Which Hemp Biomass Products are the Most Popular?
Photo by Lindsay Luft
Despite recent minor reductions in acreage, the outdoor hemp cultivation industry continues to expand at a record pace in the wake of the 2018 Farm Bill. This landmark piece of federal legislation gave agricultural entrepreneurs across the country the green light to start cultivating CBD-rich hemp.
Once this outdoor-grown hemp is harvested and processed, it becomes biomass, one of the simplest and most versatile bulk hemp ingredients. Many reliable hemp manufacturers like GVB Biopharma use biomass as the source material for a wide variety of cannabinoid extracts. Learn what biomass is, and discover the most popular types of products that incorporate biomass as a source of cannabinoids.
What is biomass?
The term “biomass” can have a variety of different meanings. In the context of the hemp industry, however, biomass refers to low-grade or medium-grade outdoor hemp bulk ingredient.
Once outdoor-grown, cannabinoid-rich hemp has achieved maturity, it is cut down and dried. Then, an industrial machine similar to a wood chipper is used to grind down the dried plant into small chunks. Some biomass producers remove larger stems and leaves prior to grinding, but most biomass contains a mixture of leaves, buds, and stems.
The primary benefit of hemp biomass is its price. Since it’s relatively inexpensive to grow hemp outdoors and producing hemp biomass doesn’t require any complicated trimming or separation of plant material types, producing this bulk hemp ingredient isn’t as costly as producing finished extracts.
Depending on the producer and the type of biomass in question, this bulk ingredient can contain anywhere from 5-20% total cannabinoids. Hemp biomass is almost always used for extraction purposes, and it is rarely incorporated into finished products.
How is biomass different from other bulk hemp ingredients?
There are a few ways that biomass is unique among the various types of bulk hemp ingredients available:
Grade
Even the best-produced hemp biomass can only be considered a medium-grade product since this type of bulk ingredient has only been minimally processed and is offered in an unfinished form. Other types of bulk hemp ingredients are usually fit for inclusion in finished products without any further processing being necessary.
Price
Since it is offered in an unfinished form, hemp biomass is far less expensive than other types of bulk hemp ingredients. However, it is necessary to have access to an adequate extraction facility to process hemp biomass into finished extracts.
Versatility
You can produce a wide variety of finished extracts with hemp biomass. Depending on the context, you might even want to include hemp biomass in finished products as-is.
What types of extracts can you make with hemp biomass?
The sky’s the limit in terms of the types of extracts you can make with hemp biomass. This type of bulk hemp product is often offered in both CBD and CBG varieties, which means you can even customize the cannabinoids your biomass-derived extracts will contain.
Cannabinoid isolates
If you want, you can leave behind all the components of biomass aside from CBD and CBG to produce cannabinoid isolate extracts.
Full-spectrum extracts
It’s easiest to make compliant, full-spectrum extracts with hemp biomass.
Broad-spectrum extracts
If you’re willing to invest in additional extraction processes, you can use hemp biomass to make broad-spectrum extracts, which retain the terpene profile naturally present in hemp while eliminating any detectable levels of THC.
Which biomass products are currently the most popular?
Compliant, full-spectrum extracts that contain up to 0.3% THC are currently the most popular types of extracts you can make with hemp biomass. You can then use your full-spectrum extract to make tinctures, capsules, topicals, or a wide variety of other finished CBD or CBG products. Many consumers don’t mind if their non-intoxicating cannabinoid products contain small concentrations of THC, making biomass a low-investment option for brands that want to produce affordable yet compliant products.
Biomass offers unique affordability and versatility
By choosing biomass as the starting point of your CBD and CBG brand, you can save capital that you can then expend on marketing, product development, or other important facets of building your brand. If you want to have the freedom to produce multiple types of extracts, there’s no better option than selecting the best hemp biomass for sale and developing a brand built on versatility and affordability.