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3 Steps for Tracking Your Hemp CBD Products
from Seed to Shelf

Back to blog February 1, 2020

There are many stages in a Hemp CBD’s product supply chain and lifecycle where that product should be tested.

In our last blog post [Buyer Beware: What’s in Your Hemp CBD?], we mentioned how the Hemp CBD industry has adopted the COA process as a standard way to show consumers the potency and safety of the hemp CBD products they purchase.

But, since the Hemp CBD industry is not regulated, here is yet another area of the industry that is largely fraudulent – leading to unsafe products entering the market and ultimately onto store shelves.?

In other words, just because a CBD product has a COA code on its label doesn’t mean that it’s accurate – or even represents the product you’re holding!

Here’s how to follow the lifecycle of a high-quality Hemp CBD product:

Step One: The Farm’s COA. Every hemp CBD farm or growing facility should supply an accurate Certificate of Analysis, or COA, for raw hemp they sell to manufacturers and retailers.

This COA should include testing for pesticides, mold, and pathogens, such as salmonella. The COA should also be within a few months of the product being purchased, so that manufacturers know the plants they buy haven’t been sitting around for too long before they make them into consumer products. You have a right to ask the company whose name is on the product label for the Farm’s COA.

Step Two: The Manufacturer’s COA. Let’s say a manufacturing facility buys raw Hemp CBD from a farm. The manufacturer processes the raw hemp into Hemp CBD oil or CBD isolate for a beauty product.

The raw hemp that enters that manufacturing facility may be supplied with a Grade A COA, and be certified, but if that manufacturing facility is not Certified with Good Manufacturing Processes (cGMP) from the Food and Drug Administration, has dirty or faulty equipment, uses dangerous chemicals that can contaminate the product, or has poor handling processes, that hemp CBD product can quickly become contaminated and lose its COA or cGMP certifications, making it unsafe for consumers.

All hemp CBD products should be tested at least twice, once they come off the production line to make sure the products contain the same high-quality CBD as when they entered the factory. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. As with farmers, manufacturers can also supply fraudulent or incomplete COAs on the products they manufacture. You have a right to ask the company whose name is on the product label for the manufacturer’s COA.

Step Three: How to Find Out if Your CBD Product is Safe. Most companies that sell CBD have a QR code on their labels (the square computer-generated graphic on the back of a product label) so that consumers have immediate access to a product’s COA documents. You simply point your smartphone camera or scanning app at a QR code, which then sends you to a website with that product’s lifecycle history—but as we said before [Buyer Beware: What’s in Your Hemp CBD?], this data is not always accurate, nor does it always reflect the same product in your hand.

Learn how to determine which products are safe and which are not. Please read our next blog on testing The ABCs of COAs: 6 Takeaways on How to Buy Safe & Effective Hemp CBD Products.

Questions? We’re here to help. Feel free to leave a comment below or contact us for more information.