Hemp Soul is working with Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Industry and Information Technology to set CBD industry standards
In fact, as early as 2010, Yunnan Province issued Order 156, which regulated the cultivation, processing, use and transportation of industrial cannabis in detail. At the same time, Yunnan Provincial Public Security Department also issued relevant documents. Meanwhile, industrial hemp did not appear in the public view. People had no concept of industrial hemp and did not know what it was. They thought that the term hemp was related to drugs. So for a long time, everyone is afraid of talking about that.
In order to understand the current situation of industrial cannabis and the cultivation and extraction technology of industrial cannabis, our reporters recently visited a cannabis planting base in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, and visited some local industrial cannabis planting enterprises. The first stop was Yunnan Hemp Soul Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and met Mr. Tian General.
What is industrial hemp
The first scene of the article is what happened to Tian and his colleagues at that time. Today, it is still vivid. Fortunately, in recent years, along with their cultivation and education, coupled with the strong support and cooperation of the government, people will no longer to be afraid, but also have a deeper understanding of industrial hemp, and even learn to use it.
The Origin of Cannabis Planting in Yunnan
Yunnan is the earliest region in China to obtain cannabis cultivation license. Many people wonder why they choose to grow cannabis in Yunnan. In fact, Yunnan has a habit of growing cannabis since ancient times. The Yi, Miao and Bai nationalities in Yunnan have the habit of eating cannabis seeds. They also squeeze cannabis seed oil and make clothes from the skin of hemp. There is a tradition among the Miao and Yi nationalities that girls must have a hemp dress when they get married, otherwise they can not be counted as marrying. This tradition has lasted for thousands of years. It’s just that they haven’t been able to produce hemp in large quantities for a long time. They’re just self-sufficient on a small scale.
Of course, the reason why cannabis can be planted on a large scale in Yunnan is directly related to its geographical environment. Yunnan belongs to the low latitude plateau, so both plateau crops and low latitude crops can grow here. Yunnan has a vast territory, covering the tropical and subtropical climate, and has a long illumination time, which is conducive to the growth and content storage of cannabis.
Breeding new varieties is the mission of HMI Group subsidiary Hemp Soul
Hemp Soul Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary company of HMI. It was established in December 2015. It is mainly responsible for the breeding, scientific planting, planting supervision and planting guidance of industrial hemp, and provides qualified and legal raw materials of industrial hemp within the scope of scientific control to HMI. At the same time, it shoulders the arduous task of cultivating new products of industrial hemp.
Why is the task of cultivating new varieties extremely arduous, because seeds are the strategic reserve materials of each country, which belong to the national supervision, and generally will not be exported. Some are exported but they are not necessarily the best quality varieties. However, China’s hemp production has been low, in which the CBD content generally does not exceed 1%. Therefore, in this case, in order to extract more high-quality CBD, it is necessary to cultivate their own new varieties and improve the output of CBD.
At present, Yunma No. 7 is widely planted in Yunnan Province. Its performance is relatively stable and its yield is relatively high. The annual output of Hemp Soul can reach 3 tons and the CBD content can reach 1.3%.
In fact, Yunma No. 8 has also been bred. It mainly overcomes the problem of male plants. Yield and CBD content of Yunma No. 8 are slightly higher than Yunma No. 7, reaching 1.5% – 1.6%. However, the performance is not particularly stable, and more experiments and studies are needed, so there is no large-scale planting at present.
However, Mr. Tian revealed that this year Hemp Soul have made a major breakthrough in breeding technology. They have introduced some good quality seeds and crossed with existing seeds through cloning technology and cutting technology to cultivate their own seeds. Patents can be filed in the near future, and trial planting has begun this year. However, the cultivation of a kind of seed requires at least three years of experimental monitoring before it can enter the market for production. So it is still in the stage of confidentiality and can not be shown to reporters, but we look forward to it.
Infinite Utilization Space of CBD
In addition to breeding, Hemp Soul also plays the role of extraction, detection and production. At present, the quantified products of Hemp Soul include cannabis bisphenol, refined oil of whole lineage, essential oil of whole lineage cannabis, essential oil of cannabis, water-soluble CBD, secondary cannabis diphenol, flavonoid A of geranium, etc.
It is worth mentioning that the anti-inflammatory effect of flavonoid products has exceeded that of penicillin and other antibiotics, but not all raw materials contain this substance, only some raw materials, so relatively scarce. But now scientific research has found that flavonoids have a significant effect on wound healing symptoms caused by diabetes mellitus. However, the pharmaceutical production process is very rigorous, biological agents must be through physiological and toxicological analysis, repeated clinical trials then to be sold.
CBD is widely used in the medical field in foreign countries because of its remarkable effect in anti-inflammatory and analgesic. However, Tian always points out that although people agree that CBD is effective in anti-inflammatory, anti-epilepsy and anti-depression, there is no scientific practice and data to support it. He hoped that the relevant scientific research institutions could cooperate with enterprises in combination with foreign application scenarios, integrate the application of CBD and make it more standardized and scientific, and make good use of what is really useful for human health development, so that it can really play its own value.
In recent years, CBD-containing cosmetic and skin care products have gradually come into the public’s view. Cannabis leaf extract has been clearly marked in the domestic cosmetics catalogue as cosmetic laboratory extract. Therefore, Tian said that the domestic cosmetics application has started, from the original gram purchase test, has now reached 100 grams, kilograms.
