Bulkit, the UK's only Master Catalogue built exclusively for the compliant vape and oral pouch industry, has officially launched, giving retailers, bulk buyers, and distributors across the country a single, trusted platform to discover UK compliant products, connect with global brands, and source with confidence.
The platform arrives at a pivotal moment for the category. With over 2,000 new vape product barcodes entering UK convenience retail in 2025 alone, oral pouch volumes growing 63 per cent year-on-year, and a wave of regulatory change reshaping the market, independent retailers are navigating more complexity than ever before, with less organised support than the category demands. Bulkit is the solution for all of that.
The moment it became clear
For Ash Thakkar, founder and chief executive of Bulkit, the idea did not come from a boardroom strategy session. It came from listening. Since 2016, Ash has helped brands scale across the UK, Europe, the US, UAE, India, and China, building an extensive international network across the vape and oral pouch trade. That experience gave him a front-row view of a problem most people in the industry had accepted as normal.
"I kept having the same conversation," says Ash. "Brands with real products, real investment, and genuine ambition for the UK market, but no clear path to the retailers who would stock them. And on the other side, retailers who wanted to discover new products but had no organised place to do it. Two sides of the same market, both looking for each other, and no obvious way to connect."
"That pattern repeated itself enough times that it stopped feeling like a coincidence and started feeling like a structural problem. And structural problems have structural solutions." That realisation became the foundation of Bulkit. Not another marketplace. Not another distributor. Something more fundamental, the organising infrastructure of the UK vape and oral pouch industry had been missing.
Built on a principle, not a trend
Ash is clear that Bulkit was not built to capitalise on a moment. It was built to solve a problem that was not going away.
"Throughout my career, I have always believed that the best businesses are built by solving real problems, not by adding more complexity," he says. "The best solutions are the ones people naturally choose because they make everyday work simpler. That principle guided every decision we made building Bulkit."
"When I looked at what retailers were dealing with, fragmented catalogues, disconnected supplier networks, product information spread across a dozen different places, I did not see a technology problem. I saw an organisational problem. And organisation problems are solvable."
The solution Ash and his team built is the Master Catalogue, a single, trusted digital platform where compliant vape and oral pouch brands build their presence, retailers discover and source products, and the entire trade connects through one organised destination.
"We were not trying to replace the relationships retailers already have," Ash explains. "We were trying to make it easier to discover new ones. There is a big difference between disrupting and improving the infrastructure. We are firmly in the second camp."
What retailers get from day one
For independent retailers and buyers, Bulkit delivers five things the category has been missing.
- A complete market view: Visibility of the full market, established names alongside emerging brands that deserve shelf space but have not yet achieved wide distribution through traditional routes.
- Organised, trustworthy product information: Every listed brand presents products, pricing, and compliance credentials through one standardised, trusted format.
- Direct brand access: A shorter, simpler path from discovery to first order than any traditional sourcing route.
- Real-time category intelligence: A current, accurate picture of what is available as the market shifts, not an outdated catalogue or an infrequent sales rep visit.
- Confidence in compliance: The product information retailers need to make ranging decisions with confidence rather than assumptions.
"A retailer should not have to rely on whoever happened to call them last week to know what is available in this category," says Ash. "They deserve a complete picture. That is what we are giving them."
A platform built to grow with industry
Bulkit launches today with the Master Catalogue at its centre, but Ash is candid that the vision stretches well beyond a discovery tool.
"We are at the beginning of something much larger," he says. "The catalogue is the foundation. But what we are really building is the operating layer of the UK vape and oral pouch industry. The infrastructure that makes every part of the market, discovery, distribution, compliance, logistics, and insights work more efficiently for everyone involved."
Each capability is designed around the same organising principle that built the catalogue; the industry works better when it is connected, organised, and operating through trusted infrastructure.
“I am proud of what we have built so far, and with the confidence of fast growing brands like THOR, Snowman, and SYX joining early in our journey, I can say we are only getting started.” says Ash.
Join the UK's Master Catalogue
Bulkit is now open to brands and retailers across the UK vape and oral pouch industry.
For retailers and bulk buyers looking to discover products, source smarter, and access the full market through one trusted platform - the catalogue is live.
For brands ready to build their UK trade presence and reach the retailers who are actively sourcing - listings are open.
"The industry just found its home," says Ash. "We built it because it needed to exist. Now we are focused on making it indispensable."