February 11, 2019
Opportunities are knocking, doors are opening, the gold rush is on and the sky’s the limit. We legalized it!!
Or did we?
The Dec. 20, 2018, passage of the Farm Bill uncoupled hemp and its constituents–including CBD—from the clutches of the Drug Enforcement Agency. You could practically hear the champagne corks popping from coast to coast as hemp pioneers and legacy supplement brands alike envisioned a regulatory liberation that would supercharge the hemp-derived CBD market.
Yet on the same day, the Food and Drug Administration issued a lengthy statement asserting its authority over the market—and the agency, for now, continues to assert that CBD is not a legal ingredient in supplements, and additionally that it is illegal in interstate commerce to sell food to which CBD has been added.
Well, what to do?
The best thing to do for anyone interested in the market—farmers, testing labs, ingredient suppliers and brokers, marketers, manufacturers, retailers, lawyers, consumers, and your sister—is to get to the Natural Products Hemp & CBD Summit, held Tuesday, March 5, from 9:00am-4:00pm, at the Marriott Grand Ballroom F, as part of Natural Products Expo West.
The biggest educational day in the hemp and CBD world convenes 35 speakers over 17 sessions. The morning will include sessions on capital-O opportunities, the afternoon on up-at-night challenges, and interspersed in between are fireside chats with leading brands that are differentiating and succeeding in an admittedly crowded market.
The Industrial Hemp Opportunity: How do you spell disruption? H-E-M-P. This eye-opening session will bring tears to your eyes as you imagine the near future—the hemptastic future—when hemp has replaced everything in the room, from paper, plastic and petroleum to textiles, concrete and tobacco.
The CBD Business Opportunity: From the big data geniuses at Nutrition Business Journal, learn the state of the market including groundbreaking consumer surveys on What People Want in their hemp-oil product—product formats, brand looks, preferred sales channels, educational initiatives. This is one of those sessions where you’ll take 20 photos with your phone.
The ECS Health Opportunity: The endocannabinoid system is one mouthful of a word—and the answer to our unbalanced lives. By the end of the session, you’ll be able to explain in an elevator the underlying physiology that makes CBD (and, yes, THC) the blockbuster ingredients they are.
The Regenerative Agriculture Opportunity: Did you know that 15 of the top 25 climate change solutions are related not to coal and cars but rather to our land-based farming systems? And the poster child of sustainable civilization may well be the almighty hemp plant? Praise Jah and pass the seeds.
The Quality Opportunity: Get your acts together, merry hempsters, lest you disappoint your consumers and agitate the regulators. Learn everything you’ll need to know to introduce quality hemp to the masses.
The Pet Opportunity: Besides your stressed coworker, your sleepless wife and, well, you, the next big market segment opportunity is hemp for pets. Because Rover needs relaxing, and your shepherd’s hips are hurting, and Old Yeller needs some end-of-life relief. Learn all about it.
Advanced Marketing Strategies & Tactics: From CBD startups to legacy supplements brands, learn what’s working to capture the attention of consumers.
Inside Baseball: Big baseball fans will bore you to tears about statistics sliced a dozen ways in order to make a point. But the cannabis biz is so darned colorful that you’ll laugh, you’ll dance, you’ll cry during this lively conversation about the world behind the curtain.
Fireside Chats: We’ll have lightning round, 10-minute conversations with four leading brands. See what they did. Is there a law against stealing some clever ideas?
Legal, Regulatory and Compliance: If there is a law against it, find out here. How do you get into Natural Products Expo? How do you get on store shelves? How do you stay on the right side of the law? What is the law anyway? Your legal questions answered.
Book signings, networking breaks, big fun, huge community. It’s all here. Get some!
To register for the Natural Products Hemp & CBD Summit, or upgrade for a SuperPass, go here. See you in Anaheim!
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