With so many hemp oil and other CBD products on the market today, making an informed decision is becoming even more important. But not every product is made equal! This episode is a deep-dive into not just the current lineup of Cured Nutrition products but also what sets us apart from other white-label manufacturers. Co-founder and CEO Joseph Sheehey takes the mic to further explain how the hemp and CBD industry currently operates, where other brands may be sourcing their products, and why Cured is different.

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Follow Joe: @joesephsheehey

Full Transcript

Joe: [00:01] Cured Collective family, welcome back! Thank you for joining me once again. Super excited for the next couple weeks of podcasts; we’re going to be switching things up and having some of the extended Cured team, Cured family, employees, partners, onto the podcast and getting you guys introduced to everybody in our actual collective. So, the Cured Collective was generated and born to share the stories and expertise and education and knowledgebase of the people that represent our brand, but also bringing on the experts in the industry. Now we’re going to continue to extend that to get you to be able to know everybody at Cured. Mike Spaniol, our Director of Operations, will be joining me here soon, and it’s just going to evolve from there. We’re super stoked for that, super stoked for everything that’s to come in our community. This episode today’s going to be another solo podcast on my end. I felt it in my heart that I needed to hop on here, dive into… dive into our products more, dive into what has created Cured, why we do what we do, why we created the products that we have, and how we do it. One of the big things for you listeners to understand and to help educate yourself, but also those around you that are going out there and buying any consumer product; but specifically here, we’re talking about CBD products, we’re talking about mushroom products, and dog products as well. Is the difference between a white label product and a product that is actually created by a company? So, how it works – and I didn’t really understand this until I owned my own business and created products – was that products, for most companies, and specifically in the CBD industry, which is really, really important, and please share this with everybody that you can, most of them are a white label product. This product’s being produced at mass by a manufacturer and being sold to several brands throughout the nation. So, hundreds and hundreds of brands out there all selling CBD oil, maybe different flavors, different concentrations, and people ask, “so what’s the difference?” The difference for most people is – well, there isn’t a difference. They try to make something up, but the fact is that it’s all coming from the same exact place and they don’t really have a hand in the actual formulation, generation, manufacturing, and quality control of that product. Not a single Cured product is white labeled. We create every single product design and formulate in-house, and then we work with the manufacturers to create the final product; but we oversee the entire thing. We start from scratch – pencil, paper – to actual product that comes into your guy’s hands, and we have a great oversight of that entire process.

[03:06] That’s something that’s extremely important to us, especially from the sourcing. And as you know, all our farms – where the hemp extract comes from – are here local in Colorado, in Pueblo, Colorado. Steven Turetsky from Shi Farms, our big source for hemp, was actually on one of our podcasts. If you want to understand more about that, go look back at Cured Collective episode with him, from Shi Farms. But also understand what that does is that allows us to bring you guys the highest possible quality product and the understanding of exactly where it comes from. When people ask us how we’re different, that’s exactly what it is. We’re going to continue to talk more and more about that, but we’ve actually farmed our own hemp as well. In 2018, we had our farm in Boulder, Colorado, and we got to see the entire process, all the blood, sweat, and tears and just love that goes into cultivating a hemp product – cultivating a hemp plant, I should say. So, understand that. We have our hands on every piece of the creation of these products, and not a single one of our products is a white label. We don’t take a finished product from a big manufacturer and slap a label on it. That’s really important. That’s the one thing that’s the most important thing to understand when you’re looking at Cured and recommending any product to people; so, I want that to be known. Now, I just want to dive into all of our products. When the company was first created, the desire was to be able to shift the stigma off of cannabis specifically, and i’s derivatives. How we did that was we created products that were extremely approachable, especially to those in the health and fitness industry. If you’ve been around since the very beginning, you know what those very first products were. Those were our Cured spices; so, cooking spices infused with CBD, and… with the ability to be used on basically any type of meal. People ask that all the time, “How do I use these?” Just like any normal spice, but just know that there’s CBD in there. It was a really, really approachable way to introduce people to CBD. We have 4 – sorry, 3 – different savory spices, 2 sweet. The sweet ones are really, really good in coffee, they’re really good in oatmeal, they’re really good on toast. I’ve heard people doing that, a little almond butter on toast, cinnamon and honey. Cinnamon and honey is our best seller, and each serving has 15mg of CBD. What should be known when it comes to the savory spices is that these are best to be used as a finishing spice. Cannabinoids are fat soluble, so if you are going to cook with them, you can use them with a healthy fat source, which is great. The cannabinoids are going to become more bioavailable, they’re going to go into solution while you’re cooking it.

