CANNABIS LABELING
Smudge-Proof Cannabis Batch Labels Offer Colorful Compliance KEREN SOOKNE, DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL CONTENT TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS 1. High Desert’s product line spans about 30 different SKUs.
2. Compliance info is printed on-demand.
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aunched in 2015, High Desert Pure is a Bend, OR-based company that produces full-spectrum topicals, tinctures, and bath products, all of which center around health. “Our main focus is providing relief. We sell products containing THC in the Oregon and California marketplaces through those states’ recreational marijuana programs. We sell products that contain only CBD online, and these products can be sold direct-to-consumer via mail order,” says Jack Robson, Owner of High Desert Pure. Robson started his business after a ruptured disc caused him to seek alternative pain relief, and he found success with cannabis. As has been the case for many regulated health products, copy and packaging requirements are tough to balance with small real estate or pre-printed packaging. “When we started developing our packaging and labeling requirements, we realized that we had a bit of an unusual requirement in that our labels have a significant amount of batch-specific regulated text and content to facilitate tracking and tracing. So, this precludes a lot of typical approaches such as having a nice screen printing done on your packaging in bulk,” explains Robson. “No matter how you slice it, you’re going to be at least augmenting the data on your packaging with either a label, heat shrink, or external packaging such as a box, in order to convey this batch-specific detail.” With the added requirement of child-resistance features, High Desert Pure encountered packaging suppliers taking existing child-resistant containers and encouraging use with cannabis and CBD products. Robson notes that what works for an eighth ounce of flower won’t work for a lotion closure. “To this day there remains a tremendous dearth of compliant, child-resistant, environmentally friendly packaging solutions for the cannabis industry,” he says.
3. Labels also include traceability information
• Full Spectrum Tinctures in a 1.7-oz bottle with dosing measurements on dropper, packaged in an outer carton • Big Balm in a 2-oz recyclable, child-resistant jar with a reclaimed ocean plastic lid • Full Spectrum CBD Lotion in an airless pump container (3.5 oz) • Topical Relief Stick in a high potency glide-on application in a 0.52-oz twist up container • Soak & Fizz Cannabis Bath Salts in a child-resistant 16-oz container with a reclaimed ocean plastic lid The company needed a way to label products that would allow them to edit the batch details in-house, while generating “an attractive and resilient label, meaning one that would not easily be ruined by water or oil” while in the customer’s hands. “Imagine labeling a sunscreen bottle, for example. You will likely get sunscreen on your fingers. If that caused a label to smudge, that would obviously be
Labeling a wide portfolio High Desert’s product line spans quite a range—about 30 different SKUs with a variety of labels and sizes—including:
↑ The company selected Epson ColorWorks printers for its print-ondemand color label systems.
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