has a population of nine million, so it’s a massive move for the economy and for potential revenue. How has Germany impacted your focus? We know that Mary Jane Berlin had 44,000 to 45,000 attendees.
JB: From the baseline, we understand ourselves as a global brand. Every year, we ship to more than 100 countries. It shows that cannabis is consumed everywhere in the world, whatever the legal situation is. Even where penalties exist, people are still consuming—not in the same way or with the same openness—but worldwide, people have been using cannabis for thousands of years. This is part of our brand’s international approach. I like this about cannabis, seeing that people are using it everywhere in the world.
Of course, then you have your main markets where you have your main sales and main revenue. The US market is the biggest market for us. But Europe also became more important. It was always a good market, but with legalization in Germany, we doubled our revenue in Germany. It’s also personally much nicer to live in a legal environment where you can consume and have three plants at home, which is allowed. So, as a company, Germany is great, and it’s our home market and our home language, so we have a lot of focus here.
We also have a subsidiary in Oakland; an office with 15 people and more than 20 salespeople employed as Storz & Bickel America, Inc. I personally founded that company in 2005 in Oakland. So, on the revenue side, we look for our main markets, but our general approach is to be worldwide, and I’m proud to ship every year to more than 100 countries.
EG: I was very happy to see the Oakland expansion. I lived in Berkeley, California, for 10 years. I have a very fond love for Oaksterdam. It was a cradle of innovation, as they say, so close to Silicon Valley. Speaking of innovation, tell me about the new VEAZY vaporizer.
JB: The Venty was our last innovation, almost two years ago. It was a game-changer because it had high airflow. It’s a very successful device, but it is a little bit pricey and bulky. It has the performance for people who are using cannabis several times a day. We thought, like with the Mighty and Crafty, the Venty needs a little brother or sister. We came up with the “VEAZY.”
The VEAZY has the same feeling chamber inside, so it works with our capsules, but it’s much smaller and handier. It has a slightly higher heat-up time of 40 seconds, and the airflow is a little more restricted, but it’s a nice and small device. Our goal with this device was to bring our experience to a broader audience and make it more affordable. This will retail at $249 USD. It has great performance and is a very nice device.
EG: And it comes in a range of fun colors, right?
JB: Yes! All our devices are normally black, so we thought, “Let’s use a few colors if we’re going in a more lifestyle direction.” In addition to our alluring black, it will come in four colors: rainbow, a dynamic blue, inspiring orange, and a charming pink.
EG: I love them so much. Being able to personalize a purchase is really important to people. In your home, you can use it as a presentation. It’s not just a device you pull out of a drawer. It’s something you can have on a bar cart or a conversation piece in the home, which is very exciting.
JB: It has the orange button, the different colors, and it works well and goes in your pocket. It’s a very good offer to the market. It’s also easy to use with a one-button design: You press it once, and it turns on. You see the orange light, and it heats up.
EG: It looks beautiful. It gives me an essence of a microphone for a rock star. You are the rock star of your own life with one of these. I can’t wait to try one. Congratulations.
As one of the leading brands and entrepreneurs in the space, what is your hope for the next five to 10 years? Do you think that we are on the cusp of a global or at least US legalization? What do you predict in the near and medium future?
JB: On the legal side, I think that it will go in the right direction. I don’t see things going back, even in the US. But even the current situation is acceptable. You can run a business in this space and do certain things. You see this globally. Australia, for example, is a good market. You also see advancements in South Africa and even in Brazil. The same thing happens: It goes through medical and then recreational. It gets acceptance. Our generation is the first one that is more open to it. The younger generation is more open to it, questions alcohol, and has more openness towards cannabis. So, I see this as a positive, and I think this trend will remain.
EG: Absolutely. In order to have the future that we are hoping for, I believe that the normalization of cannabis and the products and brands behind them is very important. What I’ve also noticed in the last year or two with Storz & Bickel is you have done specific things with your brand, connecting them with mainstream, normalizing opportunities. What is the next event that you guys have on your calendar, either in Europe or in the US, that is a larger opportunity for you?
JB: The next show is the cannabis show in Prague, in the Czech Republic. We will have a launch party in New York the weekend after. We are thinking about something in San Diego as well. Then, of course, MJ BizCon and Hall of Flowers in Santa Rosa are coming up. Those are the bigger events. In Europe, Mary Jane was great.
EG: Awesome. JB, it has been a pleasure to connect with you. I’ve been watching your progress over the years. I graduated high school in 2000, and the Volcano quickly came into my world when I was in college. It’s been a true pleasure to see someone like you grow over the years and now to talk to you personally. Thank you so much.
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