PhytoVista Laboratories, a UK market leader in CBD testing and a subsidiary of Sativa Group Plc (NEX:SATI), has completed an independent blind test of consumer cannabidiol products for The Centre for Medicinal Cannabis involving 30 major retail CBD oil brands.
PhytoVista’s technicians used its state of the art analytical equipment to report back to the CMC on the quality of the samples being asked to focus on the areas of health & safety, consumer rights, and criminal law. The results are contained within the CMC report ‘CBD in the UK: Towards a responsible, innovative and high-quality cannabidiol industry’ published today.
The test utilised PhytoVista’s standard analysis process, which produces a Certificate of Analysis capable of reporting by product on pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, cannabinoids, terpenes and mycotoxins, and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. Each £150 test has a turnaround time of five days or less.
For the CMC, PhytoVista was asked to test specifically for heavy metals, residual solvents and cannabinoids.
PhytoVista reported the results to the CMC and the detailed conclusions are contained within the CMC report (see below for contact details). The process however was most revealing in terms of quality and instances of poor practice. The biggest issues related to accuracy of labelling, the presence of controlled substances and some contaminants, and in one sample the complete absence of any CBD, a result validated by the CMC through a second independent laboratory test.
38% of the products tested had less than 50% of the advertised CBD content. One product had 0% CBD. 45% of the selected products had measurable levels of THC (mean content 0.04%) or CBN (mean content 0.01%) and are thus technically illegal within the UK.
One product had 3.8% ethanol (3.4% qualifies as an alcoholic beverage). Dichoromethane was detectable in seven products (3.8-13.1ppm) and cyclohexane was found in one product (27.9ppm). These percentages of solvents and heavy metals are still below the permitted daily dose levels in pharmaceutical products, although above food limit safety levels.
Conversely, George Botanicals, another Sativa subsidiary and a wholesaler and on-line retailer of CBD products, can guarantee that all of its products have been batch tested independently by PhytoVista. Sativa subsidiary Goodbody Wellness opens its first high street CBD wellness store in Bath on Saturday 29th June and offers the same guarantee.
Geremy Thomas, the Company’s founder and CEO, said: “Sativa identified early on that in established overseas markets for CBD, and in particular Canada, product testing and validation was an early stage bottleneck within the industry. PhytoVista is well established in the UK and has already conducted over 1500 independent tests.”
Paul Birch, Founder of CMC, said: “PhytoVista was chosen as a highly reputable, recognised UK-based laboratory. Its well established testing process was efficient, detailed and already contributes to making the UK’s CBD sector responsible and verifiable.”
