Key points
While alcohol consumption is declining, consumer demand for cannabis beverages is increasing as part of a larger trend toward wellness-focused drinks with natural ingredients.
Expanding legalisation and cultural familiarity have opened the marketplace for a wide variety of beverages infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and other cannabinoids extracted from hemp and cannabis plants. Soda, coffee, tea, juice, wine, beer, and milk are just a few examples.
Fortune Business Insights reports the market size for cannabis beverages was valued at over $173 million in 2018 and is expected to exceed $2 billion by 2026.
Cannabis has been consumed as a beverage in traditional uses for thousands of years. Traditionally, cannabis plant material was ground and combined with dairy products, oils, alcohol, and botanical ingredients for a beverage with synergistic, physiological effects.
In my experience formulating products, the market opportunity in wellness-focused cannabis products has never been more robust. Hemp, CBD, and cannabis beverages are capturing the market trend toward functional beverage ingredients, such as nutraceuticals and botanicals.
While demand for these beverages is at an all-time high, there are challenges and considerations when formulating with cannabis ingredients. Cannabinoids such as CBD and THC are lipids that are not naturally water-soluble. They must undergo additional processing to optimise their effectiveness in beverage formulations and to meet cost, product consistency, and customer experience requirements.
How Is the Solubility of Cannabinoids Improved?
These commonly used methods can improve cannabinoid water-solubility for beverage formulations but have variable results and limitations:
- Sonication: uses the high sheer force of ultrasonic cavitation to break up oil particles into smaller, more uniform sizes.
- Liposomes: encapsulate cannabinoids into a vesicle with a hydrophobic center and hydrophilic exterior.
- Micelles: lipid molecules arranged in a spherical vesicle structure with cannabinoids in the center.
- Nanotechnology: refers to the dispersion or emulsion of tiny oil droplets in water to improve the solubility of cannabinoids.
Although these methods are widely utilised in cannabis ingredient processing and formulation, none of them fundamentally change the water-solubility of cannabinoids at the chemical level. This limitation has led today’s beverage formulators to increasingly seek out innovative methods such as improving the water-solubility of cannabinoids and improving product performance, and reducing costs.
For instance, chemical reactions that convert the cannabinoid or active ingredient itself, without additional formulation, into a fully water-soluble cannabinoid designed for use in cannabis beverage and water-based product formulations. These types of processes can have a hugely positive effect on the usability and efficacy of cannabinoid ingredients.
Evaluating the Efficacy of Various Cannabinoid Solubilisation Methods
The efficacy of cannabinoid solubilisation methods is vital to the success of beverage formulations. Formulators can evaluate techniques in terms of ingredient costs, quality, effectiveness, and customer experience.
Cannabinoid Ingredient Costs
Cannabinoid isolates and extracts from the hemp or cannabis plant are generally the most expensive ingredient in beverage formulations. The cannabinoid extraction process removes undesirable components from the plant biomass, such as chlorophyll, heavy metal contaminants, fertilisers, pesticides, and solvents.
When bioavailability — the amount of an ingredient our system can absorb — is not optimised for water-based products, beverage formulators will need these cannabinoid ingredients in greater amounts to impart the same effect.
Non-optimised cannabinoids significantly increase ingredient costs and impact the profitability of cannabinoid beverage formulations. Water-soluble cannabinoid ingredients with improved bioavailability can substantially reduce beverage formulation costs.
Cannabinoid Ingredient Quality
Shelf life is crucial when considering techniques to solubilise cannabinoids in beverage formulations. Settling, cloudiness, and separation can occur over time if cannabinoid beverage ingredients are not fully water-soluble, adversely affecting a product formulation's stability and shelf life.
Customer Experience
The water solubility of cannabinoids in beverage formulations is also vital to palatability and the consumer experience associated with a beverage product. Popular carbonated beverages are unsuitable if the consumer must shake them to redistribute after settling or separation.
Moreover, the taste and aroma of cannabinoid ingredients are often difficult to mask in beverage formulations if not adequately solubilised, and the flavor profile remains unaddressed.
Cannabinoid Effectiveness
Bioavailability is a scientific term to describe the extent to which a substance reaches its intended site of physiological action in the body.
Oral cannabinoid bioavailability is an especially critical consideration for accurate dosing of medical cannabis patients. For example, the oral bioavailability of THC is estimated to be only 6% to 20%. This means a 10 mg dose of ingested THC results in only 0.6 mg to 2 mg that reaches the bloodstream. However, if bioavailability is improved through cannabis ingredient processing or formulation, a larger dose can be delivered physiologically, thereby maximising a product’s effectiveness.
Recent reports have raised concerns about the accuracy of cannabis beverage product labeling. An independent study by Leafreport of 22 CBD beverages from 20 well-known brands found that 54% of products contained less CBD than advertised, two products had no CBD at all, and 82% had greater than a 10% difference from the label.
Consumers deserve, and regulators require, cannabinoid beverage products to be transparently and accurately labeled. Consistent and optimised cannabinoid dosing is essential to cannabinoid beverage consumers searching for positive wellness or medical effects.
Ushering in Cannabis Beverage Innovation
Beverage formulators are creating innovative cannabinoid-infused beverages as part of a growing trend demanding functional wellness beverages. Innovations in water-soluble cannabinoid ingredients, such as water-soluble biopolymer technology, can reduce costs and improve product effectiveness, consistency and quality.
Regulators and wellness-oriented consumers expect cannabis beverages to meet high standards for formulation consistency and consumption experience while also delivering the positive health outcomes they desire.
