by FORBES MAGAZINE | May 31, 2019
Grateful to see FORBS and the fashion industry embracing HEMP The world of hemp is changing fast.
When Did Hemp Become Posh? Luxury Hospitality Industry Suddenly Loves Hemp…Only a few years ago, hemp-based products were relegated to headshops and hippie-style stores at tourist spots that sold itchy sweaters and rough t-shirts that often resembled a sack of potatoes a lot more than a clothing item should.
Today, however, healthcare trends, the CBD craze, and legislative measures like the 2018 Farm Bill – which legalized hemp on a federal level, have brought this noble plant to the forefront of collective cultural consciousness. Now everyone is talking about hemp, its derivatives, its potential for the plastic and paper industry, etc. Instead of appearing in back-alley bodegas, hemp is a full-blown mainstream commodity, with products sold at major national retailers and pharmacy chains.
But this is only the beginning of the rule of the “Hempire.”
A Sophisticated ‘Hempire’
Mooncloth Designs Hemp Linen Robe, Hemp Chair Cushion, Chair Design By OSO Studio HANNAH THORNHILL
Hemp going mainstream has not only reflected on its appearance at mass retailers, but also on its penetration of luxury markets. Earlier this year, luxury specialty retailer Barneys New York announced that it would become the first major retailer to open a luxury cannabis lifestyle and wellness concept shop. Dubbed “The High End,” the store offers a variety of cannabis accessories and CBD wellness products.
Aside from retailers, a number of luxury hemp brands have risen to meet the growing demand for high-end hemp products. One such company is Beverly Hills crowd favorite Lord Jones, which offers a variety of hemp-derived, CBD-infused products, like confections, topicals, tinctures, and supplements.
MoonCloth? More Like HeavenCloth
Several months ago, a friend brought up the existence of this hemp fabrics and products brand, arguing it was the prettiest, most sophisticated she’d ever seen.
“Hemp fabrics? Soft? Yeah, right,” I answered, knowing this friend had been obsessed with hemp for years and was probably overstating the products’ real appeal.
She insisted I check it out.
“This hemp brand is on a mission to not only elevate hemp as a source for luxury consumers good, but also to trigger a wider consumer shift towards sustainability,” she added. “It’s about a lot more than clothes and furniture, which they also make. It’s about the environment.”
I was willing to look into the company from a sustainability standpoint. However, what I found was nothing like I’d imagined.
“Hemp is one of the most eco-friendly fibers on the planet, MoonCloth co-founder Sarah Harf explained during a recent chat. “It’s very versatile; there are a lot more opportunities for consumer products that you can design.”
She explained MoonCloth works with hospitality brands like Design Hotels and Sensei to design hemp-based hotel décor and furniture that “both look and feel good.” In recent months, the company has been working on eco-hemp patio furniture for Soho House & Co.’s new downtown L.A. club house, expected to open later this summer, Harf disclosed.
Aside from designing décor for luxury hospitality brands, MoonCloth is also working on launching a product line of hemp home goods and hemp wellness products this summer. Much of MoonCloth’s line will be comprised by consumer versions of the products that they make for hospitality brands, such as pillows and towels.
But the brand will also offer hemp-based health and beauty products, as well as an extravagant line of hemp-silk kimonos. Working with musical artist and style icon Lizzy Jeff, Harf hopes that the hemp-silk kimonos will help drive home the point to consumers that they don’t have to sacrifice comfort for sustainability.
Read the entire story here
Javier Hasse
Contributor
VicesI writes about all things cannabis, hemp and CBD.
by Hempington Post | Mar 21, 2019
Following the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, CBD sales have continued their massive growth in the United States and beyond.
- Cannabidiol (CBD), a chemical found in cannabis, has seen a huge growth in sales over the past few years.
- CBD can be derived from hemp, and the passing of a new farm bill in the States makes this form of cultivation legal at a federal level.
- This forms part of wider growth in the cannabis market, as companies expand their operations in North Americaand even beyond.
Wildflower Brands Inc. is among the companies benefiting from this market, with an increase of more than 300 percent in online sales for its CBD products last year. Tilray Inc. is expanding with its acquisition of hemp foods company Manitoba Harvest. Canopy Growth Corporation announced revenue for its fiscal third quarter rose more than 280 percent compared to a year ago. In December, Cronos Group Inc. announced that tobacco company Altria would be taking a $1.8 billion stake in the company. Aphria has just completed expansion projects that allows it to substantially increase its output.
