While Michigan dispensaries drown in gummies, Lansing’s Hey! Captain Edibles is proving there’s another way: freeze-dried edibles with flavor, nostalgia, and bite.
LANSING—Inside a small commercial kitchen on the edge of the Capital City, one worker spends most of his days unwrapping thousands of individual Starbursts candies by hand.
It’s a tedious and absurd job. But it’s exactly the kind of obsessive detail that defines Hey! Captain Edibles, a Lansing-based cannabis brand that’s focused almost entirely on freeze-dried treats instead of the basic, fruit-flavored gummies that dominate Michigan dispensary shelves.
Founded by longtime cannabis innovator Kirk Reid, better known as Captain Kirk, the company’s lineup includes crunchy, fast-acting twists on nostalgic favorites like Starburst, Skittles, Lemonheads, and M&Ms—now available in about 160 dispensaries statewide.
Rebel kitchen on Lansing’s edge
After sampling some Hey! Captain products from my local dispensary, I invited myself over for a tour last month and found Reid sitting in his car, presumably “preparing” for his next shift as the brand’s founding namesake, executive chef, and Michigan’s own Willy Wonka of weed.
The building is small and nondescript. But inside, Reid’s workspace looks more like a small-batch lab than a kitchen—with racks of candy cooling, freeze dryers humming, and yes, one poor soul tasked with peeling every single Starburst by hand to make Star Babies.
Why bother? Because Starburst doesn’t come unwrapped in bulk, the “mini” version tastes completely different once it’s freeze-dried, and Reid refuses to cut corners—even if it means paying someone to spend all day unwrapping thousands of pieces of candy, one by one.
“We could use the generic candy but it just doesn’t taste the same,” Reid explained. “So, if you want a real Starburst, you gotta hire someone to unwrap them all. There’s no other way. … Our guy is getting really good at it. He started out with six bags a day. Now, he’s averaging 16.”
From hospital bed to High Times legend
Reid’s path into the cannabis industry is as wild as his edibles.
He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis years ago and, at one point, was taking more than 50 different medications at once. When his doctors refused to give him pain relief during a flare-up, a friend handed him a cannabis muffin—and he said it worked better than anything else.
From that point on, he dedicated his career to cooking up the kind of edibles that most stoners only dream about—and racking up 11 High Times Cups (and counting) in the process, with everything from cheesecakes and sugar-free truffles to infused butternut squash soup.
“If it doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t leave this kitchen. That’s the number one rule around here,” Reid told me. “But other than that, it’s really all about experimenting and trying out new things.”
At one point, a particularly severe MS attack left Reid completely blind and paralyzed. He spent several weeks in a hospital bed. But when the next High Times Cup rolled around, he refused to sit it out. He rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen, baked a key lime cheesecake—and won.
That grit is what defines his business model today.
The victory also cemented Reid’s reputation as one of the most creative edible makers in the country. And with Hey! Captain, he’s betting that Michigan stoners, much like High Times judges, are ready for something a bit more adventurous than just another gummy.
“Everybody’s got gummies,” Reid said. “We wanted to focus on something people hadn’t really seen before—something fun, something different, and something that actually works.”
Freeze-drying as rebellion
The company motto says it all: “No gummies. No brownies. No bullsh*t.” Hey! Captain simply refuses to play in the gummy sandbox. Instead, Reid leans into freeze-drying—a process he first experimented with back when state regulators tried to ban non-shelf-stable edibles.
What started as a workaround has turned into a signature: light, crunchy candy that dissolves on the tongue, hits faster than traditional edibles, and lasts for longer than a year when sealed.
The lineup is as nostalgic as it is potent:
- Star Babies (Starbursts)
- Cosmic Crunchies (Skittles)
- Lightning Lemons (Lemonheads)
- Caramel Crunchies (Caramel M&Ms)
- Dank Dots (freeze-dried ice cream bites)
- Lunar Dust (Pixy Stix-style powder)
Every package carries Michigan’s legal maximum of 200mg THC, with dosing that ranges from low-dose Cosmic Crunchies (10 mg each) to face-melters like Star Babies (40mg each). And because they melt in your mouth, the effects tend to kick in as quickly as 15 minutes—not the hour-long wait that gummies, brownies, and other traditional edibles usually demand.
“People ask why four of our Skittles can floor them when they can eat a whole bag of gummies from someone else,” Reid said. “It’s because we’ve spent years perfecting how to do this right.”
Reid also listed off a few other things that sets his brand apart on the Michigan market:
- A proprietary infusion process. It was the only thing I couldn’t photograph in the lab. Unlike edibles sprayed with distillate, Reid said he developed a method that blends the cannabinoids directly into the candy. The result? Stronger onset and no weird aftertaste.
- Full-spectrum philosophy. All of the candy produced by Hey! Captain contains full-spectrum terpene blends, which deliver an entourage effect rather than a sterile high.
- Craft scale. Hey! Captain never produces more than 120 cases of any given product at any given time. The idea, Reid says, is to ensure that his products always stay fresh.
- No cutting corners. From real, hand-unwrapped Starbursts to sourcing Michigan honey for future products, Reid said he consistently chooses quality over quick, easy profits.
What’s next?
For now, Hey! Captain may be known for candy. But Reid is still thinking like a culinary rebel.
This summer, he’s been experimenting with Jell-O and freeze-dried soups—even grilled cheese sandwiches to dunk into them. He’s also developing a sugar-free candy line, maple syrup sticks, and tinctures, with as many ingredients as possible sourced directly from Michigan farmers.
From his unmarked kitchen in Lansing, Reid is proving that Michigan’s edible scene still has room for surprises. And his secret recipe is surprisingly simple: keep innovating, keep pushing, and keep reminding Michiganders that cannabis can be fun, flavorful, and rebellious.
Or, as he likes to put it: “No gummies. No brownies. No bullsh*t.”
READ MORE: State regulators shut down Michigan’s most controversial cannabis lab
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