CBD sales forecast jumps by 31 per cent as demand booms during lockdown

The consumer cannabidiol (CBD) market is now estimated to generate £690 million in annual sales for 2021, after the pandemic lockdowns have seen the demand soaring for the products.

The figure surpasses predictions made in the seminal market sizing study undertaken by the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC) in 2019 which estimated the market would be worth £526 million in 2021.

A new report launched today by the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI) and the CMC argued that the market represents a key growth sector for the UK, calling on the government to adopt a proactive strategy to seize opportunities in the cannabinoids sector.

“The size of this cannabinoid sector is now impossible to ignore. Today’s report reveals that sales of CBD products up to the year end of April 2021 are valued at £690m, almost a third higher than our last projection in 2019. Almost without notice and certainly by accident rather than design, the UK has improbably become the world’s second largest consumer cannabinoids market,” said Paul Birch, co-founder and strategic counsel to the CMC and ACI.

The report noted that the UK now has the most evolved regulatory framework in the world for CBD, and other consumer cannabis extracts, citing recent interventions by the Foods Standards Agency - to regulate products as dietary supplements, and by the Home Office - to consider what are safe and tolerable levels of THC contained in products.

However, more government intervention and investment is needed to ensure that the UK optimises what the report describes as ‘Britain’s quiet cannabis revolution’, it added.

The report claimed that domestic restrictions on hemp cultivation and processing drives bulk of the profits for this industry overseas as UK farmers must destroy the parts of the hemp crop which lucrative CBD is extracted from.

The recommendations of the report include: a dedicated agency to licence and oversee the industry; a new centre of excellence to fund, synthesise and promulgate the best new clinical evidence to boost the UK’s nascent medicinal cannabis market; and urgent reform of licensing policy to steer and harness the emerging scientific evidence across the whole spectrum: from agri-science and plant genetics, to novel synthetics, new therapies and clinical trials.

“With new government support the accidental consumer cannabis revolution that has allowed CBD to become available on every high street in the UK could become permanent, nurturing hundreds of new businesses, thousands of jobs and billions of pounds in exports. It’s hard to imagine there many more industries that could benefit almost immediately from the proposals set out in our report,” said Steve Moore, co-founder and strategic counsel to the CMC and ACI.