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TV Chocolate Star Cooks Up New CBD Range

Written by Peter McCusker

One of the U.K.’s leading chocolate experts – TV star Andy Baxendale – has joined forces with a confectionery maker to launch a new range of ‘naughty but nice’ sweet treats featuring CBD oil.

Baxendale said they catered for people who loved chocolate but who wanted their ‘naughty’ treat to have an added twist. Andy, who is known throughout the U.K. industry as The Sweet Consultant, has created the CBD range for Northumberland company Sweetdreams

Naughty But Nice

The products combine CBD with a milk, white or dark chocolate coating, and include; solid dark chocolate balls, malt balls, almonds, goji berries, cranberries, honeycomb and yogurt-coated fruits. One of the reasons chocolate is so popular is that eating a small amount of sugar creates a release of serotonin – known as the happy chemical, says Andy, in a press release.

The Sweetdreams’ technical director says chocolate is an ‘easy medium for people to eat, especially now if they feel that their ‘naughty treat has some benefit in the form of the addition of CBD oil – kind of naughty but nice’. Andy has 24 year’s experience in the confectionery business and a Master of Science (MSc) in Advanced Food Manufacture.


The Sweet Makers

He was one of the stars of the hit BBC 2 confectionery show The Sweet Makers. Meanwhile new American research suggests chocolate may interfere with cannabis potency tests.

The U.S. cannabis edibles market has boomed in recent years and by 2022, will be worth over $4 billion, say Arcview. However, there’s still an issue over product labelling on snacks infused with THC.

The Chocolate Matrix Effect

In new findings published late last month David Dawson, a researcher with CW Analytical Laboratories, said there seems to be an ingredient in chocolate that suppresses the signal for THC. This creates what’s known as ‘a matrix effect’ – the more chocolate in an edible, the less THC there seems to be. On the other hand, when there’s less chocolate, there appears to more THC.

“When we had less cannabis-infused chocolate in the sample vial, say one gram, we got higher THC potencies and more precise values than when we had two grams of the same infused chocolate in the vial,” said Mr Dawson.

He is currently undertaking further studies to better understand the relationship between chocolate and THC, but speculates that it is the fats which are manipulating the potency results – THC is fat-soluble.

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About the author

Peter McCusker

Peter McCusker is an experienced news and business editor, who believes it’s time to fully embrace the multiple, proven, medical benefits of the cannabis plant.