While much of the industry has been focusing on broad spectrum hemp extracts or isolated CBD (cannabidiol), Lumen is taking a different approach, said founder and CEO Jacob Freepons, who caught up with FoodNavigator-USA at the Specialty Food Association’s Winter Fancy Food Show.
“You’re not going to find anyone else juicing the plant in the same way, we use a patent pending process and we’re juicing the whole plant – all of the flowers, all of the leaves [but not the oily seeds]. What this does is really let us focus on getting more of those functional ingredients or benefits in their holistic form for the consumer – it’s juice, it’s the whole plant… very small amounts of CBD are in there, but not in its isolated form.
“We’re reclaiming hemp’s position as a superfood, we’re not isolating or extracting anything… Restore [one of the two SKUs] is really focused on bringing the deep nutritive qualities not just of hemp, but moringa, spiriulina and ashwagandha together to bring calm and peace, ideal for a nightcap at the end of the day…
“The immunity shot has bright lively flavors with ginger and turmeric that’s going to [give you] a lot of energy and vitamin C [20% DV].”
Crowdfunding
He added: “Given the legality [issues] around hemp, we were not able to buy any kind of marketing or facebook ads or anything like that which made it very difficult, but we just successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.
“That allowed us to really bring it to the consumer and show that people wanted this product. Now with that completed we’ll be shipping to all of our consumers all over the US and then we’re going into our first two retailers, which are Erewhon and Lazy Acres in L.A.”
So where are retailers putting the 99% juice shots?
“The supplement folks really want it in their part of the store, and so do the grocery folks," said Freepons, "so that's a great problem for us as they want us in both areas of the store so we're sometimes being showcased in both of them.”
Ingredients (immunity): Orange juice*, hemp juice, lemon juice*, freeze-dried ginger juice*, freeze-dried turmeric juice*, amla extract*, curcumin extract*, black pepper extract*
*organic
