The process of how CBD oil gets made matters. A lot. 

It starts with how the hemp plant is grown, extracted, and purified, all the way through to the final product that ends up in the bottle–and ultimately in your body.

There are variables in each critical step that affect the safety and quality of the CBD oil. As the saying goes, buyer beware. The careful consumer should be curious about how the CBD oil they are using gets made. 

In this article, we will take you through the steps of how the best-in-class oil we use in our products is produced. The operation is vertically integrated, which means every step of the supply chain from research to cultivating the best strains, to farming, production, extraction, and purification are all linked together in one process under one roof.

The executive summary is the farming is organic. The production process is state-of-the-art and transparent. And the extraction utilizes a proprietary process that removes THC and impurities while maintaining the integrity of the CBD and other beneficial compounds.

Farming

First off, the plant, which is industrial hemp, is never genetically modified and is phytocannabinoid-rich hemp naturally cultivated for low THC and high CBD and terpene levels. A highly sophisticated agricultural program ensures the strains are safe as well as consistent in potency with 70 to 90 percent CBD content.

The plants can be grown outdoor, indoor and hydroponically. Our hemp plants are grown in nutrient-rich soil using 100 percent organic processes- No pesticides are ever used. The Colorado State Department of Agriculture annually tests the plants for THC to ensure compliance with local and federal laws.

Extraction

The material purification process has been painstakingly designed so as to ensure exactly 0.0% THC ends up in the Phytocannabinoid Rich (PCR) broad-spectrum zero THC oil while keeping as many beneficial compounds as possible, including the other cannabinoids, 30-plus terpenes, sterols, and flavonoids. Keeping these compounds together is vital for the potentially synergistic ‘entourage effect’ to take place, as it has been suggested that CBD’s benefits may increase when they work in conjunction with other compounds from the plant. PCR contains as much as ten times the concentration of CBD as generic industrial hemp. 

The extraction process is done by one of two means, either supercritical CO2 or food-grade ethanol.

Supercritical CO2 is a complex process that involves taking a non-toxic form of carbon dioxide and forcing it through the plant under high pressure and low temperatures to extract the oil in a way that maintains its purity. This process is safe and is commonly used in the food industry to remove caffeine from coffee and tea. There are no additives ever introduced.

The other process uses food-grade ethanol to do the extraction instead of CO2. Ethanol also ensures the broad spectrum of cannabinoids and terpenes remain intact. 

Purification

Both the CO2 and ethanol extraction processes are followed by a purification process that accounts for the superior attributes of the oil. In this step, no solvents or heavy metals are used and chlorophyll, waxes, THC and other impurities are removed through a proprietary chromatographic purification process. 

Unlike other manufacturers that use fractional distillation, these proprietary processes never expose the extracts to high temperatures that could harm or destroy the beneficial compounds. 

As the CBD Gold Rush gets underway, beware of the synthetic forms of CBD being produced cheaply in order to meet demand. Botanima Organics’ hemp-derived CBD products are created using impeccable standards with total control over the supply chain from farm to bottle. Click here to shop for the products.