CBD can be added to chocolate, cake, beer, health products, tea, mineral water and other foods in some countries like Canada.
But when it comes to this, Tian disclosed that the quality of many kinds of mineral water containing CBD in foreign markets is uneven, especially the marked content and actual content are too different. For example, the marked content of CBD is 10%. In fact, if it really contains such high CBD, it is very difficult to dissolve, even if it can dissolve, the price wouldn’t be so cheap. It seems that the CBD market abroad also needs to strengthen supervision.
Core Competence of Hemp Soul CBD Extraction Technology
Although Hemp Soul started to build the plant in 2015, they began to do relevant research in 2013, so when they built the plant, their equipment technology, extraction technology, basic data have been completed, only to be put into planting production. Their production standards, extraction standards and inspection standards are all made according to the standards of APIs, and internal control standards are formulated strictly in accordance with the management methods of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, the European Union Pharmacopoeia and the United States Pharmacopoeia. Including the reference materials they choose are international authoritative reference companies. The selection of reference materials, internal control system and extraction methods are combined to produce high quality products. Now CBD products have greatly reduced the original bitterness, and it has high solubility with fast dissolution.
At the same time, the extraction technology of Hemp Soul has been granted a patent in the United States, which means that Hemp Soul products can be exported to the United States. Now Hemp Soul is cooperating with the production industry standard of Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, which means that the production standard of CBD in China will probably be extracted and processed according to the standard of Hemp Soul in the near future.
We mentioned earlier that not only CBD components but also THC components can be extracted from cannabis plants. How to deal with other components after CBD extraction? Through Tian’s introduction, we know that the original destruction of THC has a rigorous process and technical support. Firstly, the workers only contact the materials during the pretreatment, and then the people in the process of inspection and extraction can no longer contact the materials. After the raw materials are transferred to internal circulation, the machine separates CBD from THC directly, and then THC enters a special system to collect. After the content reaches the standard, THC is destroyed directly with strong acid and strong alkali, and discharged with the production sewage. Each batch of THC destruction process has a strict destruction record. At the same time, Hemp Soul Biology implements a high environmental protection system to recover all sewage, through precipitation and purification, and finally returns to the cooling tower for cooling and sewage discharge, so the whole plant does not have sewage outflow.
CBD National Standard and the Trend of Supervision
Since the industry standard of CBD is coming out soon, does it mean that the regulatory policy of CBD is also about to be formulated? Mr. Tian told us that at present, the main regulatory departments for industrial hemp in China are the industrial and commercial tax departments, as well as the public security anti-drug departments. In our country, there is a hard indicator that no matter how much CBD content is in industrial hemp, THC content must not exceed three thousandths. Including CBD raw materials, CBD finished products must be strictly implemented in accordance with this regulation. At the same time, this is also the reason for the low CBD yield in China, because the cannabis vegetation with high CBD content has high THC content, and cannabis plants with low THC content have low CBD content, so this is a dead cycle.
However, Tian revealed that China is getting closer to the United States in many aspects of policy, including the formulation and application of some legal aspects similar to the United States. Now that the United States and other countries have applied CBD to food and medicine, I believe that China will soon implement this issue, it is only a matter of time.
New Layout of Hemp Soul
Recently, Hemp Soul Biology joined hands with Shenzhen ALD Group Ltd. to develop a new tobacco industry. As a media journalist in the e-cig industry, of course, this news will not be ignored. Tian also knows all about it. They told us that Hemp Soul Biology is only a point of HMI Group. HMI Group is the layout of the whole industrial chain of industrial cannabis, so their industry will certainly involve the application of back-end, and electronic cigarette is just a good CBD application back-end. The overseas electronic cigarette market has matured, and ALD‘s electronic cigarette has a good overseas reputation, which can ensure that good product are exported to foreign countries. Therefore, we will develop and discuss with ALD to promote the production and listing of new products.
At the same time, Tian also pointed out that the term “electronic cigarette” is particularly inaccurate. When it comes to electronic cigarettes, people will still associate it with health. In the future, people can use electronic cigarettes to smoke CBD, caffeine, collagen, drugs and so on. For those products which reduce harm to health, they should be renamed. For example, health energy bars, etc.
Merger and Acquisition of Hemp Soul and Meilleure Health
Hong Kong Meilleure Health Group focuses on the development and construction of the health industry, while Hemp Soul Group and Hemp Soul Biological products applied to the opening of end products are also developing in a healthy direction. At the same time, Meilleure Health also wants to make a difference in industrial hemp, so Merrill Group has made a strategic investment, that is, to buy a 25% stake in Hemp Soul Biology. However, in the future, Hemp Soul Group may establish a CBD extraction plant with Merrill Group, which may be controlled by Merrill Group. At present, we have begun to choose a new site, and the business license is also registered. It is expected to be completed next year. Mr. Tian revealed that the new plant would increase the production of Hemp Soul Biological by 10 times, starting at 20 tons, depending on the content of CBD in raw materials. If they used their own cultivars, the annual output would probably be more than 30 tons.
For today’s Hemp Soul, CBD breeding, planting, extraction have been completed, and then they will make efforts to develop the terminal products, electronic cigarette is only one of them, they are also making tea containing CBD, health products containing CBD, and so on. At the same time, they have independently developed a heat not burn CBD cartridge, which is now ready to be put into production at the site of the plant. Of course, the market of these products is mainly focused on Europe and the United States. Whether or not these products can be imported into China depends on if the domestic policy becomes bright.
