With an eye to scalability to meet future CBD demand, Balanced Health Botanicals has focused on best-in-class product quality and safety. Owning its own equipment has helped: The company has invested heavily in infrastructure to support both current and future product demand. And in adherence with cGMP guidelines, Balanced Health follows strict testing protocols throughout each product’s lifecycle to ensure potency and consistency from batch to batch. Balanced Health is one of 13 companies that is U.S. Hemp Authority Certified.
The company’s expertise is augmented by a strong leadership team of industry experts, which translates to well-executed supply chain management, extensive product development knowledge and exceptional customer education. The latter being an area the company sees as key for the hemp and CBD industry to thrive. “For the hemp and CBD industry to meet its full potential, consumers, retailers and regulatory bodies need to first be educated and get comfortable with the differences between hemp, CBD, THC and marijuana from an agricultural perspective,” says Andy Papilion, chief product officer at Balanced Health.
Noting that it’s challenging to have conversations about products and benefits if a customer or retailer does not have a baseline understanding of the plant and its derivatives, Papilion outlines how education around the plant also needs to touch on supply chain integrity and testing. “Consumers and retailers need to know what to look for—product made from plants grown domestically, using non-GMO natural farming practices,” he explains. “Our path to increased adoption includes widespread education,” he adds. This includes the industry combining forces to fund scientific studies on safety and efficacy for the benefit of regulators and the public at large.
The company expects widespread adoption once the regulatory environment becomes clearer on rules and regulations. Papilion says Balanced Health would like to see a unified front in the industry to advance FDA and legislative development and to work closer with state regulatory bodies to draft comprehensive hemp regulatory schemes. “We’re looking forward to operating within FDA guidelines and parameters, which will go a long way in ensuring product quality and consumer safety while putting some further guidelines around therapeutic claims,” says Papilion. “There needs to be more enforcement and policing in the industry for improper or illegal claims, to weed out bad actors.”
In the absence of a ruling from the FDA, the market still is moving fast. Advances in extraction and distillation technology are putting a real time downward pressure on the cost of the molecule, making it more affordable and accessible to the masses. At the same time, Papilion says the company is seeing large scale product innovation, with CBD being added to topicals, ingestibles and foods. “True industry growth can only happen when easily identifiable products can be found at easily attainable price points,” he explains.
In talking about the industry’s growth, Papilion is quick to point out that the industry has already had a profound effect on the economy. “The hemp and CBD industry touches agriculture, logistics, marketing, manufacturing, packaging, insurance, finance and legal industries just to name a few. And now it helps to employ tens of thousands of people that include everyone from the farmers to freemen to factory workers and the effects on the overall economy have been substantial,” he adds. As the industry continues to build at a pace that doesn’t appear to be slowing any time soon, Balanced Health is committed to being at the forefront of industry growth and leadership.
Hemp Hero: Balanced Health Botanicals
Scalability and accessibility of products and information is top priority for this industry leader
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For the hemp and CBD industry to meet its full potential, consumers, retailers and regulatory bodies need to first be educated and get comfortable with the differences between hemp, CBD, THC and marijuana from an agricultural perspective.”
Andy Papilion, chief product officer at Balanced Health
The hemp and CBD industry touches agriculture, logistics, marketing, manufacturing, packaging, insurance, finance and legal industries just to name a few.”
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Connect with Balanced Health Botanicals
Balanced Health Botanicals is a proud partner of the Hemp Collective—a New Hope Network and Natural Products Insider initiative dedicated to supporting quality and transparency in the hemp industry.
Andy Papilion, chief product officer at Balanced Health
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