CBD oil Rankings

CBD Oil Rankings

The supplement industry often flies under the radar with the FDA.
As of this writing, our regulatory governmental agency for all prescription and
OTC supplements has taken a fairly hands-off approach to CBD, other than 
monitoring for inaccurate or inflated medical claims. So, for you as a
consumer, the landscape of CBD can be confusing and full of uncertainty. How do
you pick the right product? Well, never fear, your CBD Pharmacist is here! I am
addressing this issue through the creation of a points-based rating system
which ranks CBD companies and products based on my knowledge and expertise.

CBD rankings, on the surface, seem like a plain and straightforward idea. With no shortage of topics to measure and rate, I should glide along effortlessly while plucking out the good and bad from each manufacturer. What I encountered was quite different!

Keep in mind my pharmaceutical background and the clinically trained need for
order and balance in my research. I am used to digging through Drug Package
Inserts and combing thru clinical data when trying to find answers to my
questions. My attempt to bring these same techniques to ranking various CBD
manufacturers proved to be a much harder task than I originally planned.

As I just mentioned, there is little standing in the way of someone creating a CBD product and selling it on a website. It is scary out there, boys and girls, and we need to tread lightly! I suspect in the next 1-2 years the FDA will issue standards concerning the manufacturers, but they are in no rush to do so. What is true for you, the reader, are these principles will still hold true today, the same as 5 years from now.

In this situation, I am just doing a little more of the legwork that would normally be done by the FDA, for the benefit of you, the reader and potential CBD consumer.

I used a wide variety of categories in my rankings matrix because I do not feel a website or manufacturer should be unfairly graded on one or two criteria. It is difficult to find solid answers because there are a ton of reviews out there for CBD and it is hard to know who to trust.  There are thoughtful, well thought out reviews and reviewers but there are just as many that are actually landing pages masquerading as product reviews, intended to funnel you into their site and sell you on their products. Very few of the reviews I found had more than 3 or 4 criteria on which to base their decisions, and none were as thorough as my research – I used 14 distinct categories to divine the true merit of each product. I gave thoughtful and careful consideration to each rating to offer the most exact information possible. To some people, selling CBD is their life’s work, and to others they just kind of stumbled into it without really learning the industry. I am interested in the intent of the company, but also acutely attuned to how each CEO carries out his/her vision and brings top quality CBD products to market.

Sean’s Ranking System Criteria:

I ranked each company based on a set of 14 criteria that included multiple point-giving categories. Depending on the importance of the criterion, I assigned it to a point category with a maximum of 5 points, 4 points, 3 points, and 2 points. I gave each criterion a rating and point score and totaled them up, and so you will see how various companies fared – note that it will be a moving target that I plan to update this chart from time to time.

Here is a breakdown of the various categories I judged the companies on. You can find more detail on why I chose these categories and what they tell us in my book.

• COA- Certificate of Analysis (pass or fail)
• Affiliations (up to 5 points)
• Cost (up to 5 points)
• Transparency (up to 3 points)
• Organic Ingredients (up to 3 points)
• Organic Farming (up to 3 points)
• Website (up to 3 points)
• Extraction Methods (up to 3 points)
• Top 20 Lists (up to 3 points)
• Variety of products (up to 3 points)
• Variety of flavors (upto 3 points)
• Farm to shelf (up to 3 points)
• Donations/philanthropy (up to 2 points)
• Anything else unique (up to 4 points)

You may also follow the link here for the detailed spreadsheet with individual category rankings.

CBD Rankings
Product	Score
RE: Botanicals	32
Moon Mother Hemp	30
Sunny Skies	30
NuLeaf Naturals	27
Fab	27
Lazarus Naturals	25
Sabai Dee	24.5
Medterra	24
Pure Hemp Botanicals	24
Green Roads	24
Kanibi	22
Joy Organics	21.5
Hemplucid	21
Mission Farms CBD	20
Hoboken Hemp Co	19
CBD MD	18.5
Receptra Naturals	18.5
Pure Spectrum	18.5
Populum	11.5

Congrats to Re:Botanicals for taking the title! They earned high scores for 
their vertical integration(from soil to oil) and USDA Organic certification. I placed a high emphasis on transparency for how the manufacturer extracts and distills their CBD. The amount of information on their website was important to me and very often I had to go digging or send emails to find out answers to such simple questions as extraction method. Some manufacturers did not respond to my email or gave me information that I thought was misleading so they earned negative points to get on my naughty list.

Moon Mother earned high praise for organic farming, ingredients, and affiliations. Sunny Skies has a unique molecular still distillation process that creates a great tasting product and were the most transparent of all the manufacturers (kudo’s to you Ben!). Customer service on the top 3 was exceptional and I felt a lot of passion for what they do.

A shout out to Green Roads and my fellow pharmacist owner, Laura Fuentes, for making a great label and box which was the easiest to read for all products.  Kanibi and Joy Organics have significant buzz around their products and the people at Joy are, ahem, joy to work with. I would like to give special kudos to Lazarus Naturals for their military discount and low income assistance (which I did not see anywhere else).

All in all these are all quality manufacturers that sell a quality product. I tried to level the playing field so that the (relatively) little guys like Sunny Skies, Moon Mother, and NuLeaf could compete with the bigger producers like Joy Organics, CBD MD, and Green Roads. I would recommend you try a couple different manufacturers and see which product works best for you. I currently am wholesaling for Sunny Skies CBD and can offer 10% discount off of MSRP along with free shipping when you join my email list. If I can be of assistance to you please let me know!

 

The views in this document are expressly the opinion of Sean Gale RPh, and are not meant to treat, diagnose, prevent or cure any disease states or medical conditions. Please consult your physician before beginning any CBD therapy. These statements have not been evaluated or approved by the FDA. Buyer is to consume CBD at their own risk. I may be reached for further questions at seangalerph@gmail.com.