Cannabidiol is a Growing, Legal and Lucrative Market
Cannabidiol (CBD) infused food and beverages are a growing and lucrative market.
Unlike its psychoactive partner tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), CBD is legal in most countries (albeit under some scrutiny).
CBD-based food and beverages are expected to eventually occupy lots of shelf-space in supermarkets, mass-market retailers, and other consumer goods stores.
Market research firm, BDS Analytics, estimates the market will reach US $5.9 billion by 2024, despite the current lack of regulation.
CBD, also known as Cannabidiol, has gained traction in recent years mainly from promising clinical research and for its many alleged mental and physical health benefits. Therefore, it’s no surprise that CBD is becoming more predominant in supplements, chocolate, cookies, teas, coffees, cocktails and a wide range of other edible items.
This blog article looks at the growing CBD infused food and beverages market, and how liquid product recovery (pigging) can help manufacturers increase yields, reduce product wastage, and boost their bottom line.
What Exactly is CBD?
CBD is a chemical compound derived from the hemp plant and its cousin the marijuana plant. Although CBD is an active ingredient of cannabis, it is non-intoxicating, so does not cause users to experience any psychoactive effects.
The CBD found in food is usually taken from hemp oil, which contains much less THC than found in marijuana but contains higher levels of the cannabidiol CBD.
CBD has been linked to a wide range of health benefits, from helping with stress and insomnia to treating anxiety, seizures, inflammation, and chronic pain. It has also been found to provide mild relaxation without any intoxicating effects. It’s gradually gaining worldwide acceptance and well-established brands such as Ben and Jerry’s are closely monitoring the trend.
Is CBD just a Fad?
Consumer preferences are changing and so are food and beverage trends. Over the years, we’ve witnessed trends come and go while other trends move from niche to mainstream and disrupt the industry. So, is the CBD infused food and beverage trend here to stay?
The main problem with CBD infused food and beverages in the USA is gaining FDA approval and regulation, which has the potential to hinder market growth.
At the same time, in Europe, the legality of CBD infused food and beverages remains unclear as regulators consider whether CBD should be approved under novel food regulations.
Cannabis Infused Food and Beverages in Canada
In Canada, CBD infused food and beverages have been legal since the latter half of 2019. However, a few months in, companies are not seeing the results they expected. This can largely be attributed to government regulation and a lack of product availability.
In addition, it doesn’t help that the current global Covid-19 pandemic makes the difficult art of forecasting so much harder.
Despite these complications, the future of CBD still looks promising. Consumers’ desire for natural, plant-based remedies to address health concerns like anxiety and insomnia are driving this trend. And for now, it looks like it’s a trend that is here to stay.
Traceability of CBD Food and Beverages
For companies producing food and beverage products made with cannabis ingredients, having traceability is crucial.
Whether it’s CBD, or one of the few countries that allow the use of THC in products, consumers want to know exactly what they are purchasing, especially when it comes to products designed to be absorbed and digested by the body. They want to know what they are purchasing is high-quality and that the product information and label is accurate. That’s why it’s essential to have traceability throughout the supply chain.
From farmers growing the cannabis and formulators to extractors, testing labs and so on, there are many key players in the CBD, and where legal, the THC supply chain. If any one of these fails to be transparent with everything they do, it may lead to the production and distribution of unsafe or poor-quality products. In turn, this will result in high costs, bad publicity, and a lack of consumer trust.
Transparency is particularly critical for CBD infused food and beverages due to the lack of clear federal regulation. Therefore, manufacturers must self-regulate and ensure ingredients are thoroughly tested to ensure safety, quality and reduce the risks of contamination.
Keeping Product Waste to a Minimum
As well as having traceability, it’s important that CBD and THC food and beverage manufacturers ensure product waste is kept to a minimum.
That’s because CBD and THC extracts are extremely expensive raw ingredients. What’s more, the manufacturing process is also costly, with the extraction method, the potency of the product, whether they choose to partner with third party labs for testing and quality assurance and so on, all having an impact on the overall cost.
Therefore, it’s extremely important when processing cannabis that manufacturers recover as much product as possible, rather than letting it go to waste.
One of the best ways to recover product and reduce waste is to use liquid product recovery technology.
How Pigging Systems Can Help CBD and THC Manufacturers?
Pigging systems send a specialist projectile (the ‘pig’) through pipelines to recover, rather than waste, residual liquid in pipelines. Here’s a detailed explanation on what is pigging and how it works.
The HPS pig typically achieves recovery rates of up to 99.5% from full pipelines, but in some applications, this can be even higher. Without a pigging process, CBD manufacturers will have higher levels of product waste, longer production downtime during changeovers and cleaning and potentially contaminated product. High product waste means reduced yields, increased disposal costs and lower profits.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of companies are showing interest in pigging systems.
Reduce Waste by Pigging
CBD manufacturers can achieve significant gains from product recovery, waste reduction, high product quality and lower contamination risks provided by hygienic and sanitary pigging solutions from HPS.
The product recovered is perfectly usable, which if it wasn’t for pigging, would be discarded as waste. And what manufacturer wants to waste product, especially if it’s extremely expensive to produce?
As well as reducing waste, the cleaning and changeover processes also use less cleaning fluids. In this way, pigging significantly lowers the cost of waste treatment and removal.
Speeds Up Cleaning and Changeovers
Because pigging removes so much product from the pipelines, it makes the cleaning and changeover process much faster.
It also reduces the risks of contamination and cross-contamination. This means more consistent product quality and better control over raw material and finished product inventory.
Other benefits of pigging include increased efficiency, less production downtime, better productivity, increased capacity, improved environmental sustainability plus much more.
Importantly, pigging systems deliver a high return on investment with payback often in just a few months.
Find Out More
If you manufacture CBD or THC infused food and beverages and are not pigging, then you probably should be.
Pigging delivers high ROI through reduced waste, increase product yields, faster changeovers, reduced contamination risks and so on. Find out how much a pigging system could save your business with our Pigging System Savings Calculator.
To bring the benefits of pigging to your business, then please get in touch with HPS, the pigging and product recovery specialists: