CBD HPLC Testing Explained
Quality assurance is an integral part of any profitable business, and the hemp and botanical industry is no different. When it comes to safe, quality products, analytical testing of materials and products is critical to ensure that laws and regulations are abided by, and customers are using a certifiably safe product. For this reason, it is important for any reputable extraction company to take part in rigorous testing in a variety of methods.
High performance liquid chromatography or HPLC testing and third-party testing are effective ways to test materials and products for chemical residuals, molds, solvents or other contaminants and is also a way to certify a legal product by measuring delta-9 content in CBD products. Without these methods of analytical testing, it would be impossible to ensure safe and legal products from hemp and botanical extracts.
In this episode of exrakTALKS, Dr. Jon explains all about analytical testing in the hemp and botanical industry. He discusses in detail why you should test for contaminants, where you should be testing, and how you should be testing. This discussion includes the ins and outs of HPLC testing, the use of third-party tests to look for unknown contaminants, and how not testing can affect your business.
LISTEN to this episode:
Industrial Hemp Extraction
Calculators
Product Tours
Schedule a FREE 20 min CBD Jam Session
Guides & Checklists:
Advanced Extraction Guide
Distillation Guide
Hemp Curing Guide
Hemp Processing Building & Side Guidelines Checklist
Hemp Processing Vendor Qualification Guidelines
Solvent Removal Guide
Terpene Recovery Guide
05:44 – Top 5 facts you need to know about testing
06:30 – Fact #1
06:45 – How to find your State rules
07:52 – Fact #2
09:00 – Fact #3
10:30 – Fact #4
11:44 – Fact #5
12:25 – Outline
12:50 – Split samples
14:20 – Different results
15:20 – Sequoia Lab example
17:02 – A Tale of Two Labs
19:25 – Lawyers exploiting
23:12 – Why test for unknown contaminants?
27:56 – Mind of an Analytical Chemist
28:43 – What are potential causes?
33:15 – Outline
33:49 – Problems with limits?
34:10 – Separation or Extraction
38:05 – Who uses HPLC testing?
38:12 – Farmer
39:10 – Investors
40:05 – Consumers
40:52 – Producers: What to test?
44:30 – Where to test?
56:30 – What does a COA tell you?
57:00 – 3rd party testing & in house testing?
57:30 – Any ASTM tests specific to hemp?
58:46 – Recommendations for consumers and producers
Welcome to extrakTALKS with Dr. Jon podcast. Dr. Jon is CEO and president of extraktLAB and United Science; an industry leader in hemp and the extraction industry. Listen closely as Dr. Jon talks about his experiences, CBD extraction methodology, and the ins and outs of owning your own business. Dr. Jon teaches you healthy business practices, how to increase your profits and steps to take your CBD company to a whole new level. Let’s dive in.
Randall Thompson 00:34
Hey, guys, how are you? Thank you for joining us today. Exciting test day,right?
Dr. Jon 00:38
It’s gonna be all about testing.
Randall Thompson 00:39
Is it like a pop quiz?
Dr. Jon 00:40
Eh, not really, but it’s gonna be exciting, more exciting than any other tests conversation that you’ve ever heard.
Randall Thompson 00:46
All right, so
Dr. Jon 00:47
Definitely
Randall Thompson 00:47
Testing! If you’re here for testing, you’re in the right place. Welcome! extraktLAB extrakTALKS. We’re talking about different titles and things that – that’s what we’ve been doing all week.
Dr. Jon 00:59
Yeah
Randall Thompson 00:59
Talking about what what we’re doing next
Dr. Jon 01:01
What is our next – our next big thing?
Randall Thompson 01:03
Oh, you mean next week? What are we talking about?
Dr. Jon 01:05
I think it’s a…
Randall Thompson 01:07
It’s a rematch
Dr. Jon 01:08
it’s it’s a rematch
Randall Thompson 01:08
It’s a rematch!
Dr. Jon 01:09
Cage fight!
Randall Thompson 01:10
Yes. Ethanol versus co2 rematch.
Dr. Jon 01:12
There wasn’t enough blood last week – last time we did it
Randall Thompson 01:15
Based on the last question we had it was like a grudge match.
Dr. Jon 01:18
Yeah it was like, that’s okay. We will get there. We’ll get there. Whatever.
Randall Thompson 01:22
Oh, anyway, thank you for joining us today! Appreciate you being here.
Dr. Jon 01:26
Hey, before we get started…
Randall Thompson 01:27
Yeah?
Dr. Jon 01:27
Before we get started, I gotta – I gotta light like the cigar here… There we go – there you go Winston. All right.
Randall Thompson 01:34
Okay. Our third man!
Dr. Jon 01:36
Yeah
Randall Thompson 01:37
We just play fiddle to him. That’s good. Okay. Also, this is a fun and safe place to ask questions. Ask as many questions as you want. We love it. We need those. There are going to be some polls coming up here and there. This is full questions, full everything. We do have the live tour available for you as resource we do a live tour our five ton facility here. CBD jam sessions are available. A lot of you have been taking advantage those.
Dr. Jon 02:02
Yeah.
Randall Thompson 02:02
Did you realize that? Yeah, it’s really great. Our team is –
Dr. Jon 02:05
is cookin’
Randall Thompson 02:05
There asking a lot of good questions and a lot of valuable insight. So we’re learning from you just like you’re learning from us.
Dr. Jon 02:13
Yeah.
Randall Thompson 02:14
Well, hopefully.
Dr. Jon 02:14
Well, it’s a great one on one. It’s an opportunity to ask your question to people who are talking to customers all day long.
Randall Thompson 02:20
And it’s safe! There’s nothing there. There’s no pressure. There’s no nothing. We’re just here to serve you. So call, join CBD jam sessions. That’s what we’re calling them. We do have an advanced extraction guide calculator library is online. I think you’ve
Dr. Jon 02:33
It’s almost its – Almost there.
Randall Thompson 02:38
Almost there. Okay. But I think I talked to Tim he said he’s got like, 11
Dr. Jon 02:42
Yeah
Randall Thompson 02:42
You’re just waiting. You’re polishing them up?
Dr. Jon 02:45
Well, no, I still have to – I just go through and reviewing them. And it’s almost done. So, I’m a bottleneck okay, what can I say?
Randall Thompson 02:52
No, it’s important because we want to make sure you get good tools – mini course libraries coming up, all good stuff. So, thank you for being here again. Test – testing. That’s what the topic is today. Testing, testing testing, not 123. Is it 123?
Dr. Jon 03:06
No, it’s not really
Randall Thompson 03:07
I almost said Jinx. Then who would have to pinch who? I don’t know? Isn’t that how that goes?
Dr. Jon 03:13
No, no – charley horse!
Randall Thompson 03:14
Oh, silly me. Poll is up there. This is going to help us answer some of your testing questions and field this in. Are you a farmer, grower, processor, chemist, investor, entrepreneur, who are you? That would be good for you, because that’ll help us tailor where we should talk most about testing. And if you’re asking the question, pretty much we’ll know where the test question is coming from in the process. But, I know you’ve got a few things you want to talk about
Dr. Jon 03:43
Yeah, we’re going to switch up the format a little bit. I have, I have a series of slides that I put together
Randall Thompson 03:48
Okay
Dr. Jon 03:49
And we’re just going to be going through some of the problems in testing. I think that’ll hit a nerve with a lot of the people that are listening.
Randall Thompson 03:55
I love the last time you did that presentation and everything. So I’m looking forward to it But in this case, it’s all gonna be live and interactive, in other words. So bring your questions in during it So while you’re doing it, you know, it was live, but it was more sequestered last time. So we’re learning, right. So we’re doing this better. So with some input, so thank you. So as we go through this presentation, go ahead and bring in your questions. We’ve got already some coming in. So thank you for that.
Dr. Jon 04:20
Thank you.
Randall Thompson 04:21
All right. So do you want to hit it?
Dr. Jon 04:22
Yeah, let’s do it.
Randall Thompson 04:23
And while he’s setting it up. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know, we have mama-nation winners. Mama-nated. Facebook winners this week. Tina Maxie!
Dr. Jon 04:33
All right!
Randall Thompson 04:34
And Instagram winner Michelle Benton! We called them “mama-nation” since this Sunday is going to be Mother’s Day, right? At least where we are in the queue of that. So that’s good. Congratulations. Make sure that you participate, engage in our social media, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, subscribe, love it. Sorry. Okay, now the slides are up.
Dr. Jon 04:54
Okay! You’re on! Very, very good. Okay, guys, here’s here’s the deal. Here’s the top five facts that you need to know about testing or hemp or CBD or whatever you’re looking at. So, first rule is that all the testing that takes place, the rules for accepted criteria varies from state to state. In fact, some states have no rules like self policing, some states require metals testing, other states don’t require metals testing. So,. the rules are basically all over the place. The issue with that, of course, is that it really kind of lends itself to say manufacturers or people who are a little less stringent on their testing to go shop for the easiest pass. So that’s something everybody needs to be aware about, you know, especially consumers.
Randall Thompson 05:42
So as they do that, I’m sorry, when they are looking for what tests are required in their state, is that an easy Google: “tests available?”
Dr. Jon 05:50
Yeah, actually… Yeah. So you can go to the state register, and you can look up the law and you can see what is testing. There were some articles that were written to where it went state by state. But essentially what the article ended up just being a state by state bitch session so it wasn’t, wasn’t really good. It was like, “oh, here’s everything that’s wrong here. Here’s everything that’s wrong here. This didn’t work here, call your legislator,” you know. So it wasn’t really strictly on the rules. But there are articles out there. If you take a look at it, it would be a lot of work to go state by state and just do like a comprehensive
Randall Thompson 06:27
We’ve got our guys and you know, one of the things that we can do is we can start trying to put that some of those links together from our team. And at least post it somewhere in a blog post, just easy link, right? But make sure you look for your state’s parameters, wherever you are,
Dr. Jon 06:41
Exactly no problem at all. There can be problems with test results or the formulation So, okay, there’s always this idea of presumption of innocence. Right? But the problem is, I don’t know who who – there are usually two players and one could be innocent, or the other could be innocent, but usually there’s an accusation and then depending on what side you’re talking to. If you’re talking to the laboratory, well, just because yeah, that’s what it is. And we have all of our stuff together. And yeah, they have a contaminant or if it’s the manufacturer, it’s always the laboratories’ fault. So the reality is, though, that there are definite problems with some test results, you have to understand your vendor and you have to understand the processes that your vendor’s using. And then as a manufacturer, you really need to set up your organization for the highest grade level of testing and we’ll kind of go into where you would do that in this case. So also, anybody who’s listened to our prior podcasts knows that my opinions on pass designations. So a pass designation does not mean that your product is pure. And again, I have this tincture here that kind of shows it. This would receive a pass designation from basically every third party lab in the country, but it has 5000 ppm of pentane 5000 ppm of 2-propanol 5000 ppm of methanol acetone 5000 ppm again, if you took this, it really smells horrible, but it would be a pass designation. A third party would say it’s okay. You wouldn’t be able to actually, you know, take it. It’s really bad stuff.
Randall Thompson 08:12
You made me smell it on air one time.
Dr. Jon 08:14
Yeah. It’s horrible.
Randall Thompson 08:16
And if you took this every day, it’s like drinking your bottle of water.
Dr. Jon 08:20
Yeah, yeah. So that’s the issue. If you had a known contaminant, with a pass designation, in other words, a good pass certificate, a C of A that says this is okay to take, and you took that three dropper-fulls, if your tincture per day, you’d be drinking approximately 470 milliliters worth of heptane per year.
Randall Thompson 08:40
Whew!
Dr. Jon 08:40
Yeah, it’s a real issue. So it’s it’s disgusting. And not only that, at some point in time, like I said before, we have to get away from taking chemicals into our bodies. Okay. Avoid manufacturers who do not have an SOP for flagging and identifying unknowns. This is a really big deal. Does anybody here remember the vitamin E acetate crisis and the vaping crisis? Okay, look, if the manufacturer had or third party testing labs for that matter, had a process to say, “hey, there’s this big peak in here, and we identified it and it’s vitamin E acetate, do you know that that’s in there?” Okay, that would be, that would be the most beneficial test to have. So, a lot of times you’ll get things like your ingredients or your raw ingredients in to your manufacturing facility. And if there’s an unknown in there, you have to flag it, you have to figure out what that is before you go forward. And so we’ll kind of go and talk a little bit about that. We’ll talk a little bit about how that really works with your third party testing facility. So we’ll talk about that a little bit later. And then a flower test method can’t be used to test lotion without revalidation. Okay, and we have seen this time and time again where laboratories that are third party, they will take a flower method and then you’ll give them a lotion sample, or you’ll give them a sample in a different matrix. And they’ll test it or something with high fats or high sugars, they’ll test it with the exact same method and they get a different result without revalidating. If you have a given matrix, like for example, a lotion matrix, your test has to be validated in that matrix. That’s it. Those are the top five facts you need to know. Okay, so I’m just going to kind of do an outline here, I’m going to show you some of the problems with testing. You do not have to go very far on the internet on Google, you can find all kinds of problems. I mean, and there’s lawsuits going on. There’s falsifications of data going on. There’s lack of verification, I’ll talk about some of my experiences as well. So I’m just going to kind of go through this. This is kind of a nice example that I found yesterday, showing two different two different laboratory testing third party laboratory testing, ostensibly running the same exact method for the same exact thing. In this case, they’re looking at a potency and you can see here’s samples right here. And then this particular lab getting this result right here, and the other lab getting this result. And there are dozens, if not multiple, dozens of examples of this in, you know, in the mass media, they’ve done this and also more scientific studies this, this happens to come from Department of Ag. And it really, it really does highlight, hey, look, there are variations. So you really need to make sure that you understand what your lab is all about, what they’re testing, how they’re testing it. Sometimes you need to have an expert come in, because this is always going to get you in your end product. So if you’re a manufacturer, and you send out an end product, suppose I’m the customer and my lab is can test. And suppose I’m the manufacturer and you’re the manufacturer and yours a steep hill, well, there would be a difference in playing with the label, right? So that’s an issue. So I’m just going to highlight it here. Here’s another one related specifically to detected bugs here. It looks like we got salmonella, e. coli, Aspergillus. So there’s three different tests, there are biological tests, you can see this laboratory only detected one. That’s because they were using QPCR, which is a technique. And I think these guys were plating them out, which is a different technique. So again, two different techniques, giving two different answers with two different methods. Which one is right, which one is wrong? That is something that I think that you could say that they’re both right, because there are limitations in certain tests that are present in one test that are not present in another test.
Randall Thompson 12:33
Hmm
Dr. Jon 12:33
So I think you just – that’s why you just got to understand exactly what it exactly is that you’re paying for. Here’s an example – interesting – and I know a little bit about the Sequoia Labs, but they were actually falsifying data for companies you know, and this I think can happen, for example, with, you know, with THC, there’s a big, you know, if you have a crop for example, and you have, you know, a lot of a huge amount, there is and you want to make sure that it doesn’t have any THC in it. I mean, there is there’s a definite motivation there to make sure that you have the right tests and make sure that it’s under the right amount of THC, right. So you could actually go around and find companies that would probably give you a test, for example, that would be that would be, you know, low on the THC side, okay? Some third party testers are known for that. Okay. So, that’s – again, gives rise to shopping issues. And so anyway, I’m gonna give you some recommendations as to how to really deal with this, but you can see that falsifications data does occur. And when it does, by the way, you’re gonna get caught if you do this okay. And when you do, it could cost you millions. In this case, they had 29 firms that were caught falsifying data, and I don’t actually know if that’s been proven and I don’t know exactly what happened. They probably settled it out, but I know they to recall a whole bunch of the products and that cost them millions. So This actually happened to one of our clients, the tale the two labs, we had a lotion and the lotion was sent to several third party and then we also tested it with our own laboratory internal laboratory. And we were getting similar results on the amount of CBD. Then we sent that to a customer and that customer sent it to a local laboratory and it was also an ISO accredited laboratory. They came back with radically different amounts of CBD in so that caused an issue with Okay, are you guys are you guys actually kind of making your product so that you’re no less CBD than what you’re claiming on the label? Okay, so it looks bad. And when it looks bad and it doesn’t go your your way obviously, there’s always the thought that maybe you’re guilty. Okay? Just by the fact if it had gone the other way, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal. But since it was less than what The label claim was then it was a big deal. Right? So anyway, So anyway, both laboratories were ISO 17025 accredited, we, we did a root cause analysis, okay, which I was involved in. And it turned out the customers laboratory, were not using a validated method, they were actually using a method that was intended for flower. And so they were taking a lotion matrix and using flower method on that. That’s why I say you have to have a validated method. If you don’t have a validated method for the matrix that you’re in, you’re not going to get the right results. So that that’s a big issue. what was at stake in that case was hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future orders. So we really took -we really took a lot of our.. we took -, I got involved in that. And we had our laboratory involved in that. And there are all kinds of different things. You know, the lawyers are exploiting the situations. Now, this is a lawsuit that was filed just – I think it was just last week. There was a company that had basically had claims that they didn’t have any metals and that they didn’t have any pesticides. And they sent it off to one laboratory. And then a guy bought a bunch of the stuff that this company was selling and then sent it off to the same laboratory to get retested. And it turned out that the two tests were not not the same. The stuff that he had was contaminated, and the stuff that-
Randall Thompson 16:24
And he sent it to the same lab?
Dr. Jon 16:25
The same exact lab.
Randall Thompson 16:26
Oh my god.
Dr. Jon 16:27
The lab is really, actually a very good lab. And I trust what they were doing. But they also, here’s the other thing. If I send my lab – my test to a company in a state that doesn’t really require like a lot of pesticides, and then I want to sell it in the whole entire United States, in that state, If you’re only testing for three pesticides in one state, and then you’re testing for 60 pesticides in another state, and you get a pass in the laboratory where there’s only three pesticides. Okay. What are you you’re really doing? Because the customer is going to take that and send it off to the lab where they’re testing for 60. So, you may have an issue. So, if you want to sell to the United States as a whole, you’re going to want to take and test, you know, select your laboratory that does a lot of pesticides, for example. So, but getting back to these lawyers explaining the situation, this is a class action lawsuit. You really have to make sure that not only your label is proper, but you really have to make sure that you know exactly what’s in your products that are going out in the consumer market, because I think that this is going to continue to occur. And there’s more than one class action lawsuit actually. So, from the consumer standpoint, buyer beware, yes, but also from the manufacturer standpoint, cover your as. Make sure you cover your ass, make sure what is in it. You got to do the right thing. So, you know, if you say it’s pesticide free, and you use the test where they’re only testing for three pesticides and say here’s my test, and then send it to in a state where you know, 60 pesticides are being tested on that is a problem,
Randall Thompson 18:05
Use the right testing methodology use the right validation method, use the similar things to that are based on your claims. I remember in college I had a, an economics course. And then one of the key books was how to lie with statistics.
Dr. Jon 18:22
Well, you know, there’s lies, damned lies, and then there’s statistics.
Randall Thompson 18:27
But that’s what this reminds me of.
Dr. Jon 18:30
Yeah. So, a lot of consumers are like, “well, how can I ever know that what I am actually imbibing is safe?” Okay. The manufacturers are like, “you know, look, we have our tests.” Some of them are doing the right thing. They’re testing, – sometimes they’re going beyond the requirements of their particular state, by selecting laboratories that are out of state, for example, so they can get better test results. So you can see there’s a conundrum here. Yeah, so let me let me move on here. Okay. One of the things that I think is very, very important is testing for unknowns. And that is, you know, like we had this debate breakout one was it was early on in 2019 right? And that’s when people started keeling over dead from a contaminant, which was called vitamin E acetate, people were putting in vitamin E acetate, so such as to so to emulsify it and make it more water soluble, so they could put it in PG and VG. That’s my theory, okay. Of course, you can take vitamin E and eat it and you don’t have any problem. But when you start to inhale it, it becomes a problem. So people were looking at the label, oh, it’s perfectly fine vitamin E. It’s antioxidant. It’s perfect. Well, let’s start smoking it. Okay. So let’s put it into our vapor juice and, you know, the deal with the vapor juice and the actual E-juice that was in there, it was a THC E-juice passed all the tests and got certifications. Oh yeah, this passes. Passes potency, purity, identity, didn’t have any contaminants in it. They passed all the tests, yet it still killed people. That’s because there was a huge peak in their test that said “hell this is an unknown” they didn’t identify what the unknown was. Nor was there any flag that said “hey, there’s something unknown in here!” It’s just Pass Pass, pass, pass pass. Okay. That’s a problem. Okay. And I think that the manufacturers really have an opportunity here to give confidence to the consumers by… by saying, “hey, look, we we not only do third party testing, but we also do testing internal to us.” And this is actually the future of the business. You know, we party test, but then we have our own lab, and we’re testing for unknowns there. Okay, For example, I’ll give you an example that we had early on in my career. We had purchased three barrels of food grade ethanol, and they all had the same lot number and we did a full battery of tests prior to letting it into… taking out a quarantine letting it into our manufacturing lab. One of the tests – one of the tests for one of the barrels from the exact same lot showed up with a high level of arsenic in it. So if we had just said, “okay, we’re going to use this” and taken the C of A from the customer for that particular lot – There must have been a contamination in the barrel or whatever we didn’t know about. But if we had done that, we would have contaminated an entire batch. And that would have made all of our end products fail for the arsenic right? So it’s really good to have like incoming inspections and incoming QC and all this stuff that are – you know that’s normal with any other food supplement product. And by the way that that is the normal for supplement products. All of your ingredients coming into your factory has to be tested and it has to be tested to see if it’s got contaminants in it. And if there’s unknowns in it, you should flag it and say “what is the unknown to the manufacturer?” You should have a quality agreement with your manufacturer of your raw ingredients. That’s just obvious. Okay? It’s pretty much required by general practice and good practice, good accepted practice all over… All over in the supplement world. So that’s my whole shtick on why why you should test for unknowns. Now, third, party testing facilities don’t usually test for unknowns. So if they saw that extra peak there, they wouldn’t even do anything with that. They would just give you a pass/fail on the test that you ordered. Okay, cannabinoid panel test that you ordered? Okay, yes, pass/fail. They don’t know what that other peak is in there. They don’t care. And it’s not what you paid them to do. So if you want to, if you want to be able to be on that level of saying, “Okay, look, we test for unknowns as well.” Then you got to do that yourself. Or you can talk to your laboratory and have them, have them say “hey, look at any given time you If you see something out of the ordinary, like added peaks or anything like that, that you don’t know what they are, and they weren’t in any of our other samples, then tell us,” you can have that written up into a quality agreement. So that’s a good idea.
Randall Thompson 23:11
So the beautiful mind of an analytical chemist is that when it sees a peak, it wants to examine what the heck what it is,
Dr. Jon 23:17
Yeah, identify the unknown, right? So you can have specific equipment to do that. It’s expensive, that equipment, but it’s really worth your time and effort to really get that done. Or even just to ask the question, “Oh, we don’t know what that is.” Okay. I think that some manufacturers might shy away from that simply because, well, we don’t know what it is. So we don’t want to know what it is. Right?
Randall Thompson 23:39
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Dr. Jon 23:40
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But I tell you, it’s, it’s it’s always worth your while to know exactly what’s in there. And if it’s, if it could be for example, in the case of the three barrels, one of them had arsenic in it. Crazy!
Randall Thompson 23:51
Yeah, that is crazy.
Dr. Jon 23:52
Okay. So what are the potential causes? I’m not going to really go into this in detail, but just just and I think that it’s not all perfect here. There’s a lot of… It’s a complicated set of issues that are wrapped around these analytical problems. I don’t immediately point fingers at anyone, whether it’s the manufacturer or the laboratory, I don’t do it. And, you know, people have been kind of a knee jerk reaction to really point the fingers at the third party laboratories. I don’t know if that’s the proper response. And then some, some people point the fingers at the manufacturers as well, you know, it’s their fault, right? You know, it’s like, it’s more complicated than that. Because you have a method, you have a test, you have it, you have, you have to make sure it’s validated. Okay, so don’t jump to conclusions. Go do your root cause analysis. And here’s some potential root causes. and elsewhere you got different methods from lab to lab. So I might have I want you to test for THC. In one lab, you have a totally different method to do that in another lab using a different column, different set of conditions, different instrumentation, different everything. So you Each one of those laboratories, they could get the same result if if they had validated methods, okay, so that’s that’s the second thing, wrong method, including wrong analytical equipment, and then different validation protocol or no validation protocol. A lot of people, they don’t have their methods that are validated, you have to validate your methods. In other words, once you start to measure something, you have to really do what’s called a validation step where you, you check to make sure that the method is robust enough where you can actually use it, and that it’s accurate and you’re getting the recoveries and all of that, that’s what validation is. Okay? So you know, just measuring something that’s just a measurement, a validated method is something different. So if you’re vetting out your, your laboratory, just go ahead and ask them are they do they have all validated methods? Can they share with you the validation SOP that they use, okay. I mean, that would be this, okay. And then same analytical and sample prep method for many of the different matrices. That’s again, getting back to if you use the same method for all the different types of samples, you’re always going to come up with the wrong answer because a cookie sample is not the same as a sample in ethanol or a flower sample is not the same as a lotion sample. So you have to have different analytical and you have to have different sample prep methods for that, and then sample preparation, validation and methods. Okay, so sample Prep is probably a really big area here that I think is there’s a whole science around that sample prep, I know quite a bit about the sample prep side, some people use what they call catchers. Some people use what they call, you know, just dilute and shoot some people sonicate, okay, you’re going to get different results from each one of those different sample prep methods. So, anyway, those are some things that you need to think about. I encourage you to if you do have a problem, you call us, we can help you look at what that problem might be. We can take a look at it and see if we can give you a hand to try to sort out the issues on a consulting basis it’s not a problem. Also, there are some really great chemists out there, when you talk to the different third party laboratories, they they’ve seen a lot, if you talk to them hey look at I got this result here from this lab and this result here. If you get them both on the phone talking, they’ll figure it out. They will figure it out, they’ll because one guy will be pointing at the other and they have to defend it. You don’t have to do anything. So I would recommend that you just do good business, get people on the phone, get people talking, get expert help if you need it. So all right, let me see here. Go to the next one here. Okay, so that’s the problems with the testing. And I think I, I should have put a something in here and says how many people on the line here have problems with testing? Or have had problems with testing? Whether you’re a farmer, you’ve had problems with testing, okay. If you are a manufacturer, you’ve had problems if you’ve sold any CBD at all. You’ve had problems with testing.
Randall Thompson 27:59
Yeah,
Dr. Jon 27:59
I think It’s pretty much a universal problem. People know about it, but it’s like okay, what do I do? I got some good good ideas here for you guys. Problems with the limits. Now, this is something that all together that is something that I am doing a lot of research on lately. In terms of the problems that we have with the limits. I got a big problem with this. Okay, guys, if I have for example, if I’m doing a separation, and I do an extraction, and I’m using a TTP approved method, basically the chemical manufacturer has put into pure ethanol, a denaturant it’s a contaminant. It’s a chemical contaminant. It’s very, very difficult to remove that contaminant. Okay. And the issue is, is that a lot of the analytical methods that are used for measuring the presence of that contaminant, they have very, very high limits of detection, so you can have a lot of it in there. Plus the limits for those solvents are also very, very high. Like I had this this tincture here that I made up That was a, this is an FDA approved USP 467 Q3 pass, okay, and it’s got all that stuff in it. That’s because there’s no cumulative Max, no cumulative max. So they made the specs so large that you could drive a truck through it. And actually, I think that this would be harmful to anybody who took it. And you can see this are all of the in the class three, except for hexane and methanol. These are the class three, you know, solvents that are on that list. So any of those can be in there at 5000 psi and you get a pass. Okay, so one of the things that I recommend you do is just don’t accept a certificate of analysis unless it has a, known level that it reports not just a pass fail. So that’s the first thing and the second thing would be, look, I think the limit of detection and limit of quantitation is really important. Let me explain what that is. What is the minimum amount of this particular heptane for example, that could be present in the test would still detect that it’s there. So if it’s like 2-300 ppm, that means I could have 2-300 ppm parts per million in this in the analytical method would say it’s non detect. That’s ridiculous. I don’t want I don’t want heptane. I don’t want to have methanol. I don’t want to have hexane. I don’t want to. I don’t wanna eat that stuff. It’s not good for. I’m a chemist. I’ve already been exposed to every chemical like, I’ve been handling chemicals like crazy, so I don’t want to eat it.
Randall Thompson 30:28
Oh, no, that’s bad!
Dr. Jon 30:29
Yeah, it’s bad. Yeah. So anyway, I don’t know a lot of people are doing ethanol. And they’re trying to reduce the cost of their ethanol because ethanol is an expensive technique, period. And then they’re using this cheap chemically chemically contaminated ethanol, and they’re not able to get it all out, and they get the pass and people think it’s safe. And it’s not you know, we’ve seen stuff we’ve done a big study of basically ethanol samples coming into our laboratory for testing and yeah, we See that, you know, at least 30% of them have multiple solvents in them. Acetone IPA, you know, hexane heptane It’s crazy. People are eating this stuff and giving it to their kids. So yeah, I wouldn’t I just don’t like it. Okay. So that I think there’s a big problem with the limit and I’m not gonna delve into that it’s kind of a different topic for a different time. But even if it’s a part of testing, because there’s always something that says, Okay, this is pass, you know, pass designation, you know, well, if the pass designation is so high as to what I would think would actually harm you but it’s still got a pass designation what’s the pass designation mean?
Randall Thompson 31:39
Yeah
Dr. Jon 31:39
I think it’d be much better to have like, okay, it’s not in there at all or, you know, solvent free so we’re just avoid the worst call together. Yeah. Why you solvents? Okay. Okay. So who does testing farmers investors, consumers, producers, okay. Farmers are always looking to test the crop for potency and contaminants. So for example, farmers will test their soil before they start their organic, they’ll have to do an initial testing on their soil to make sure that there’s not any pesticides in there, in the soil themselves. And then they test the crop for potency. Typically as it starts to flower, they don’t want the flour to get too much THC in it. So they’ll test it regularly just to make sure. And then they’ll have the state come in the state will clip off a flower and tell the farmer, “boy you got 20% CBD” and they make a calculation to the biomass and they say, Oh, I’m gonna be a millionaire next week. It’s not quite that way because you’ll lose a lot to water and you lose a lot too sticks and stems and there’s yields that you got to think about. So, investors, okay, investors always want to make sure that the business that they’re investing in is using testing to reduce and manage or eliminate risk. That’s what we use it for in business. And if you’re investor, you want to make sure that your investment is protected. So That’s why people investors really want to make sure that they are using. It’s not worth it to skirt, the manufacturing methods. It’s not worth it to skirt the testing, you know, protocols be better than everyone else, and you shouldn’t have a problem.
Randall Thompson 33:14
And you can charge more!
Dr. Jon 33:15
Yeah, you can charge more too yeah,
Randall Thompson 33:17
That’s the whole organic certification that’s the whole idea of testing for, you know, high quality or no, right? Nothing. There’s nothing in here. And here’s the test to prove it. But it’s it’s a real encompassing test, right. Otherwise you get in trouble.
Dr. Jon 33:32
Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, so I think, yeah, and then consumers purity potency identity, consumers typically want to know it, did it pass the metal test, did a pass a solvent test, did it pass? Where’s the where’s the potency test? So that if I think I’m buying five milligrams in this particular sample, that I actually have five milligrams, those are the types of things that consumers want.
Randall Thompson 33:53
Absolutely.
Dr. Jon 33:54
And you know, that that’s where I really have some advice for consumers. I think that they if they really bought, for example, organic, they look for co2 labels, basically process with co2 labels, you’re producing two major risks of contaminants. I would say that that would be the case. I can go into that a little bit later. And then producers, I got a whole list of things, recommendations for producers. All right. So here’s, here’s the list what the test Okay, purity potency identity, that’s typically done with HPLC, which is a technique that separates out all the different compounds as a function of time. And then you can measure how much each component is in there. Thank you. Like, for example, if you have soda can, right, in that soda can you want to know how much caffeine there is? You use this method, this HPLC method and it’ll tell you how much caffeine is in there. Well, that’s pretty cool. So solvent residuals, we talked a lot about solving the residuals so far. terpene profiles, you want to know, okay, it doesn’t have terpenes in there, what are the terpenes that are in there, and you could do that with a GCMS or a GCFID. which is two different pieces of equipment, toxins, aflatoxins, mycotoxins these are things that I’ve never seen a positive test for toxins. In all of the tests that I’ve seen, it’s almost like we don’t have a toxin problem but I maybe there are some laboratories who have seen that and I don’t you’d have to have a pretty I don’t even know where they where they come from. I wish I knew a little bit more about it, but we’ve never seen a positive on top
Randall Thompson 35:28
Any of you watching if you’ve seen any toxins in any of your test results, put it in the chat. I’d love to hear about that. That would be very curious. Cause we haven’t seen it. It’s not there. Okay. Go sir.
Dr. Jon 35:38
Pesticides, no problem. Pesticides, metals, micro biologicals. And this includes ecoli and filth measurements, okay, is what they typically call it foreign materials would also fall into that vitamin E acetate. A lot of laboratories are testing for that. A water activity moisture and then I put in there unknowns. So this is what a typical manufacturer would want to test so if you’re doing a good job in your testing facility, let’s go on to the next one.
Randall Thompson 36:07
And that’s Doug, by the way.
Dr. Jon 36:09
That is that’s Doug.
Randall Thompson 36:10
He’s one of our chemists.
Dr. Jon 36:11
Yeah, Snoop Dougg.
Randall Thompson 36:13
Snoop Dougg.
Dr. Jon 36:14
Doug e fresh. I’m not sure which one he’s going by these days.
Randall Thompson 36:20
he’s right now he’s tearing his hair out because we were we’ve got an ISO audit coming up.
Dr. Jon 36:25
Oh, yeah. He’s doing ISO. ISO, like crazy. So,
Randall Thompson 36:28
but he was working on HPLC there.
Dr. Jon 36:30
Yeah, he was. Yeah, that was our Q-TOF there no that this right here. This is a Agilent stack. Oh, and then we have a triple quad detector on this for testing of pesticides. We also have what they call a Q-TOF which is for unknowns which we use specifically for unknowns, which is a nice little piece of equipment.
Randall Thompson 36:52
The lab is very cool back there. It’s fun to go back there.
Dr. Jon 36:54
Yeah, it’s it’s it is really cool. And you know, if you come and see us come tour our facility. You’ll see You’ll see our laboratory how we got it set up. You’ll see people in there working, you know, doing laboratory tests.
Randall Thompson 37:05
Lots of lab coats back there.
Dr. Jon 37:06
Yeah. Yeah. white lab coats. Yes. the little hairnets That’s Yes. You know, a lot of them don’t don’t they don’t wear the facemask in the laboratory because there’s no food in there at all or there’s no so you have that benefit of working in a laboratory.
Randall Thompson 37:23
Well, there you go.
Dr. Jon 37:24
Yes, good. Okay, so this is now where to test in hemp processing and or in your hemp processing. So this is really where to test so let’s kind of go through this and I kind of have already looked at incoming testing, showed you some reasons why you’d want to test your ingredients and or your solvents at the very beginning and typically, you receive those goods in the receiving area. They are sampled in the receiving area and then they’re moved to quarantine. They don’t get released from quarantine until quality assurance has said, hey, look, these are good. And the way they do that is they look at the QC results, which is quality control results from the test and they say this meets the specifications for that ingredient. And then they check it off and they say, it’s ready to go. It doesn’t go any further than quarantine until quality assurance says it can go to the rest of the facility, but that’s just a good check. You know, you got to set this up and anybody who is running a manufacturing facility needs to really set up that incoming inspection function.
Randall Thompson 38:33
This is an awesome slide. I have one quick question. Do you did you make this with a dry erase marker? I think it’s hard.
Dr. Jon 38:44
It is a little small. Yeah, no, I was I made it with my my pencil and I whittled it down with my knife. Okay, all right. Receiving and then goes into quarantine and then after drawing so typically you do like Moisture analysis here you would do potency, purity identity. And you in this receiving section, you’d also want to make sure that you are testing for contaminants coming in. We had we had in, in Nemadji, we had a big shipment come in of some guy wanted us to process for him, whatever. It was kind of interesting because it had the biomass had acetone, methanol, ethanol, it had heptane in it. So they had already soaked it and sent it to us then for post processing of that and there was like 7% – 8% left in the in the materials. Oh my god. So we were like, Okay, first of all the material is hazardous waste, okay, in it’s like get it out of here because it’s got all these residual solvents and then it’s going to contaminate our entire process. So Wow. But we found that at the very beginning, a lot of times people will go out to the field and Pre test before they allow it into your facility, but we don’t own it until we accept it anyway. So that’s typically what we do. Okay, and then drying, you know, there’s a yield process there. Typically, if you have a moisture content, you can do moisture analysis there. That’s kind of a yield process, you’re grinding, typically you don’t have, if you may want to test for like particle size. But in this case, most of the time you don’t test for particle size there at all. So once you know that your materials going into this process are clean and what you’d expect this is a yield process, but it’s not really a chemical yield process. So maybe just measure the weight in the weight out decarboxylation you can test whether or not you have decarboxylated your material. And then you can go through each one of these steps. Like with your extract materials, you can also do yield processes there to figure out, okay, what’s my cannabinoid yield. A lot of people use weight yield, and there’s also such a thing as cannabinoid yield, you can have a very high weight yield, but a low cannabinoid yield and I mentioned some people don’t know that but if you’re measuring the amount of cannabinoids before and you’re measuring them after, you should be able to tell Okay, look, I got most of the cannabinoids, okay. And then in your Dewaxing process, that’s also one place that you’d want to measure. Distillation. Typically you’re measuring potency there and your isolated. Now, depending on how you make isolate, a lot of people use like solvents and stuff. If that’s the case, you’re going to need to make sure that you have a very robust solvent residual testing process for that particular step. And then, in your formulations, that’s where you start to get very complicated because now it’s starting to get in, you’re mixing up your CBD, or you’re mixing up your THC with different excipients you’re making brownies or you’re making gummies or you’re making you know, tinctures or whatever you’re adding in oils and sugars and, and things like that. So you have to be able to measure the amount that’s in each one of your formulas. Usually, that’s it takes a whole series of validated methods to do that. So you know, and then typically there’s also packaging. Now, there’s some things that a lot of people miss. And I’m going to go over those with the packaging, a lot of, you know, you want to make sure that there’s not leachable or extractables in your packaging. And that is if you have, for example, this would be a good example of things that come off of your packaging. You don’t want those things contaminating your your finished goods, the FDA has set up extractables and leachables in food contact materials, so you should go back in there and take a look at that. Just make sure okay, is my packaging actually contaminating my products, okay, most people don’t validate it. The other thing is stability testing. So each one of your formulas is going to have to be stability tested, and that is use a protocol that’s been published by the ICH or the FDA. And that just establishes your shelf life on your materials and you typically as a Like a shake and bake or kind of a Bake Oven that controls humidity and temperature, and then you just measuring, okay? Is it degrading over time? Okay, that’s and then you can establish the shelf life on the basis of that. Here’s one thing, if you are doing ethanol, the FDA says that your solvent needs to be brought back to its original condition. And so typically, you’d have to revalidate your solvents and that can be a huge cost associated and hidden costs really associated with ethanol extraction. You can of course, use the solvent again and again and again and without revalidating it but you know, that solvent then could could pick up all kinds of contaminants and then be contaminating every batch going after it.So that’s that’s a big issue.
Randall Thompson 43:46
How often do you think you need to revalidate
Dr. Jon 43:49
Every batch
Randall Thompson 43:49
Every batch?
Dr. Jon 43:50
Yeah, and I would I would do that for especially for pesticides. ethanol is a great solvent for just about everything. In fact, you know, we have a cask-strength scotch with a very, very high level of proof. I know that it will dissolve your tongue if you keep it. It’s that it’s that good. It will dissolve your mouth. Okay. ethanol is a great solvent for basically everything, which means it’s not very selective and so selectivity is typically what you want in your solvent. You want to be able to have a selective solvent
Randall Thompson 44:23
And the same is true for bourbon cask also. Yeah, so I’m a bourbon guy he’s a scotch guy we should do a poll on who’s who’s scotch and who’s bourbon out there just so that we know but it is our because that beer bourbon said vitally important to this conversation about testing.
Dr. Jon 44:40
It’s, it’s slightly more interesting. I prefer this Speyside. really seriously. I mean, Speyside scotches are some of the best in the world. I just like I like the Highland I don’t like that scotch that comes from the islands that has that very iodine taste to it. It’s a very peated there Yeah.
Randall Thompson 45:00
Crazy. So Lagavulin
Dr. Jon 45:02
Yeah, Lagavulin, Lefroy and
Randall Thompson 45:04
My gosh, You chew it almost
Dr. Jon 45:08
Wow, that’s smoky.
Randall Thompson 45:09
It’s very smoky.
Dr. Jon 45:11
Interesting enough there’s a another good scotch called the the Balvenie. And interestingly enough that it is also a Highland scotch so it’s not a peated scotch typically. You turned me on to Balvenie it is really quite good. It is good. They have what are called the peat week. Did you did you have you seen this? We had a bottle of that here.
Randall Thompson 45:31
Peat week?
Dr. Jon 45:31
Yeah. And okay. So what they did is, so they use it to like season, their stills and everything forward and one week out of the year. And they do a peated scotch one week out of the year. So we’re they use Peat from the Highland area. So it’s not peat that has been Yeah, they use it from that from their area. Okay, so it’s got a different flavor. It’s got a different taste. And actually, it’s not bad.
Randall Thompson 45:54
We gotta celebrate peat week next week.
Dr. Jon 45:57
Yeah, we could get some Johnnie Walker blue. test that out with Peat week enough That’s the kind of test! Now we’re talking! What taste no taste test. Yes. It’s very scientific. I like okay, sorry. Oh look at this. Oh my gosh, your fellow bourbon. Oh my word 00 Nobody likes scotch. Oh my gosh, I do like come on,
Randall Thompson 46:19
But I love bourbon and I’m telling you my favorite bourbon out there just and you can throw in the check what your favorite bourbon is since we got some fun out of one of my I like rye bourbon. And one of my favorites is Whistlepig. We got some scotch drinkers.
Dr. Jon 46:35
Oh, yeah, finally. Oh my gosh,
Randall Thompson 46:36
Thank you for showing up.
Dr. Jon 46:37
Yes, please.
Randall Thompson 46:38
The Whistlepig, Wisers . Nice. I like that.
Dr. Jon 46:44
They’re Canadian. That’s Canadian whiskey.
Randall Thompson 46:46
It well. It’s Canadian rye okay, but it come Yeah, no, come in through Vermont. It’s good stuff though, as does Whistlepig I and most bourbon is Kentucky which is very good. There’s a lot of good Bourbons in Kentucky. Let me take Jeffersons I like Jefferson,
Dr. Jon 47:01
we should do a just a. a taste testing.
Randall Thompson 47:04
Oh, it will be sloshed by the end. I’m in!
Dr. Jon 47:08
Okay, testing. Oh, we didn’t tell you what kind of testing
Randall Thompson 47:11
that’s so awesome. Okay, sir. Okay, okay, whatever. And I promised at the beginning of this show to not interrupt very much. Oh, how did I do?
Dr. Jon 47:22
Yeah, you did great. I don’t know how I talk so much. It’s crazy, but Okay, well here Okay, look. So, look, packaging stability revalidation install. And these are all things that you need to be thinking about, especially if you can reuse your solvents, re proofing your solvents, finished goods formulations so that that’s typically where you test Okay, what does a C of A tell you? It does not tell you which analysis methods were used, in other words, the exact exactitude of the method. So beware, buyer beware, okay, that does not show you which sample prep methods were used. That’s another huge issue. does not show if valid methods were used. Okay, and it does not demonstrate integrity. It does show you what they report it. Okay, so we have used all kinds of different testing laboratories around the country. And we ended up one of the one of our say that does most of our tests is ACS in Florida for third party testing, they do a great job. And so yeah, I would recommend them, I would recommend them because they seem to be doing everything right. They do a lot of different tests. We’ll put the we’ll put their link in the notes. If you could do that. James, maybe or ACS ACS. Yeah.
Randall Thompson 48:36
When you do, you know, third party testing, is it important to not only when you’re doing your in house testing? Do you also do a lot of third party testing as well?
Dr. Jon 48:46
Yeah, yeah.
Randall Thompson 48:46
Okay.
Dr. Jon 48:47
Yeah, we do both.
Randall Thompson 48:48
I know we do both. Yes. You know, somebody had asked that question.
Dr. Jon 48:51
Yeah. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna do that. We’re going to put that in the notes for you guys.
Randall Thompson 48:56
Good. Okay. One question earlier, too, is are there any ASTM test specific to the hemp industry that you’re aware of,
Dr. Jon 49:04
ah, let me see here. Well, there is for equipment, but I don’t I don’t think there are analytical tests that Not that I know of there is the herbal pharmacopoeia AHP, I think is what it’s called, that’s a pretty good resource for you guys. And I do think that they are working very hard on getting out fully validated methods for different matrices. And I also know that the AOAC is doing a test by validate, we’ll be putting out a validated method, and that’s, that’s actually really great. So they have validation protocol. So a lot like the USP, they would be testing and they would publish that and then people could use that method and, and rely on the results. Okay, so I don’t want to belabor this too much. I’m trying to get back to the consumer. Okay. So recommendations for consumers and producers, okay. The ones that I have in the square here really is is is both for the consumer and the producer. And then I have extra three ones who down here for the producers. So avoid risk of chemical contaminants all together using co2. Okay, that’s for the that’s for the manufacturer. That’s that’s what I would do. And that’s not only because we make co2 equipment, I think it’s just, you know, it’s who I am. That’s why when I first started the business, I kind of selected that over a chemical process because I didn’t I didn’t want to deal with residuals. Sure. So in residuals, I don’t want to give that to my kids. I don’t want to give that to my friends. I don’t want to get residuals.
Randall Thompson 49:39
So as an analytical chemist, that’s what you think and everything bad stuff. All Butane
Dr. Jon 50:39
Well, it’s it happens it does happen. We see everything right. Yeah. Okay. So consumers look for the label demand a C of A. Okay, so there are labels. You know, everybody who does a co2 usually has a co2 label. Why is that because they’ve made the investment in co2 equipment. They’ve made the investment in co2 processes and the facts are that they are avoiding a huge chemical contaminant risk. So, if you look for the co2 label, they won’t tell everybody about that, hey, we think we’re the best. Okay, so they got a little co2 label on there. If you’re doing any inhaleables, I mean, you would have to be crazy not to use at least look for that co2 label demand of C of A, that’s great, buy organic. If you can get a co2 extracted organic, you are now have a double whammy when it comes to avoiding the risk of contaminants. So I think that’s just good advice by organic demand a C of A look for the co2 label. And then you can also listen to what the manufacturer has to say I think this is, you know, look when you’re going out and you’re doing your shopping, it’s more than just the branding. It’s more than just if they have a snazzy label, look at what the manufacturer has to say. Do they talk about how they make their materials? Did they talk about how they extract their materials do they talk about the number of tests that they do not all manufacturers are equal for sure. Typically if you’re buying from like a broker or something like that, or you know what we call bathtub manufacturers people were actually making in their bathtub
Randall Thompson 50:52
It’s exploding apartments.
Dr. Jon 52:07
Yeah exploding Apartments that’s happened too I know that’s happened too It’s crazy. So does the manufacturer care you can go and you can look you can talk to whatever their customer service representative and really understand, okay, what they’re all about, listen to what they are telling you because the people who are not really super concerned about chemical contaminants, they’re not talking about it. They don’t they’re No, they’re just they’re talking about whether or not
Randall Thompson 52:46
They’re opportunistic
Dr. Jon 52:47
Yes.
Randall Thompson 52:47
How much money Can they extract from you?
Dr. Jon 52:49
Exactly.
Randall Thompson 52:49
By the way? I like your little ear icon there.
Dr. Jon 52:52
Oh, yeah.
Randall Thompson 52:52
Very.
Dr. Jon 52:53
Yes.
Randall Thompson 52:53
Very nice.
Dr. Jon 52:55
Listen, listen. Okay for the manufacturer. use more than one test lab, choose a third party testing lab that will meet all the state’s criteria. Okay, that’s good, good thought using internal lab to ID unknowns and to aid your business. In other words, get your yield processes under control, test your yields at each at each stage that has a yield process. And you’ll be able to, once you once you know how those processes are going, you’ll be able to monitor them to make sure that they don’t go in or out of control. And then quality agreements for your suppliers, use the quality agreements for your suppliers, you know, get them signed up, say, look, we don’t want to have unknowns, here’s your material. Here’s the testing that we’re gonna run on it. You guys provide that to us, and you’re gonna sign a quality agreement with us on that. So that’s some basics there. But those would be just some recommendations to kind of aim that hey, look, if you can avoid contaminants, avoid contaminants, listen to who you’re buying from. That’s just common sense stuff and then for the manufacturer Set yourself up so that you’re avoiding contaminants you’re meeting the consumer demand which is you know, organic and also talk to your consumers or talk to your customers about what you’re all about, which is making the best highest quality product the most pure product that you can. And here’s how we put this thing together. It’s like putting together a quality car
Randall Thompson 54:19
And that’s just good business practice because then you’re not racing to the bottom right, you’re not commoditizing the industry you’re not you’re not running and building more commodity. The second you go into that commodity orientation and mindset, the faster you’re going to race to the bottom and pricing and differentiate differentiate differentiate and that is being the top Race to the Top Yeah, Race to the Top have that. I mean, there’s some really unique interesting things I had somebody asked me the other day about CBD-A organic Yeah, CBD-A which is a real very inefficient process, but there’s some people who want that and we’re doing an organic. I mean, it’s expensive.
Dr. Jon 54:57
Yeah.
Randall Thompson 54:58
Oh my gosh, it’s crazy so I mean, you can get unique and do that and add those differentiators. And now you’re testing for good product for quality product. Like you said, I love that. There’s so many great opportunities to differentiate your problem in this market.
Dr. Jon 55:15
There’s, it’s not just, it’s not just about branding, branding is really important it is. But you can actually differentiate your product. There’s lots of opportunities
Randall Thompson 55:24
there is, especially now that with chromatography out there with everything that you can do to custom blend and formulate, right, holy cow,
Dr. Jon 55:33
right. Yeah, good stuff. Exactly. Well, so I think that that’s the bottom line there. If you guys have any questions, feel free to go ahead and send them in to us. We’ll we’ll continue to write up some FAQs. I know that we’re doing that. I haven’t really done any blogging on this particular topic, but I might, I might set that up for some other time. So yeah, and I think, yeah, I think we’re doing good
Randall Thompson 55:58
excellent slides. A lot of things I know this went a little bit long, guys, I appreciate you hanging in there. And then the questions that came up, were continually being answered. Yeah. And I was kind of guiding that a little bit here. I was watching them and kind of talking to him. So those were my thanks. Well done. I think that that’s and that’s good. I think we hit all of your questions. If there are, if you have any others, they kept coming through. So I appreciate that. Send them through. We’ll put those in the FAQ. Getting going. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for sticking with us. We went a little bit long today. But this was good. Good info. Very, very, very good. Next week, we’re going to be doing a rematch ethanol versus co2. There were a lot of questions and we have just like pages of questions that came up that we want to address.
Dr. Jon 56:42
We didn’t get we didn’t get to everything. No last time. So so
Randall Thompson 56:45
that’s going to be next week. We’re going to be talking about that. So thank you for being here. And again, our favorite part of being here is engaging with you. We have we have a lot of fun. I mean, yeah, shoot. Where can you have fun talking about CBD and hemp and marijuana. bourbon and scotch
Dr. Jon 57:01
I thought I don’t know of any other place.
Randall Thompson 57:03
Exactly. So I appreciate it and Nick, thank you for the updated link and Nicholas sorry. And Preston. Love it, will it nice, Bowden Thank you. Fellow bourbon guy and scotch we’re we’re not mutually exclusive now. I wouldn’t know I do like I do like bourbon. bourbon scotch. Anyway, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Everything we’re good. Thank you scope us out on social media side. Thank and again, Mama nation. We’ve got Tina Maxie and Michelle Benton, Facebook and Instagram winners. We will pick winners next week as well. So go on social media and we’ll throw it out there. Invite your friends and family would love it. All right. Appreciate it. All right. Good job, man. Yeah, talk nice jack. You guys.
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