[06:02] Use a nice olive oil, a nice MCT oil, a nice, healthy ghee butter, anything like that, and you’re going get amazing, not only amazing tasting product, but amazing benefit to that actual meal that you’re making in the anti-inflammatory properties that CBD shows. So, that’s how the company was started. We started with the spices, and those took off. The cinnamon and honey has been, and continues to stay, the best selling product there. I love it, I use it all the time, and thankfully have an endless supply of it; but it’s a great low barrier to entry product and, like I said, you can sprinkle it on anything. So, that’s where we started. We wanted people to see a very approachable product. Ok, cool, I’ve got this jar of spices, I put it on food. It doesn’t look or feel like marijuana, and that was really important to us because we want people to be able to get accustomed to CBD without connecting it to the stoner Cheech and Chong stigma. So, started there, and then we started to come out with our oils. I’m going to spend a decent amount of time on these products to help you guys all understand what these are, the difference between them, and why you would select one over the other, understand all the concentrations, and so on. We have our Cured Classic Mint Oil, which we came out before the full-spectrum oil. These are two different oils. Mint oil is THC free; it’s made from a CBD isolate, which is 99.9% pure CBD, zero THC, then suspended in a carrier oil and combined with organic peppermint extract. Very, very smooth peppermint taste and comes in concentrations from 250 all the way to 2000mg per bottle. That’s something that has been interesting, and some people say, “Oh, I take 1000mg tincture.” Well, no you don’t; that’s actually how many total potential cannabinoids are in that product, and if you look at that and look at serving sizes, you then divide the entire cannabinoid content in the bottle throughout the number of servings in the bottle and you can understand your dose. Every single product is dosed at 16 – every single oil is dosed at 16.7mg per serving – and if you look at our website, one of the big things we always say is no one size fits all. You could start middle of the ground, you could start at 500mg and work your way up or down from there. Every single person’s different, everybody’s endocannabinoid’s system is different and everybody’s going to need a different amount of CBD. Our podcast with Dr. Hyla Cass is a great podcast to listen to when understanding how much to take and why you should be taking it. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, it’s either Cured Collective 009 or 010, can’t remember; go back and take a look at that. But that’s our THC free oil.

[09:01] Nice, smooth peppermint taste. Very calm taste. Some people think mint things are overpowering, but this is really, really smooth and also combined with a grapeseed carrier oil. CBD isolate, grapeseed carrier oil, and an organic peppermint extract. The difference between that and our raw product is that the raw product is a full spectrum oil, it’s made from whole plant extract, so it contains the entire array of cannabinoids and terpenes. There’s more than just CBD in that product. CBG, a little bit of CBC, a little bit of CBN can be found in a full spectrum product, as well as trace amounts of THC. What the full spectrum means is we have that entire array of cannabinoids found in the hemp plant as well as the terpenes. The terpenes are the aromatic parts; so, basically like the flavor profile. Lavender is a terpene. For example, you understand what lavender does, it is used for its calming purposes. That is no different than the terpenes that are found in our full spectrum product, so each terpene that’s found has a specific therapeutic benefit, and you can actually find that very widely on the internet, and… is a great thing to look for – actually look out for – going into future. The future of terpenes is extremely exciting and I’m one that really wants to be able to be a piece of pushing that forward so people can understand how effective those are. The raw product also comes in 250mg per bottle all the way up 2000mg per bottle. Some people, if you’re getting the 2000mg bottle, it could last you 30 days, it could last you up to 90 days. Again, it all depends on your body and your specific required dosage; no one size fits all. Again here, each serving size is 16.7mg of potential phytocannabinoids per serving. And I always recommend the full spectrum over the mint. The array of cannabinoids and terpenes work synergistically together for a added benefit and higher efficacy. Basically what I say is get more bang for your buck by buying a full spectrum oil. Now, how are these oils used? I didn’t even talk about that. Shake it up, take a dropper, put it underneath your tongue, hold it for 30 seconds, and then swallow. You’ll notice the effects from a calming perspective pretty quickly. For the anti-inflammatory properties, we always recommend that you use this over time, just like anything incorporating an anti-inflammatory diet into your overall regimen and approach; it’s going to take time. Two to three weeks, evaluate it, go up, down in dosage, but also understand that there is that sweet spot for everybody. Tinctures are probably the most widely seen form of CBD out there on the market right now.