CBD Drives Growth for Hemp
Hemp, a plant that has long been out of the public eye, is returning to the spotlight in a big way. A non-intoxicating form of cannabis, hemp was primarily used for centuries as a natural source of fibers, which were used in cloth, rope and even building materials. Many ships in the great age of sailing relied on hemp for their riggings.
But in the sweeping anti-drug crusades of the 20th century, hemp became caught up in attacks on cannabis. Campaigners who were determined to save consumers from their own pleasures had cannabis outlawed at a time when there was little effective way of distinguishing between hemp and other forms of cannabis. No longer needed for cloth and rigging, hemp was made illegal. Now all that has changed – nowhere more dramatically than in the United States of America.
The Farm Bill
Hemp is making a comeback thanks to the growing popularity of cannabidiol (CBD), an active ingredient found in many forms of cannabis. It’s an ingredient that companies such as Wildflower Brands Inc. a creator of plant-based health and wellness products, have been making extensive use of in recent years. Combined with other naturally occurring plant compounds, full-spectrum CBD is used in a range of Wildflower products, including capsules, topicals, soaps, tinctures and vaporizers.
Until recently, the production of CBD in the United States faced serious restrictions and uncertainties. Many states had legalized the production of cannabis in some form, either for medical or for recreational use. In addition, there were licensed trials of the cultivation of hemp, which can be rich in CBD. But all of these plants were illegal at a federal level, meaning that even with state-level approval, cultivators faced financial limitations and the threat of government action.
All that changed in December with the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. One of a regular series of bills governing the U.S. agricultural sector, this bill removes hemp from the list of controlled substances, making it unambiguously legal for farmers to grow hemp. This changes the landscape for CBD products in the States. Companies such as Wildflower, which has already got its products into many outlets in the health and wellness sector, will be able to expand their reach even further.
States have the right to set their own rules around restricted substances, and some states have taken an unsympathetic attitude to CBD. The Farm Bill doesn’t force states to change this attitude, but there are already signs that public opinion on all levels are changing. The regulations in many states assume adherence to the federal guidelines, and some states, such as Alabama, have already softened their stance since the Farm Bill became law.
Under the Farm Bill, hemp production will be tightly regulated. Most states already have existing regulations in place, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be developing its own regulations as well. But for an established company such as Wildflower, which already works in California, Washington and New York, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Cannabis companies are accustomed to working in a tightly controlled environment and meeting the legal standards set by state legislators, as well as the product standards required by retail outlets. In that context, working within new federal regulations shouldn’t present a significant challenge, while the existence of consistent national standards will create opportunities for growth.
CBD Demand Grows
The Farm Bill has been driven in large part by the growing demand for CBD. An obscure and seldom discussed chemical a decade ago, CBD has emerged as an important consumer product. The gradual legalization of cannabis and research into its medical effects drew attention to the fact that those benefits were not all related to THC, the psychoactive chemical that gets cannabis users high. Identified as a chemical with great potential for health and wellness, CBD has started to be marketed in its own right and is used in products such as the Wildflower Wellness line.
Public interest in CBD has grown seemingly from nowhere. Tapping into interest in both cannabis and natural remedies, and offering treatments that may succeed where others have failed, CBD sales have soared. Hemp-derived CBD alone was a $390 million market in 2018 and is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2022. And that doesn’t even include all the CBD products derived from other forms of cannabis.
The results for producers have been staggering. Wildflower saw its online sales grow by more than 300 percent in just nine months in 2018. In response, the company opened its first New York retail store, a sure sign of a product’s popularity in an age when so many companies are shedding their brick-and-mortar presence.
Looked at globally, CBD is in even better health. The Brightfield Group has estimated that CBD’s value will reach $5.7 billion this year and $22 billion by 2022. While research on the topic is still in its infancy, there is growing evidence that CBD could be used to treat a number of ailments, including certain extreme forms of childhood epilepsy. Even the United Kingdom, a country whose government remains staunchly opposed to the legalization of cannabis, has allowed the use of a CBD drug for this purpose.
Companies producing and selling CBD products are springing up across North America, Europe and beyond. Demand is growing, especially among millennials. That’s bolstering the impressive sales of companies such as Wildflower and putting pressure on politicians to further liberalize the laws around hemp.
Making the Most of a New Market
A lot of companies are now making the most of the growing popularity of cannabis, CBD and hemp. With its acquisition of Manitoba Forest, is tapping into an extensive U.S. distribution network and an upcoming line of CBD products.
