Chinese firm HMI opens tech centre in Kunming to drive R&D of CBD and hemp health products
The firm focuses on the whole industrial chain investment of industrial hemp, ranging from breeding, planting, extraction, R&D, to production and sales across health food, food, beauty and cosmetics, pharma, and textile industries.
The tech centre, located in the Xishan district, was opened earlier this month.
With the newly opened centre, the firm has ambitions to speed up the development of CBD and hemp-based health foods.
In response to queries from NutraIngredients-Asia, chairman of HMI Group, Peter Tan said that its product layout would cover food, dietary supplement, and medicines.
“Our product layout will cover food, dietary supplement and medicine. CBD, hemp oil, hemp seeds, hemp protein, these are all healthy raw material for developing food and dietary supplement products. In addition, we use CBD in medicine development,” he said.
In addition, he revealed that the firm would cooperate with business partners from all over the world to develop CBD dietary supplement.
This cooperation would include setting up a JV.
“On the other hand, we created our own brand and developed our featured products by using our patented technologies. For example, our water-soluble CBD can be directly used in beverages, coffee creamer and tea,” he said.
The tech centre at Kunming will also combine HMI Group’s Industrial Hemp Breeding Centre and Extracting Base, to stimulate innovation and industrial competitiveness of the firm.
At present, some of the firm’s hemp health foods include hemp relaxation drinks, selling under the brand Sutiwa and Aima Power.
The two contain hemp seed extracts and gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) for relieving of mental stress.
Patent strategy
Besides hemp, the firm also focuses on CBD use in food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, textiles, and vaping products.
Its subsidiary, Yunnan Hansu Biotechnology, has recently received a US patent on the method for CBD extraction on May 28.
Tan revealed that the firm would set up a facility for CBD production in the US after receiving the patent.
With the patent, he said that the firm’s products would be “more convincing” when they were being exported overseas.
“We cannot move an inch without a patent overseas,” he said, adding that more patents would be awarded to the firm in the future.
At present, the firm has obtained full licenses for hemp growing and extraction in the US.
“The CBD market in North America is relatively mature, and we hope to actively join the industry activities there,” Tan said.
“Like Coca-Cola, which has publicly said that they were intending to develop CBD beverages, and the Constellation Brands which has invested $4 billion in the Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth to make cannabis beverage and beer, CBD has great applications in beverage and food, and we have developed various products with our partners as well,” he added, when commenting on CBD use in food and beverages.
