“I would hope that we see a lot more direct involvement from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA),” Wright says. “One of the issues that has surrounded edibles is that almost nobody knows how or where they are made, and under what conditions. While we’ve tried to change that already, we are also looking forward to seeing food standards in place for products that are distributed nationally.”
He notes that any changes will demand his company meet the needs of the Cannabis Act and come into line with CFIA standards, but while he notes “the marriage of the two will be unique,” he’s not worried about the demands.
“We are already in a compliant and food safety mindset, which is one of the first things a team needs to adopt,” he says.
However, the question of dosing remains a nagging concern because, Wright explains, guaranteeing dosages per unit dramatically limits the variety of different products a company can produce.
“The fact of the matter is that it’s a lot more difficult to make a consistently dosed edible—unless there is some specific portion of it that can be consistently dosed,” says Wright. “For example, I can see a clear path to successfully dosing a Nanaimo Bar, digestive biscuit, or two-bite brownie, but how would you ensure a consistent dosage is applied to a serving of popcorn? I don’t see it being difficult to meet these standards, but the real battles will be fought at the product planning stage. Many products are just going to be very difficult to dose by nature.”
With that in mind, food scientists may opt for another form of cannabis, such as cannabis extract (instead of steeping the buds in butter, extracting the cannabinoids out using a solvent) or crystals (THC solids that have been crystallized into a solid form), to blend into their product. Beverage bases can be developed by mixing cannabinoids with a neutral oil (such as coconut), as mentioned by Dr. Francis Boero in IFT Connect. Mints use cannabinoid crystals (again, properly blended and dispersed so that the dosage is consistent). Regardless of the form of THC and CBD, product developers have to constantly double check the potency of their cannabis extracts with their quality department, so that each batch of edibles is consistent. Of course, this means that formulations can and will change ever so slightly with each change in potency, so product developers need to be constantly on their toes.