Do you know where your hemp comes from?
It is exciting to see the public tuning into the value of cannabinoids that producers like us have known about for ages.
Hemp is trending right now, so many people are anxious to get their hands on it, often without knowing what they should learn about it or how to choose what’s right for them.
Lack of Clarity
Confusion around hemp products is partially due to too little guidance from governing bodies. It is mostly up to the companies marketing hemp to decide what’s important to tell users and how to prove its quality.
With new products popping up all the time and no standardized way to present vital stats about them, it can be difficult to understand that one hemp-derived product may be very different than another.
Common differences across hemp products include: what compounds are in formulas, how potent they are and testing protocols. For example, some products contain isolate while others contain full-spectrum extract, usually without an explanation of why you might choose one over the other. One container might offer 50 mg of a cannabinoid while the next promises 1000 mg. A company may not test at all. Companies may do their own testing in a self-contained department, which could be considered less impartial than using outside tests. A few companies (Bloom Farms included) voluntarily run products through extensive third-party lab-testing.
Huge Supply
A seismic shift in the public’s perception of cannabinoids has fueled a major influx of businesses hoping to capitalize on this ripe opportunity without having the expertise to make quality products or give helpful information to the people using them. In some cases, companies may opt to get their hands on any hemp they can find without knowing or caring that it’s from a less desirable origin.
Is Your Hemp Grown in the USA?
Hemp has a long agricultural history in the United States. Does it surprise you to learn that not all hemp-derived products start here? Some products are grown and made in other countries, and still others are made here from imported plant material.
In the past few years, the hemp market has exploded in China where oversight is not the same as stateside. Why does this matter?
Industrial hemp is often used for phytoremediation, which can be thought of as filtering soil of contaminants like heavy metals to “clean and balance” it. American hemp carries some protection, since it must have been grown in accordance with a state’s hemp program. (However, current oversight is limited to the growing of the plants, not as much the processing or selling.)
Questions linger about hemp sourced outside the country: Was it grown organically? Were pesticides used? Was it planted in soil with heavy metals? Has it been tested for mold and microbes? Does it meet food-grade standards we expect from other products?
Is Your Hemp Product Made in the USA?
In addition to hemp plants, China is a major producer of hemp extracts. Just as there is little transparency about the cultivation of the hemp plants, it’s even more difficult to learn how something has been extracted, whether it has been tested and what else it may contain.
Within the USA, there are a couple of layers of oversight via federal and state governments, and it is possible (but difficult) for growers to be granted Organic status by meeting the USDA’s strict standards.
What to Look For
We believe the quality of ingestible hemp matters, and you deserve ingestible products that are held to similar standards as foods. Our tinctures are made from unique varieties of Organic Hemp grown in the USA and cultivated specifically for use in tinctures. They’re also formulated in the USA and support responsible farming practices. We meticulously lab-test throughout our manufacturing process for an additional layer of safety.