I recently heard from long-time food testing lab, Anresco Laboratories, which is applying its multi-decade expertise in food testing to expand into the realm of cannabis edibles testing. Here’s what I learned:
If you want to make and sell medicinal edibles, don’t take testing lightly and don’t cheap out and use an inexperienced lab to test your edibles for cannabis levels and pesticide.
If you’re in the cannabis edibles business for the long-haul, want to build a reputation, and most of all want customers to be safe, you need to know the dosages your edibles are supplying are accurate.
Frequent Problems in Cannabis Edibles
Anresco sees a few recurring problems from customers who contact them about testing edibles:
- Cannabis that is supposed to be pesticide free gets cross-contaminated by workers handling marijuana with pesticides…thus making the goods no longer free of pesticide.
- Samples are not representative of the whole batch. Anresco has tested chocolates and other edibles where they’ve found un-even distribution of cannabis, which makes labeling accurate dosages impossible.You need to test a representative sampling of batches and / or plants (if that’s what you’re testing) to be sure their tests don’t produce inaccurate results. Cannabis edibles often don’t have uniformly spread THC, as, the company says, cannabinoids are not water soluble, which makes them difficult to mix.
Starting Up
To begin with, make sure you are complying with FDA Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). These are the baseline rules for safe food production. Use a commercial kitchen to produce. Just because there may be grey areas in edible laws doesn’t mean your food should be produced in a shady way. After all, food is food and food can be dangerous—not to mention inaccurately labeled edibles.
Finally, do not make health claims that are untrue or that you’re just not sure if they’re true.
Check out Anresco’s cannabis testing services.
(One really cool thing Anresco provides is a QR code you can put on your package, which customers can scan to see the actual lab results.)
Yes this really is an edible marshmallow. (photo by Susie Wyshak)
When making drinks, know that there are lots of natural fruit-based colors and flavors you can use instead of artificial ingredients. (photo by Susie Wyshak)
Cannabis cake pops (photo by Susie Wyshak)
