What is holding CBD market growth back - summary
- CBD market shows strong potential in drinks and gummies categories
- Regulatory hurdles in EU prevent CBD from reaching mainstream adoption
- EFSA paused all CBD safety assessments due to insufficient scientific data
- Over 100 CBD applications submitted but none have received approval
- UK mirrors EU rules with ongoing uncertainty despite recent public consultation
CBD in food and drink has serious potential. The market for the ingredient in functional beverages has been predicted to boom, while CBD gummies have also seen strong popularity among consumers.
Yet some analysts are predicting a decline in CBD’s popularity. Why?
It’s not necessarily due to a fault in the products themselves. What’s holding the market back, at least in the EU, is regulation.
What is CBD?
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a cannabinoid extracted from the hemp plant. Importantly, it does not have psychoactive effects and does not cause a ‘high’ in consumers. However, it has been linked to several health benefits, such as lowering anxiety, reducing inflammation and pain, aiding physical recovery, and improving sleep quality.
What is stopping CBD from gaining regulatory approval?
In some markets, CBD-based drinks have been projected to grow dramatically. Even CBD snacks like gummies have seen growth in the markets where they’re available.
Yet now, the decline of CBD is projected before this growth has been fully realised. Why?
Regulatory roadblocks have been holding CBD back in the EU for some time. “It can’t reach mainstream because compliance roadblocks slow every attempt to scale,” says a spokesperson for Grand View Research.
CBD is considered a novel food under EU law, meaning that it was not consumed significantly in the bloc before May 1997.
“The standards are very high. It is pretty difficult to convince the toxicologists at EFSA that a new food comes without any risk,” says Christofer Eggers, partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
Since 2010, all assessments for “botanicals”, including CBD, have been paused. In total, this amounts to more than 2,000 assessments. The European Court of Justice recently confirmed that the situation was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
In 2022, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) paused all CBD assessments, due to insufficient data.
The recent rejection of CBD supplements from Dutch white label manufacturer Labocan B.V. and Swiss brand Cibdol AG only cemented the EU’s position.
Regulation around CBD supplements and CBD in foods does not significantly differ.
More than 100 applications have been sent to EFSA. Only 19 have been looked at, and not a single one has been approved.
What about CBD in the UK?
The UK shares the EU’s regulation on novel foods, which it retained following Brexit in 2020, albeit judged by its Food Standards Agency (FSA).
No novel foods containing CBD have been approved by the FSA since February 13 2020, when it released business guidance on the subject. From this date, products already on the market were required to submit an authorisation by March 31, 2021.
This means that CBD products that were already on the market, such as Trip drinks, were permitted to remain, provided they submitted the authorisation application.
In 2025, a public consultation on the authorisation of three CBD ingredients was opened by the FSA, explains Nicola Wood, regulatory lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs. It was closed on November 20, with the summary of responses yet to be released.
So what does this mean for food and drink companies? While CBD remains in limbo, innovation will be stifled. Yet the future remains uncertain.
