CBDs in Grocery Retail: What Are the Advantages and Pitfalls?
Always Compliant
A CBD company should have examples of a positive history with prior clients. It should also demonstrate the ability to remain compliant through all of the stringent regulations placed upon it. Grocers should make sure to look at a company’s (multiple) lab test results from a third-party testing facility to confirm that the company is a reputable CBD wholesale partner.
Testing May Need Some Improvement
An adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine’s Psychiatry Department, Marcel Bonn-Miller, performed a study in 2017, which found that nearly 70 percent of all of the CBD products tested and analyzed were considered to be mislabeled. This statistic urges a more rigorous standard for testing the products and reinforces the need to have products tested through multiple third-party labs.
Not Legal Everywhere
While almost the entire country has legalized CBD, three states still haven’t: South Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho. Grocers that have stores nationwide may have a store in a state where cannabis is recreationally legal, a state where only CBD is legal, and another state where the plant in any shape or form is completely illegal.
This is due in part to the odd federal classification of the plant at the present time: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a prescription medicine that contains CBD, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration continues to classify the entire cannabis plant as a Schedule I drug (defined by the federal government as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse).
Differing Values
The packaging and art of many CBD companies’ products imply a staggeringly different ideal and target audience from those of most grocery stores. While that’s not saying that there’s only one specific audience for grocery stores, grocers generally try to present themselves as family-oriented, friendly spaces to shop. Some CBD brands don’t hesitate to put illegal medical claims on their products, against the approval of the FDA, discouraging grocers from placing these products on shelves.
Turning the Script
The first grocery stores to accept CBD products have generally been aimed toward health and wellness, like Alfalfa’s Market and Lucky’s Market. The biggest advantage is that when a grocer partners with a reputable CBD wholesaler, the results are increases in profit, consumer interest and store popularity. While today it’s a sensitive subject, the future for business relationships between CBD companies and grocers is still bright.