Manitoba Harvest sells hemp-based granola, protein powder, milk and other food products at more than 13,000 points of sale across the United States.
Canopy Growth Corporation impressive increase in sales was boosted by the company’s first sales of legal recreational marijuana in Canada, which accounted for more than 70 percent of gross revenue. Chairman and co-CEO Bruce Linton attributed the lift to the company’s decision to make early, “meaningful” investments that helped it corner a big part of the Canadian market when the law took effect. Canopy Growth is a world-leading diversified cannabis and hemp company, offering distinct brands and curated cannabis varieties in dried, oil and softgel capsule forms.
by HempToday™ | Feb 28, 2019
This post was originally published on HempToday.net. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The USA has jumped into the top ranks of global hemp growing nations, recording a tripling of land under hemp to reach a total 78,176 acres (about 31,000 hectares) in 2018, according to the American hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp. Vote Hemp had recorded about 25,000 acres of hemp fields across the USA in 2017. Twenty-three states grew hemp in 2018, Vote Hemp said.
Globally, that puts the USA third, behind world leader China (400,000 acres/162,000 ha.) and northern neighbor Canada (100,000 acres/40,000 ha), and is nearly double the land sown for hemp in France (42,000 acres/17,000 ha.), Europe’s leading hemp grower. Only about 110,000 acres (44,000 ha.) of hemp were grown across all of Europe in 2017, the year for which the most recent figures are available.
Montana expands fast
The rapid expansion of hemp fields in the USA last year was driven primarily by anticipated passage of the U.S. Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the U.S. narcotics list. The Bill became law in late December. Strong demand for CBD was a major contributing factor in the growth of U.S. fields.
Internally in the U.S., Montana recorded the most fields under hemp last year with 22,000 acres (about 9,000 ha.), a drastic increase over the 542 acres (219 ha.) sown in 2017. Montana eclipsed perennial hemp leader Colorado, which was the second biggest grower in the USA last year with 21,578 acres (8,700 ha.), Vote Hemp reported.
41 states are active
Forty-one U.S. states have defined industrial hemp as distinct and removed barriers to its production: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Read More at Hemp Today
by HempingtonPost | Feb 19, 2019
In the 2018 Farm Bill, one of the major changes was allowing the production of industrial hemp. The number of uses for the crop numbers in the thousands and early estimates say the market could be worth up to $10 billion by the year 2025.
During the snowy days of winter, Grand Forks, North Dakota farmer Chris Adams has plenty of time to reflect on last year’s harvest that included not just corn or soybeans but hemp.
“My my theory was, if you’re in on the ground floor of something new then you have quite the advantage,” says Adams.
He now has hemp in bins and plants stacked in barns waiting on a trip to a processor.
“I would be lying if I said money had nothing to do with it because the financial part of it is huge,” says Adams.
Adams, like many in agriculture, is looking at continuing to add hemp acres as a path to better profits.
Michael Bowman, with the North American Industrial Hemp Council, believes American farmers are poised to capitalize on this burgeoning market.
“I think if there’s anything that agriculture is good at, we’re good at innovating, creating and executing,” says Bowman
And while acreage isn’t huge it has the potential to grow.
Tyler Mark is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky with the Ag Economics Department.
“I hear [nationwide] numbers are anywhere from 77,000 acres to 100,000 acres could very well be possible,” says Mark.
He says the state of Kentucky is expecting 25,000 to 30,000 acres of hemp this growing season since the removal of industrial hemp from the schedule 1 narcotics list.
“It’s going to really open the door for hemp to see if it’s actually going to play a role in the U.S. economy and the US farm sector,” says Mark. “It puts another tool in the tool belt, so to speak, for producers around the country.”
Currently, there are three paths of possibility for farmers considering planting hemp.
1: Grow the plants for fiber. Farmers are paid on tonnage.
“Plant 50 pounds per acre you get 175 to 200 plants per square meter, and then grow that for fiber,” says Bowman. “You’re going to drill it in, you’re going to air seed it, then you’re going to harvest it with a dual head combine and equipment that’s available today that the world uses.”
2: Grow Hemp Seed to used as a food grain.
For grain growers, existing equipment will likely get you started but there may other issues like storage to think about.
“It’s probably going into the food system,” says Mark. “So you have to think about how you rotate this crop through the bin to keep mold issues and issues inside the bin down.”
As far as profit potential goes Bowman says it depends on how much of the plant farmers want to harvest.