[12:04] One thing I also to add, when we talk about full spectrum vs. THC free, understanding that cannabinoid breakdown and terpene profile is extremely important. We’ve made it very easy for people to see what is in every single batch that we put out there into this world. Go to curednutrition.com, scroll to the very bottom, clicked on Cured Quality Control, and you’ll see batch testing results for every single product that we put out in there. Again, raw is from a whole plant extract, THC mint is from a CBD isolate. The CBD isolate is basically more refined, so when you look at what do I want to do – I want to get a highly refined or less refined, I want THC free or I can actually use the trace amounts of THC, which have an amazing benefit and my lifestyle is receptive to that. I would recommend going with the full spectrum oil. Again, it is personal preference, even down to the taste as well. If you’re curious, probably start with the 500mg middle of the range bottle and give it a try for 30 days. It’s an amazing product, and our 2nd product to come out into the market was the oils. From there, we also have full spectrum capsules and THC free capsules. As it is right now, our full spectrum capsules are 30mg total cannabinoids in each capsule. These are a very powerful product. You’re going to feel the effect of these. They come in either a 30 or 60 count bottle. Then, the THC free come in 10mg capsules and, right now, are offered in a 30 count, but as of next week, we will have them in a 60 count as well. The carrier oil – there’s a carrier oil in both of these – in the THC free product, we have a hemp seed oil, and then in the raw, we have an MCT oil. Both of those have great fatty acid profiles and you have an added benefit from an anti-inflammatory standpoint, and are a great product to use; great product to just add to your weekly, or sorry, daily vitamin routine. If you’re on the go, I always travel with the capsules. I’ve been taking the full-spectrum capsules like it’s my job. Those are my favorite straight CBD product when it comes to the products that are used by everybody at the Cured office. We just ran a promotion on those, and if you are listening to this podcast before the end of August and you are a retailer, anybody that has a store that’s looking to carry Cured products or CBD products, these are currently 20% off to all wholesale customers right now, so you can increase your profitability on those. But, again, continuing to get amazing feedback on those. I find them more effective than the tinctures.

[15:03] I don’t know if that is specifically an absorption of the tongue thing vs. taking it internally and actually processing it through your stomach and having it broken down that way. The onset and effects of those usually take about 30 to 45 minutes when you’re taking a capsule, but that also depends on how much food you have in your system; you can take them with or without food, it doesn’t really matter, and just experiment with that as well. And Dr. Hyla Cass also has some great information on this product vs. an oil and why you would use one or the other and even using them in combination; so, again, check out that podcast with Dr. Hyla Cass if you have further questions on that. An amazing product that came out after the oils was our infused peanut butter cookie dough. Cured’s approach is really creating products – you go to our website, the first thing you’ll see is ‘Wellness rooted in nature’. We started with CBD products, but we are not a CBD company. We are a company that believes in nature and all things that come from nature, and the efficacy of them; and we also want to be able to create products that are great for any time of day, on the go, or at home. So, here is our on-to-go product that is the peanut butter cookie dough. Comes in a nice, flow-wrapped package and now has all organic, 100% organic ingredients. We’re working on an organic certification, and we’re super excited about that. These are gluten free and also have zero THC in them as well. They’re made from a distillate; so when we were talking about the oils, we talked about full-spectrum oil and then we talked about a CBD isolate. When you go through the extraction process, you have the whole hemp… all the hemp material going into either an alcohol extraction or a CO2 extractor; most of our products have a CO2 extracted oil. From the CO2 extractor comes into a crude. With that crude, there are a bunch of lipids and it goes through a winterization process where you actually take the fats out and then you get your full-spectrum oil. To refine those even further, you go through a distillation process; it’s similar to how it works with alcohol. Go through distillation and then you can put it in actually another solvent where the CBS isolate will crash out of solution. If you’ve looked at them lined up on a shelf, you’d see a darker crude full-spectrum oil, you’d see a distillate, which is a little bit more refined – that has most likely taken out most of the terpenes – and looks similar to like a golden honey type thing; and then an isolate is a white powder. In the peanut butter cookie dough product, it is a distillate THC free, and these are just great for on-the-go; great for hiking, biking, having a nutritious snack when you’re at work, at your desk, and want to be able to get those calming effects from CBD anytime of the day, and a really nice, nutritious snack.

