This page is fully or partially automatically translated.
Make an appointment with
So that you can make an appointment, the calendar will open in a new tab on the personal profile of your contact person.
Create an onsite appointment with
So that you can make an onsite appointment, the appointment request will open in a new tab.
Market high with hemp from the bottle
There is a new short-time trend! Or is it something more? CBD - cannabidiol - has been wafting around for some time as presumably THE next trend in beverage land. Especially in the non-alcoholic drinks sector. No one is surprised, since everyone knows that the market is extremely competitive. And incredibly fast-moving. Innovations here are faster outdated than you can say Coke. Then the next new thing comes along.
The fact that CBD has music in it is proven not least by an interesting move by Anheuser-Busch. In 2018, the company signed a 100-million-dollar deal with Tilray, a pharmaceutical company from Canada and the world's largest producer of medical marijuana. The goal, according to AB-InBev: to jointly develop non-alcoholic beverages.
Status: It's complicated
However, the topic of CBD has to deal with a few hurdles. Legal ones, first and foremost. Cannabidiol, CBD for short, is extracted from the cannabis plant, and its cultivation and use is more strictly regulated in Germany than in other countries.
In the EU, CBD foods fall under the Novel Food Regulation and thus require special approval. After a temporary halt to the new approval of CBD-containing foods, the signs are currently green again. And after a ruling by the European Court of Justice, which clarified that CBD oil has no psychoactive effect and therefore does not fall under the Narcotics Act, the way for CBD is clear again.
Nevertheless, it still feels grey-toned - which is partly what makes it so appealing: drinks with or made from cannabis are a talking point, and attention comes free of charge. And many suppliers have not yet ventured into the uncultivated field.
Organic cannabis drink from the Hamburg beverage company JamuIf it makes you healthy
Moreover, cannabis drinks fit into the zeitgeist. Because with certain ingredients, they can easily be built up in the segment of wellness drinks and thus correspond to the health consciousness of the younger customers. Benefits, added value - that sells well and at good prices.
What's really in it?
CBD drinks do not make you high, even if some of them sometimes flirt with the allure of the forbidden and a certain romanticism. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) with its psychoactive effect is responsible for the pleasant, soft, cloudy-all-easy feeling after "conventional" cannabis consumption by joint. CBD does not have such an effect, but can have pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory effects.
There are scientific studies that also point to a certain effectiveness of CBD in combating anxiety or even depression. However, this is to be seen independently of the possible intake via food and drinks.
In other words: How much CBD limo one would have to drink to feel less chronic home office back pain or even to overcome a depressive mood is completely unexplained. This is also the reason why manufacturers of CBD drinks should be wary of making overly grandiose health claims. "CBD somehow does you good" is what one could adequately say.
Raw materials and production
But how does the CBD get into the drink?
CBD oil is readily available for this purpose, which is usually obtained from the dried female flower of the commercial hemp in various ways (by heating or distillation, via solvents such as ethanol or butane, supercritical carbon dioxide, alcohol or oil).
In Germany, CBD oil may contain a maximum of 0.2 percent THC. Manufacturers are then allowed to use it in food and beverages and to enrich water, soda, teas or even coffee or beer with CBD.
What could be more natural than hemp iced tea?
Or the manufacturers rely on the dried leaves of the cannabis plant, a kind of hemp tea.
Like Can Kalayci, head and founder of the Creative Food and Beverage Company AG. He produces a hemp iced tea called Herbtie exclusively for a well-known Swiss retail chain. To make it, he brews dried hemp leaves together with green tea. This infusion is then diluted and, together with lemon juice and a little cane sugar, becomes the refreshingly tart final drink.
"We source our hemp regionally," says Can Kalayci. Yes, Switzerland is extremely liberal when it comes to cannabis, the cultivation of the Cannabis Sativa L. variety is possible, and raw material with up to one percent THC content is permitted for further processing in food production.
Pioneer BRLO from Berlin has two in its range: the pictured "Legend has it", a Pilsner, and "Down", a Double IPA. With the grassy something ...Holistic extraction
In Germany, the regulations are stricter and the measurement limits tighter. However, this does not have to be a disadvantage for German producers, thinks Kevin Singh Witzorek, founder of the Hamburg-based beverage company Jamu. After a small series of different, internationally inspired wellness drinks, he presented his organic cannabis drink at BIOFACH 2020 in Nuremberg.
In no time at all, it became a bestseller in his portfolio, and Witzorek even sells it in the USA. And that's despite the fact that the CBD content is well below what would be permitted there. But as we all know, it's less about quantity and more about quality.
"I like to compare it with a high-dose vitamin C tablet and an apple. Which do you think is better for you, for your body? The tablet, which has maybe ten times the amount of vitamin C - or the apple with its multitude of nutrients, vitamins and minerals?" In contrast to most international manufacturers, who mainly want to score points on the amount of CBD contained in their drinks and therefore work with CO2-based extracts, Witzorek and his team have developed their own extraction process, the details of which are secret, in which all the ingredients of the hemp plant are extracted and preserved. His organic cannabis drink contains not only CBD, but also various terpenes, trace elements and diverse cannabinoids that occur naturally in the plant. "Only all of these together can create the effect we want to achieve," says Witzorek. He refers to the scientifically proven "entourage effect", according to which only the interaction of different ingredients ensures a positive effect.
And does it taste good?
Those who work with hemp infusions like Can Kalayci or Kevin Witzorek also get the full cannabis aroma.
A taste of its own, tart-sweetish and quickly also intense. "Hemp just tastes like hemp - and that's a good thing!", says Kevin Witzorek. "We don't add any sweeteners or flavours. 42 per cent cannabis extract, turmeric, ginger, a little grape juice and a little lemon juice plus carbonic acid. That's all."
Also good: something with beer
What many people know but has not been mentioned so far: Cannabis is a close relative of hops. The same plant family.
And not only for this reason, it is almost obvious to associate the CBD trend with the timeless topic of beer.
BRLO in Berlin was a pioneer and has already launched two CBD beers, "Legend has it" (Pils) and "Down" (a Double IPA). "Since CBD is still not really legal as a food, we used an organic hand tea from Brandenburg, which has no THC but a high CBD content," says managing director Dr Katharina Kurz. "We added this organic hemp tea in addition to the hops during the cold hopping phase. The taste definitely came through, it was super grassy."
And she sees further potential here: "Overall, I think there's still a lot of potential in CBD, and we could imagine doing more beverage experiments there."
