„The pre-launch of the new product, announced at Foodex 2023 in Tokyo in mid-March, has already attracted the attention of several large customers. The Japanese partners anticipate that the first orders from this country alone could amount to around EUR 200–300 thousand,“ says Vladas Latvėnas, CEO of H Drop.
„Cannabites“ is a snack made from freeze-dried fruit and cannabis with valuable ingredients and attractive taste characteristics.
„Freeze-dried fruit has already become Lithuania's calling card thanks to excellent local producers. Using this experience, we saw an opportunity to create a truly innovative product. We combined advanced cold-drying and hemp-processing technologies. Gummies and other sweets with cannabinoids have been popular worldwide for some time now, but most of them are full of sugar and other unwanted substances, so we wanted to offer consumers a healthy vegan alternative,“ says V. Latvėnas.
A localised version of the product is being introduced to the European market, including Lithuania. Kaunas scientists have used a combination of freeze-dried strawberries, pineapple, bananas and a special hemp blossom ingredient that complies with local legislation. This will allow consumers to experience the full spectrum of active substances in hemp in a tasty and legal way.
According to Rokas Šliupas, co-founder of H Drop, the most challenging part of the Cannabites development process was navigating the regulations of different countries. „In Japan, the use of cannabinoids, including cannabidiol, in food is fully permitted, but the consumption of hemp flowers is prohibited. In the European Union, however, the situation is reversed. So, in the European version, we are using special ingredients from hemp flowers. The rings are quite bitter and accumulate the psychotropic substance THC, so the technologists had to work long hours in the laboratory to find a way to create a truly tasty product with THC within the legal limits,“ says Šliupas.
The product is currently only available in the manufacturer's online shop and should be on supermarket shelves soon.
In the near future, the product line will also be launched in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, the UK, the US, Poland and on the international Amazon shopping platform.
This is not the last H Drop news this year. Another innovative product line, functional vegan protein bars, is scheduled for launch in August.
Report by Joana Paulevičiūtė, H Drop B.V.
