Why GMP Certification is a Must for any CBD Company

Today we are starting to hear the term GMP within the CBD sector more often. But what is a GMP certification? What is its significance to you, the end consumer? What does it mean to the future of this young industry and the businesses operating within this sector? Let’s take a closer look.

What is a GMP certification?

Good Manufacturing Practice or GMP, for short, is a set of standards enforced and validated by the FDA or another competent authority within the EU/EEA, that ensure manufacturers meet specific standards throughout their entire production and packaging operation. GMP protocols intend to hold manufacturers in various industries to a high standard of consistency and standard of practice. This ensures not only the efficacy of the end product but also safety for consumers and the workforce.

To receive a GMP certification, manufacturers must adhere to strict guidelines surrounding many aspects of their production process from start to finish. These include, but are not limited to, parameters such as the following.

• Acquisition of raw material
• Record keeping
• Training of employees
• Sanitation standards and processes
• Manufacturing process validation
• Batch consistency
• Quality control from start to finish
• Batch recall process that is effective and clear to all parties

Most commonly, GMP certifications are required for manufacturing products such as cosmetics, medical devices, veterinary and animal products, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, and even some foods and dietary supplements. However, today, there is a reasonably new sector that is starting to embrace the value of a GMP certification.

The CBD industry was worth $311.8 million in 2019, according to the latest reports from IndustryResearch.biz and is expected to grow to over $1.2 billion by 2024. It is essential that the groundwork for consistency, purity, and good manufacturing products be put in place now as this infant industry grows to maturity in the coming years.

Why third-party-testing is no longer enough

Third-party testing is great to show that what you say is in your product. Aspects such as purity, terpene profiles, and cannabinoid content can be verified to a great consistency through third-party testing. However, was the product handled with care from start to finish? There is no way to know. A GMP certification takes product quality, consistency, and purity to an elevated level!

Just because it says CBD on the outside, doesn’t mean there’s CBD inside

There is a severe gap in the standards of testing and regulation of CBD products. This is especially true in comparison to regulations and standards surrounding foods, beverages, cosmetics, and other consumer products that we ingest or apply topically to our skin. CBD, however, has little to no oversight, and there is still much confusion as to what is legal, what is safe, and various other aspects of this sector and the products it offers.

A study from a Penn Medicine researcher, Marcel Bonn-Miller Ph.D., an adjunct assistant professor of Psychology and Psychiatry in Pennsylvania, found that only 30% of CBD products purchased online actually contained the CBD content that was listed on the product label. In this study, which analyzed 84 products from 31 companies, researchers found that 42% of products contained more CBD than what was advertised, and 26% contained less.

This discrepancy between what’s on the label and in the final product exists despite repeated warnings by the FDA to CBD companies. “Over the past several years, [the] FDA has issued several warning letters to firms that market unapproved new drugs that allegedly contain cannabidiol (CBD). As part of these actions, the FDA has tested the chemical content of cannabinoid compounds in some of the products, and many were found to not contain the levels of CBD they claimed to contain,” the FDA writes on its page detailing all warning letters sent.

The lack of regulation in combination with the fact that labs can set their own standards for quality for production is a recipe for disaster for an industry that is as sensitive and young as this and offers no value of safety or stability for an already confused end-user.

The same lack of precision is also true for medical cannabis products.

A study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the Werc Shop Laboratory titled “Cannabinoid Dose and Label Accuracy in Edible Medical Cannabis Products” examined 75 edible medical cannabis products. Of those 75 products, 44 (59%) had detectable levels of CBD while only 13 had CBD content labeled. Of those 13 products, four were underlabeled for CBD while nine were overlabeled. All in all, “50% of products evaluated had significantly less cannabinoid content than labeled, with some products containing negligible amounts of THC.”

Kiara CBD – GMP-certified for your safety

Kiara CBD is not only third party tested for potency and purity, but it is also fully GMP-certified to ensure that consumers are receiving only the highest quality of product possible that is handled with care and safety in mind from start to finish. During the manufacturing of Kiara CBD products, every step of production is monitored, registered, tested, and supervised to guarantee you get the best CBD product. All Kiara CBD products are tested before they leave the lab. This ensures that you get exactly what is written on the label. Additionally, all lab results, analyses, reports, and certifications are available online.

Kiara CBD was created with an underlying mission of promoting high-quality, potent CBD products enhanced and empowered by the need for natural plant remedies. Our products are rich and complex, designed to not only enhance but also to complement the therapeutic qualities of hemp. By combining the power of plant-derived substances with rich time-proven ethnobotanical knowledge and the latest cutting edge research, we can offer you the consistently high-quality CBD products that will increase your quality of life.

Kiara CBD believes in the power of being transparent in our standards and processes. By obtaining and maintaining our GMP certification, we can ensure that we are doing just that and providing you with the best products possible!