Quality comes at a price, and CBD products are no exception. High quality and well-tested CBD products tend to be much more expensive than untested or unproven products. Due to the considerable variance between the prices, consumers are often left confused. Understanding what goes into creating premium products may help appreciate why some products are costlier.
From growing the plant to extraction and introducing the product to the market, there are numerous processes involved. Quality management is a complex art that is vital at every step of production and remains vital even after the sales.
There is no straightforward formula that one can use to assess the cost of CBD products. However, one can try to understand some of the critical factors influencing its price by knowing how the industry works.
Source of CBD
Most CBD producers would indeed buy extract to produce the goods. But there is a massive variance in the quality and cost of available extracts. CBD extract derived from hemp that is GMO-free, organically grown, ethically cultivated will be much costlier. It is because GMO varieties or using pesticides result in much higher yield and vice-versa.
Additionally, one should understand that growing GMO-free and pesticide-free CBD is one thing, but at the end of the day, these products must be certified and tested to confirm these claims. All this documentation further adds up to the cost.
Way of extractions
How the company extracts CBD from the hemp plant dramatically influences the quality and purity of the products.
The CO2 method is one of the most complicated and expensive ones, requiring massive investments in machinery.
However, that is not all, as good manufacturers need to spend a lot on their facilities, maintaining quality and sterility of machines. It is vital to avoid the introduction of impurities during this process.
Cheaper extracts may instead use solvents, and traces of these solvents remain in the final extract adding to the toxicity of the final product.
Potency
This factor is pretty straightforward to understand. The higher the potency or amount of CBD in the product, the greater will be the cost.
Here, a word of caution. Do not get misled by clever claims by some low-cost manufacturers. If you search sites of some well-known online vendors like Amazon, you might see many claiming strengths of a few hundred to even millions of mg. However, careful inspection of the products will show that they are mentioning the content of hemp seed oil in milligrams, which has nothing to do with CBD.
Testing by independent labs
Internal test reports of manufacturers could be biased. Thus, good quality manufacturers would always choose a third party or independent labs to confirm the quality of their products. These are generally trustworthy labs, who would not compromise on the quality of their tests.
Marketing authorization
It is one more costly step, and yet most consumers know not much about it. In the UK, CBD is now classified as a novel food. It means that manufacturers should apply to FSA (Food Standardization Agency) for marketing authorization.
This application is a very tedious and costly process. It involves preparing a massive dossier by scientific experts, documenting the manufacturing process, composition, specification, absorption, distribution, metabolism, nutritional information, and much more about the product. It is not just about documents, as each claim must be supported by lab reports. Further, FSA would counter check these parameters in their labs.
Above are just some of the most critical steps that high quality or ethical producers of CBD products have to go through, and they add to the cost of the good. However, it is all in favour of the consumer, ensuring that they get only the best quality.