[18:06] These are definitely great for you people that love the keto diet – high fat, high healthy fat product. Alongside of that – I’m going to kind of skip around because we’re on food products – we have our infused hemp hearts. So, hemp hearts are a great source of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. They’re another part of the hemp plant, the hemp… shelled hearts, or seeds, basically, are what are coming in these products. We have an infused version and then, an uninfused version. The uninfused version has no CBD in it, of course. The infused version is a product that is going to then deliver you, of course, the amazing benefits of the fatty acids, the great nutrient profile, great protein source, great for those – anybody on a keto-friendly diet or keto specific diet as well. I see our Director of Operations, Mike, eating them out of the bag sometimes, just with an avocado. He loves the keto lifestyle. Those released a couple of weeks ago; two different versions, of course – one infused, one uninfused. If you want the extra bang for your buck, get the infused hemp hearts. We’re super excited about those, and just really love the taste of them. Cheaper product and really nice to add to a salad, any type of nutritious snack during the day or any type of meal, putting together a bowl, stir fry, anything like that. These hemp hearts are a great addition into that. Those are really a product for us that we like to see on shelfs in the future in natural food stores. And that’s great for at home; we’re talking on-the-go and then at home here. A next product for us, which was in high demand for a long time, is a topical. Taking CBD orally, or taking any hemp extract orally, is going to give you, basically, a whole body approach; looking for those benefits across the entire body. A salve, which we have, is basically for spot treating any type of discomfort. It’s a great roll-on product, you can take it on-the-go. I always bring it to yoga class and put it on the back of my neck, or put it on my chest, and it’s got a lot of amazing ingredients in there as well, including arnica and a bunch of other amazing herbs that our herbalist put together, Cali Simpson, who actually had a podcast with us as well, Cured Collective 010 or 011. We talked about adaptogens, mushrooms, and other herbs, and she was actually the creator of this product as well as our Rise and Zen. The salve is a great on-the-go product, really easy to applicate… or really easy to apply, I should say.

