The edibles opportunity: legal cannabis market

This month marks our first dedicated Report covering the legal cannabis edibles market that has emerged in multiple states across the U.S.—and nationwide across Canada.

Edibles—including a wide range of snacks and baked goods—hold significant mainstream appeal. It’s the legal cannabis format that will revolutionize the next generation of health-focused and functional foods.

Legal cannabis edibles are prescribed as medication for chronic pain, chemotherapy side effects, MS symptoms, sleep disorders, weight loss associated with HIV/AIDS, Tourette syndrome symptoms, anxiety and PTSD—and that’s just the list from the National Academy of Sciences as of January 2017.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Now that the Farm Bill has passed, legalizing industrial hemp, the situation for CBD—a non-psychoactive cannabinoid (no buzz) that holds much health and wellness promise—will change soon, as hemp will now likely be able to serve as a source of CBD nationwide.

Our leadership at BNP Media sees the great potential of this market. We just launched Cannabis Products, the first R&D-level publication for legal cannabis edibles and beverages. It came out last November, distributed as a supplement to sister publications Prepared Foods, Food Engineering and Food Safety Strategies. More issues are in the works for 2019. Our goal is to bring a much-needed level of professionalism to this market, covering trends, business and law, but also cannabis-specific GMPs and QA/QC, as well as supply-chain necessities like ingredients, packaging and equipment. It will help mom-and-pop businesses get up to speed, and provide a roadmap to the industry for mainstream food and beverage businesses.

Moving forward, we’ll also continue to cover legal cannabis edibles in these pages, including regular new product coverage on www.snackandbakery.com starting this month.

This market holds significant opportunity, and we’re just getting started.

Douglas J. Peckenpaugh is Group Publisher of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery, Dairy Foods, The National Provisioner, and Packaging Strategies for BNP Media. He has nearly three decades of publishing experience following the food industry from farm to fork, covering agriculture, ingredient processing, retail grocery branding, foodservice menu development, and food product R&D and manufacturing. He serves in leadership roles at his local suburban Chicago food pantry and church. Doug studied Professional and Creative Writing at Purdue University.

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