Testing Hemp & CBD for Contaminants: A Fireside Chat with Grace Bandong
“Listen” in below to a virtual fireside chat between
Vanessa Snyder
Business Development Director for Eurofins Hemp & Botanicals
and
Grace Bandong
Eurofins Food Chemistry Testing Business Unit Manager - Contaminants
Vanessa: Grace, you’re often referred to as the “Contaminants Queen,” this is quite the impressive title to achieve! How long have you been working in the contaminants space and what has been your most recent area of focus?
Grace: Or the “Pest Lady” 😀 (laughing). I’ve been working in the area of food integrity for close to 30 years now –starting in the laboratory developing methods for analysis of contaminants and efficient systems for fast turn-around of testing results. A favorite endeavor of mine is creating custom pesticide screens used for testing products and another is risk assessment of chemical hazards.
I’ve seen methods evolve in contaminants testing specifically pesticide residues from when pesticide extraction and analysis took 8 to 16 hours per sample, utilized 4 separate detectors to screen for 300 to 400 pesticides to now where screening for pesticides can be completed in 3 to 4 hours with a single detector.
Currently, I still work on risk assessment and highly involved with the hemp industry. I’ve worked/am working with many of the major companies and at one point or another been involved with their set up of a quality program for their products. I am currently on the Technical Committee of the US Hemp Authority and have consulted for the Hemp Feed Coalition. I am also involved in the working groups of the AOAC CASP.
Vanessa: Consumers are becoming more aware of the importance of testing, but often, the focus is on the levels of cannabinoids in the product they’re taking. We understand it’s just as important to test for the things you don’t want to see in a product. Can you describe the importance of why companies need to test for contaminants?
Grace: The possible presence of contaminants in your products is an important consideration for any product but especially necessary for products derived from hemp. Hemp, as it is well known, is a phytoremediator and can absorb contaminants like some pesticides, lead and arsenic from the soil. We recently published a presented a poster at AOAC that show that pesticides found in the soil where hemp was grown was also found in the hemp material used in making products. They can also be carried over to the extracts and at higher concentration that the original material.
Vanessa: Understanding there is a lack of federal regulations when it comes to testing hemp and CBD products, what is your recommendation for testing approaches and/or guidelines that are currently available?
Grace: State regulations often outline testing required for licensing – these testing requirements are an excellent guide for what to test on your products. The challenge often comes when determining what and when to test. This difficulty can be alleviated by applying a risk assessment to your production cycle: from seed to shelf.
In addition, there are organizations that provide guidelines for contaminant considerations for botanicals including hemp. The hemp certification program of the USHA is an example. AHPA also has guidelines for hemp and hemp derived products.
Vanessa: When should hemp and CBD companies be testing for contaminants?
Grace: As I mentioned earlier, a risk assessment applied across the product cycle helps determine when to test for contaminants.
In the farm, especially if it is the first time to utilize acreage for hemp, it is good practice to test the soil for pesticides and heavy metals to understand what possible contaminants may show up in the plants.
At harvest, after drying and storage of plant material, testing for pesticides and heavy metals is necessary. Microbial contamination including mycotoxins also need to be considered.
For extracts, since the extraction process utilizes solvents, residual solvent testing become an important consideration.
For the final product; pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, microbial impurities and mycotoxins are necessary and often required by state laws.
Vanessa: Most companies know the importance of utilizing a reputable third party laboratory for testing, but can you elaborate on the importance testing methodology as it pertains to contaminants?
Grace: The choice of methods for analytical testing is one of the biggest factors for determining the relevance of any testing data. Using fit for purpose methods in the analysis of one’s material is a must. Hemp is a complex and difficult matrix to work with in the laboratory, therefore it is critical that methods used for the testing are validated for use in hemp and hemp derived products. A method that has been validated for residue screening in fruits and vegetables may not work as effectively on hemp.
Because of a lack of Federal regulations and variations in state regulations, limit of quantitation issues are often an important consideration and the use of state of the art technologies like LC/MS/MS and GC/MS/MS for testing is a big advantage. The use of tandem mass spec offers higher sensitivity (lower LOQs), more specificity and faster turn around times.
Vanessa: If you could only give our hemp and CBD companies just one piece of advice as it pertains to contaminants, what would it be?
Grace: My advice would be two-fold: know your products and everything that goes into it (risk assessment and specifications) and trust but always verify (testing).
Contact us today to discuss how Eurofins can be a part of your seed-to-shelf risk assessment plan.
