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CBD Line Uses NFC for Consumer Trust, Education

Intelligent packaging brings transparency to a crowded industry, offering education often missing in the CBD and cannabis sector.

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In an industry fraught with false claims on labels, PearlCBD is a product line seeking to provide transparency, authenticity, and education to its cannabidiol (CBD) customers. Irvine-based Origin Labs, Inc. recently launched the line, focused on products for health, wellness, and more.

The line is unique in that it features the transparency of NFC digital tagging in all of its packaging for organically grown hemp-derived full-spectrum CBD.

Its capsules, lotions, tinctures, and creams—as well as a kit with all four products—are manufactured in an FDA-registered lab. The line is sold in all 50 states, along with countries that allow full-spectrum CBD. 

NFC tagging

Reportedly an industry-first, labels for every product in PearlCBD’s line have an NFC tag embedded. “The experience is customized for that particular product.

Cbd Capsules 01The lab test results for that particular batch are tagged according to the product’s serial number,” says Danny Davis, CEO of Origin Labs, Inc. and formerly the Founder of Convectium, a workflow automation company for the cannabis industry. The patent-pending technology connects consumers with their specific product. They seek to patent the technology relevant to the grower to the lab to the formulation lab to the packaging company, so “everybody knows what product is what and when it rolls off the line we aren’t trying to figure out if we put the right serial number with the right product.” 

The NFC tags are supplied by a provider in China [supplier not specified] while bottles are imported glass containers. They avoid plastic when possible to eliminate potential leeching—pumps are BPA-free—and products are paraben-free.  “We don’t know what could happen with a potential interaction, so we just prefer glass as it doesn’t breakdown, and we frost the outside of the bottles.”

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Grower to label

The grower provides the wholesale product and the first COA [certificate of analysis], which is input into the app as the first lab test result. “In the future, I’d like to use blockchain, performing this transaction with tokens. Then we could show every transaction. For now, what we show is the purchase from the wholesale oil provider, which is from one of our two designated farms,” Davis explains.  

Immediately upon receiving the wholesale product in the formulation lab in Miami, they test it again for a post-COA test. Davis says, “That ensures that the oil that they’re sending us is actually the oil that they’re advertising. Most companies do not do this and it’s a major problem, because a company can send a COA and then dilute the product, etc.”

At the formulation lab, a series of products is assigned to each individual label that references that COA—a form of aggregation to a batch. For example, if they are producing five thousand creams, they will identify approximately 5500 labels with serial tags associated to that COA. According to Davis, many in the industry don’t understand that “you can’t just have a single COA for all of your products, it’s different based on batch.” He notes that even an eight-figure online CBD retailer still features a COA from Feb. 2019 for every product. 

Packaging process

As soon as the product is formulated, it is filled and packaged in a lab facility instead of in a warehouse. Davis notes that seeing others fill in warehouse conditions—and wanting to provide higher quality—was one of the reasons he got into this business. PearlCBD has a video of their packaging and filling system that can be scrolled to on their homepage.

NFC-embedded labels are applied after product is filled. “We fill, and when we run out of oil we know that batch is complete. Then we identify that particular batch with the particular COA, finish that process and then start a new one with a new serial set.”