Despite the impact on business and industry posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, dietary supplement companies are still obligated to meet regulatory requirements including supplier qualification, ingredient testing, aspects of GMP compliance and more; every person involved in compliance must understand their responsibilities. To support the gap around in-person education and training, NSF International has developed Quality & Regulatory Digital Week, taking place August 3 to 7, 2020. Designed with the global nutraceutical industry in mind, various courses delve into particular aspects of regulatory compliance. The two-part Botanical Identification and Testing Course, set for August 6 and 7, addresses a range of issues unique to the herbal industry. In this Healthy Insider podcast, John Travis, senior research scientist at NSF, offers thoughts around the importance of botanical identification and testing methodologies.

In this podcast, Travis and Informa’s Heather Granato discuss:
 •  Why botanical identification continues to be of critical interest across the global supplement space, particularly as it relates to vendor qualification.
 •  Concerns around the issue of supply chain scarcity and potential adulteration, and how that could impact testing processes and methods.
 •  Key steps that manufacturers can take to ensure their botanical materials meet quality specs.

Applying appropriate testing to botanical materials – podcast

Hemp acreage has gone from 7,000 acres in 2015 to 27,000 to 78,000 in 2017 to an eye-popping half a million acres after the 2018 farm bill was passed. The ensuing gut has scaled back many farmers’ plans even while more farmers chase the gold ring—but the bigger problem remains intransigence by the FDA and USDA, which seem to be doing their drug warrior best to keep the hemp market from reaching full potential. Natural Products Insider senior editor Todd Runestad sat down with Rick Trojan, president of the Hemp Industries Association, to talk about a wide-ranging number of hempy topics, including:

 -  Are we in Bustville? Too much USDA opposition making farmers felons, too much FDA creating fear around CBD, too many farmers getting in too fast and driving down the price?
 -  How institutional racism figures into the history of hemp (it’s not a pretty sight, and it will open your eyes). #BLM 
 -  Is the main challenge to hemp how potentially disruptive it is to various pre-existing industries? Are you up for the legislative and cultural fight to put more money in the pockets of farmers and rural communities rather than large corporations?

Hemp 2020: More farmers, less acreage and 99 other problems

Tennessee’s Frederick Cawthon is emblematic of a 2020 hemp farmer—in 2019 his team grew 85 acres, and then thanks to the oversupply and consequent market saturation and price collapse, in 2020 he grew 15 acres. Hear Cawthon’s founding story of how he got into the hemp business, how he assembled a crack growing team, marshaled investors, even cajoled the local college president to open dormant dorms to farm workers during the summer grow season. But more than that, hear Cawthon speak about hemp’s potential to revitalize rural regions, and how CBD has the potential to be the next great ingredient that can be infused in a range of products by the world’s biggest CPG companies. Listen to this fascinating Toddcast with Natural Products Insider’s senior editor Todd Runestad, as they discuss:

 -  How his mother, the Lord, the universe and CNN fit into the spark of an idea to change his life and become a hemp farmer. 
 -  How hemp can be a zero-carbon detox agent to clean up farms, communities and ecosystems. 
 -  How all that hemp oversupply could be gone from barns across the nation if only two organizations would try just a little bit harder.

Hemp farming 2020: Can producers make it to 2021? -podcast

Too much hemp in the fields and barns, too many brands, too little regulatory certainty (and misguided when it does get released). Buckle up! 

Josh Hendrix has been around the hemp farms, the hemp businesses, the hemp boards. He’s sharp, smart and informed—and reasonably hip, at least by Kentucky standards. Natural Products Insider senior editor Todd Runestad sat down with Josh to assess the damage from smoking embers of the hemp CBD business in mid-2020. Yes, there was massive overproduction in 2019. Yes, there is regulatory intransigence. Yes, there was 4,000 hemp CBD brands at last count. But you know what you don’t know? 


 -  How the leading CBD brand is positioning itself as something bigger than just a hemp CBD brand. 
 -  The big mistake most of those CBD brands make that will be a big contributor to their ultimate demise. 
 -  “If you and I get on the phone in 10 years and hemp fiber is not a huge part of the materials world, I’ll be shocked.”

How to succeed in hemp CBD 2020 (good luck with that) – podcast

ToddCast Vol. XVIII: You say you want a revolution? Hemp is the answer—that’s right, it can pave the way to better alternatives than many of the problems staring us in the face as industrial, civilized humans – the plastic problem, the climate crisis, the pollution of our waterways, the unsustainable way we have organized our societies. Natural Products Insider senior editor Todd Runestad catches up the hemp majordomo promoter Morris Beegle, co-founder and president of WAFBA—short for We Are For Better Alternatives. Listen in as they dig into:


	
How it’s time for people engaged in the hemp CBD business to go pro—or go home and stop gumming up the architecture of this fledgling industry. 
	The key to the realm of hemp dominance is when “whole plant utilization” comes to fruition—using not just the flower for CBD but the stems, stalks and seeds for biomaterials, biofuels, bioplastics, animal feed and healthy human nutrition. 
	The one entity that can save us from being “f@(#*d” by climate change and lead the way (with hemp, of course) on a more sustainable course

Hemp can build a better economic, ecologic and societal revival - podcast

Natural Products INSIDER is home to the latest news updates, research and analysis for manufacturers and marketers of dietary supplements.