[21:04] Excuse my English; not the best there. Thank you all for the grace and love that you give me as I just let all these words fly onto the podcast world. But, the salve is a great topical, great for putting on any sore muscles, and, as I said, super clean. A lot of salves you’ll see out there, you have to use with your finger; so, you’ll dip your finger in the jar, case, whatever it is, and then your fingers will get all messy and you gotta go wash them. Now, if you’re on the go, ready to step into yoga class, take the cap off, roll it up, apply it like a deodorant stick, basically, and you’re good to go. Super excited about that. That is our one topical product that we have and had been in high demand for a really long time. We’re super excited to continue to release topicals that we’ve had in the works, and ideas in the works for some time; so, look for that over the next year or so. Then, from there, I tried to be very strategic in how I approached this – we’re going to end up with our Rise and Zen products – but before we go to that, let’s talk about our other CBD infused products that are great for your furry little best friend. So, CBD, hemp extract, works exactly the same way for dogs or cats as it does for humans. Any type of discomfort, any type of calming effects, any type of recovery effects, any type of anti-inflammatory properties that you’re looking for in your dog – whether they’re in old age or they have… they get all anxious when you’re going to leave them, or they’re scared of fireworks, anything like that – it’s great to just give them a little bit of CBD. These dog treats that we carry come in an absolute amazing package, by the way, and have 4mg per piece. They’re a heart shaped treat and 20 come in a bag. Most people will see that their dogs, if they’re around 50lbs, great with just using 1 a day. But again, you can experiment with that depending on how much, or how important it is that your dog get a high dosage of it, depending on what you’re really looking for. Alongside of that, you can actually have a dog take an oil no different than you take it as a human. We have what we call the Raw Paw oil; there’s 250mg per bottle. My dog, Dusty, just loves the taste of it; so, we’ll shake it up and he’ll sit down, and he’ll take it any time of day, and just right in the mouth. It actually has a better bang for your buck because there’s 250mg in that entire bottle, whereas there’s 80mg in the entire bag of dog treats; but it depends on whether your dog’s actually going to be able to take the oil in the mouth, and if not, you can actually add it to their food, you can put it on a piece of bread, any type of treat like that.

[24:17] So, it’s really up to you in your preferred form factor vehicle of use. But yeah, it works for animals just like it works for humans. The animals, our animals, dogs, cats, all have endocannabinoid systems just like humans do and can benefit from it in the exact same way that we do, and our dog treats actually sell like frickin’ crazy. If you’ve tried it for yourself and you’ve noticed the benefits, check it out for your furry little friend. It’s been an amazing product that we’ve seen, amazing feedback on, and I should also add, if you haven’t done so and you’re curious about how people use these and how people have seen the efficacy of any of our products, check out our website. There are, well, let’s see… multiple thousand reviews across all our products. If you have any questions or anything that you’re still trying to understand, I highly recommend checking out the reviews on each product. We’ve gotten great feedback from our customers over the years, and you can see those all directly on our website; so, check out any product page and you’ll see those. And that’s about the end of the hemp-CBD specific products. Now to our quickly selling Rise and Zen products. These products are what I like to call the endcap of the day products but can also be used anytime of day. Rise was created as a product that would be used to help replace coffee, replace caffeine. There are no stimulants in it and it’s a great product for getting you into a creative and focused state. Amazing mental clarity and really, what that’s coming from is an amazing combination of adaptogens and mushrooms. Some people call mushrooms – well, mushrooms are adaptogens – but the adaptogen blend that we have in each the Rise and Zen product were formulated by Cali Simpson very specifically to combine basically Ancient Chinese Medicine with the new and progressive CBD and mushroom world. So, we combined all 3 of them. We spent about a year creating these products and have seen nothing but amazing feedback from them. You can take 1-3 capsules of the Rise. Most people feel the effect from one product, and if you’re somebody – or from 1 capsule – and if you’re somebody that has a sensitivity to any type of stimulant product or energy product, try just one to begin with.

[27:10] We’ve got lion’s mane and cordyceps mushrooms in there. If you listened to one of our recent podcasts with Danielle Broida from Four Sigmatic, you’ll hear all about the mushrooms that go into these and why we’re using them. I’m a super big fan of mushrooms and I’m a super big fan of what the future holds for these types of products. Rise, again, nothing but amazing feedback on these and have a really, really powerful blend of ingredients in them. In the Cured Flow Blend, we’ve got a Rhodiola extract, American ginseng, Gotu Kola, and a Huperzia Serrata, and Huperzine A extract from that, or isolate from that, which is a great nootropic. In addition, that is combined with the lion’s mane and cordyceps, which have amazing focus capability, in combination with a Vitamin B complex. We played around with this for a long time and we’re super stoked with what we came out with. The capsules are vegetarian, for those of you that are curious, and all of these products are THC free. So, spent a little time on the Rise; now, let’s talk about the flipside of that – the Zen product. Our Zen product combines reishi mushroom with magnesium, and then another blend that we call the Cured Balance Blend. In there are a just complete powerhouse of our herbs – we’ve got ashwagandha, we’ve got passionflower, we’ve got valerian root, and… sorry, my computer’s not pulling this up right now; but we’ve got passionflower, valerian root, skullcap, and chamomile, as well as the ashwagandha that I had mentioned. The Cured Balance Blend also took about 6-8 months to create and Cali created an absolutely magic product. We have so many people coming to us and saying that this is the first time I’ve dreamt in a really long time, and it’s consistent. Now, that being said, we do say you can take it before bed, 30-45 minutes before bed, but you can actually take it anytime of day. This also has a hemp extract in it, 19.5 total milligrams of cannabinoids in there. THC free again, so the combination of the magnesium, reishi, and that Balance Blend in addition to the CBD is just a powerhouse calming product. And we are actually selling these products in combination for $80, so you can buy one at a time for $50, but you bundle the two – Rise and Zen – for $80, special bundle online.