“They’re seeing returns in the $300 an acre range but keep in mind that’s only being able to capture the value of just the seed,” says Bowman. “The value of the stalk and the hurd and if there are investments made to take those products and do something with them then [returns] are estimated to be in the in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.”
That doesn’t compare to option 3: Growing hemp plants for oil.
The Cannabidiol Oil, also known as CBD, is credited with helping treat a host of medical problems from epileptic seizures to anxiety to inflammation. It’s extracted from the flowers and buds of hemp plants.
“CBD production is going to be a female plant that is planted individually,” says Bowman. “It looks like a small Christmas tree farm if you are driving by.”
The work is labor intensive often requiring hand harvesting and weeding but the profit potential is high.
“So there you’re probably looking at somewhere between $10,000 to $15,000 of per acre return,” says Mark.
“The seed production is kind of a break-even deal right now the CBD production, assuming everything goes well, is quite a bit more lucrative,” says Adams.
Adams is trying his hand at a small plot of CBD production this year. Last year he ran into problems including having plants with the greater than .3 percent THC, the psychoactive compound found marijuana, which meant the crop couldn’t be sold. He blames a bad batch of seed.
” I would just remind everybody that the 0.3 THC is a global standard and it’s one that didn’t have any science behind it,” says Bowman. “It was a political move back in the 1930s when Western Europe was wrangling Eastern Europe for who got to own the seed production.”
Bowman thinks as research improves, the industry will see more discussion on where those standards will go.
As with any new industry, experts expect challenges to growth. The largest seeming to be infrastructure or having a place to take that crop once it’s grown.
“There’s a lot of interest from the private sector right now and with the descheduling of hemp we now have opened the door to USDA funding for value-added grants and infrastructure grants,” says Bowman. “Those are things that any other crop has enjoyed.”
Experts recommend having a contract before planting and as acreage increases supply, demand will need to go with it.
“One of my biggest fears is are we going to overproduce so fast that we completely swamp the demand for these products and drop prices down to really low levels,” worries Mark.
But for farmers like Chris Adams, hemp holds potential and for now, that’s enough.
“If the market maintains the dollars that it’s showing right now I can see more people jumping into it just because nothing else is really making any money,” says Adams.
by Hempington Post | Feb 12, 2019
When talking about Climate Change and what we can do to reverse it, Hemp will lead the way with new sustainable non-toxic products and textiles.
We at HempingtonPost are very excited to share the announcement of this first America Plastic Company, based right in Boulder Colorado. We’re doing flips here because we know, Hemp Plastic is a huge game changer!
A bit of Plastic History!
A long time ago, humans invented a malleable, pliable, utterly unique substance called plastic. Once commercially derived from fossil fuels, the plastic revolution was born. In the early 20th century, plastics increasingly become the go-to for all product development. By the 1920’s, nearly every house in the developed world was relying on plastic products for everyday use. Plastic has come a long way since those early petrochemical plastic days. Today, the world is starting to wake up to the possibilities of bioplastics, specifically hemp plastic.
Never heard of hemp plastic? You are not alone. It’s a relatively new phenomenon and joins other renewable sources of plastic such as corn, flaxseed, and wood cellulose. Interestingly, the concept of hemp plastic has been around for more than half a century. Only recently has it caught on. Didn’t you know that Henry Ford built a hemp plastic car in the 1940s?
Bioplastic Statistics
Despite how often you might come across a corn plastic cup or a hemp piece of disposable cutlery, the reality is bioplastics still only make up a fraction of the market. According to the most recent statistics, only one percent of global plastic production is organic. That means only one percent of 320 million tons produced annually.
Even that statistic is a bit misleading, because of the 2.05 million tones produced annually, less than 50 percent of those are biodegradable. Some are only bio-based. Biobased plastics have less environmental impact during production but are not recyclable, nor biodegradable. Asia is by far the largest producer of all bioplastics, with 56 percent of the global output. The United States is second to last regarding production; it has a long way to the top.
Not surprisingly, the most significant driver of bioplastics is the demand for environmentally friendly packaging options. The number of plastic bags floating around the ocean has got even non-environmentalists nervous. The second largest application in 2017 for bioplastics is for textiles, followed closely by uses in the automotive industry and consumer goods.
Bioplastics, like hemp plastic, are good for the environment in many different ways. They obviously take far less time to break down in the environment. They also produce 30 to 80 percent fewer emissions than their fossil fuel cousins. Depending on type of production, hemp plastics are recyclable, biodegradable, and free of toxins.
HEMP Bio-DeGradable Plastics End World Pollution 4EVER !!!