[30:14] We’re super excited about the future of these products and the future of the mushroom world. As I said when talking about the Rise, again, these Zen capsules are vegetarian as well, and can be taken anytime of day. I was mentioning the calming effects – it’s not something that’s actually sedating and is going to knock you out in the middle of the day. If you do plan to take it in the middle of the day, I recommend just starting off with 1 and evaluating your response from it and adjusting from there. Again, no one size fits all, but the recommended serving size is 3 capsules. You can experiment with that yourself. Cali is the person that actually educated me on a great way to take adaptogens with the 6:1 rule; so, listen to that podcast – podcast 010 or 011 – and understand that some people will take the approach of taking it for 6 days, taking 1 day off, and then going 6 days back on. You can even look at that at a larger scale – 6 weeks on, 1 week off – and that’s kind of like a rule of thumb for adaptogens and taking adaptogens. But these are all coming from basically Ancient Chinese Medicine. All of this stuff is resurfacing, and we’re super excited about it because we are the ones at Cured, and alongside other companies in this space that truly believe in nature. We’re trying to help people find answers and solutions in a natural path. That’s where you’re going to see all of our products coming from and rooted in nature. The… that’s it. That’s all of our products, guys. I hope you got something out of this and can help educate a friend, family member, loved one, that has been interested in Cured, or trying to understand which product to take. Again, anytime of day, on the go, at home, we’ve got you covered; we’ve even got your furry friend covered, and look no further than Cured for that exact approach as we continue into the future and even expand outside of cannabinoid or hemp specific products. And super excited to hear your guy’s feedback on any products that you are looking for or interested in. As I said, we do do all our manufacturing ourselves, have very close ties with some of the companies that do the sourcing of the ingredients outside of the hemp extract, and can actually offer white label products to our community; so, if you’re somebody that’s interested in creating products yourself, we do not let out our proprietary formulas that come in some of the more difficult products, specifically the Rise and Zen and dough, and really unique products like that. But if you’re looking to create a hemp or CBD oil of your own, or a capsule or anything like that, look no further, we’ve got you covered here at Cured. Again, if you are somebody that has a gym, supplement store, wellness shop, natural grocer, anything like that, please reach out to us for wholesale information. Our Director of Sales, Christian, is happy to help fend any further questions that you may have in that realm; and we look forward to partnering with you guys and getting these products on more shelves. We’re really just trying to help people out, help make life better one day, one heart at a time; and if it weren’t for you guys, the Cured Collective listeners, this also would not be possible. Thank you for tuning in week after week. Hope you got something out of that you didn’t prior know, and if you head over to curednutrition.com, don’t forget to use coupon code COLLECTIVE for 15% off at checkout. Pass that along to a friend, pass this podcast along to a friend. As I said, there have been many podcasts with great educators on it – most recently Danielle from Four Sigmatic educating on mushrooms; Cali Simpson, our formulator for the Rise and Zen products and the salve, was on earlier; and, of course, Dr. Hyla Cass, that really helped us learn more about just endocannabinoid science and how she works with some of her clients in her practice, and really enjoyed talking to her; I know you guys will enjoy that podcast if you haven’t listened to it yet. As always, thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to catching you all on the next episode.