A Guide to CBD in Functional Foods for 2025
Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the more than 100 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. Among these, CBD stands out as the most popular due to its abundance in the plant, ease of extraction, and extensive scientific study. This guide to CBD in functional food highlights how CBD has reshaped perceptions of the cannabis plant, associating it with health benefits instead of substance abuse.
What makes cannabinoids remarkable is their diverse functions. Sometimes, they work synergistically, amplifying each other's effects, while at other times, they act independently. Given its extensive health benefits, it's high time to include CBD in a regular diet and recognize it as one of the most potent functional foods. This guide to CBD in functional food explores why integrating CBD into daily nutrition can help address various health challenges.
There are compelling reasons to consider CBD as a functional food. Currently, 70% of all clinical conditions are chronic non-infectious ailments. Chronic disorders, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and joint pain, are hard to treat with medications, causing significant disability and discomfort. Research suggests these conditions are largely preventable and manageable through lifestyle interventions rather than pharmaceuticals.
Understanding how CBD can support managing chronic disorders is critical. Daily health supplement use can be inconvenient for some individuals, but incorporating CBD into a functional diet offers a seamless and effective way to promote wellness and prevent chronic ailments.
What Are Functional Foods?
These are food items with health benefits extending beyond their nutritional value. It means that they not only provide energy and vital nutrients to the body but also help prevent and even manage health conditions.
Thus, for example, many spices like turmeric are not only used to color the food, improve its aroma, or for nutritional value, but it also has many other health benefits.
Similarly, CBD is an excellent functional food. It mainly means creating products high in nutritional value and having the health benefits of CBD. It could be CBD-infused foods or even food products solely made of various parts of the cannabis plant.
Thus, take the example of hemp seed meal or hemp seed cake. It is what is left of the hemp seed after extracting its oil. However, this hemp cake is rich in vegan proteins, vitamins, and minerals, have small amounts of essential fatty acids, and can be readily sourced. If we add CBD to this, we can create a food product that is nutritious and has all the health benefits of CBD.
Another example could be hemp seed oil, a healthy oil that is quite rich in omega-3 fatty acids. However, hemp seed oil is naturally CBD-free. But, adding CBD to hemp seed oil would create excellent functional food.
Unlike healthy supplements, functional food is primarily for regular consumption as a part of a regular diet. Thus, for example, one can create smoothies using CBD-infused hemp seed meal or CBD-infused hemp seed oil as a salad dressing.
What Are Some Key Functional Food Benefits?
Functional foods provide many unique benefits over other products like food supplements or natural remedies. Perhaps the biggest advantage is a better nutritional profile and palatability. When consuming functional foods, one does not feel like taking some medicine. Thus, functional foods are easier to add to the daily regime. These foods are consumed just like any other food, and yet they have many health benefits.
When it comes to health benefits, the possibilities are limitless. This is because functional foods are not necessarily made using a single plant extract. Thus, one can add CBD to different healthy foods to create functional foods.
As already mentioned, one can use hemp seed meal with added CBD to make smoothies. One can use it before and after the workout. However, unlike conventional high protein supplements, it would also have the benefits of CBD, which may mean low anxiety, better focus, faster recovery, and the lesser problem of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It may also mean improved metabolic health and more.
Similarly, using hemp seed oil as a part of the diet is good, as it is quite nutritious. But hemp seed oil with CBD would be even more wonderful.
As already said one can create even better products by combining different foods. Thus, just think about having CBD-infused multi-fruit juice daily in the morning. This would have all the benefits of multi-fruit juice, along with the health benefits of CBD. Furthermore, one can even fortify this juice with vitamins and minerals to create a highly beneficial and unique offering. Thus, as one can see possibilities here are endless.
What Are the Stages of CBD-Infused Functional Food Prep?
As the CBD market is quite saturated, one of the ways to stand out in the industry is by exploring CBD-infused functional foods. This guide to CBD in functional food highlights the almost endless possibilities in this segment. For instance, you could create a CBD-infused food range targeting physically active individuals or focus on managing specific ailments.
Creating CBD-infused functional food is relatively straightforward. A simple starting point could be developing a food supplement range and incorporating CBD into the formulas. These could include products like vegan protein powders, pre- or post-workout shakes, meal replacement plans, or more niche offerings like foods for joint health, diabetes, brain health, and beyond.
Once you've settled on an idea, it's crucial to determine whether your food item is oil-based or water-based. This distinction is vital because CBD is naturally fat-soluble but has poor solubility in water, affecting the formulation process and overall product quality.
Thus, when it comes to adding CBD to oil-based products, it is pretty simple. One can buy CBD wholesale, like CBD isolate or THC-free broad spectrum CBD distillate, and then add these to foods.
However, if you want to create a CBD-infused energy drink, then you would need to use water-soluble CBD isolate or water-soluble distillate. Unfortunately, there are very few companies in the market like Essentia Pura that produce water-soluble CBD. It is essentially a nano-emulsified liquid concentrate that is ready to add to just any water-based food and has excellent bioavailability.
Additionally, when creating products, one should also think about adding other beneficial ingredients to differentiate the product from the market. For example, a CBD-infused sports drink with curcumin and vitamin B reduces post-workout inflammation.
What Is the State of the Functional Food Market in 2025?
It is relatively difficult to say as there is no clear data. Moreover, definitions of functional foods differ globally. However, what we know is that the wellness market is almost $4 trillion, which is massive. Additionally, we know that CBD has been one of the major growth drivers of the functional food market for the last few years.
There are many reasons for the lack of accurate data. Just take an example of fortified juices. Some would say that it is just a food item, another would call it a health supplement, and yet others may classify it as a functional food. Generally, criteria differentiating between foods, functional foods, and healthy supplements vary significantly between the various nations, creating significant challenges.
Nevertheless, the CBD market is growing in North America and Europe. Another encouraging point is that the market will continue to grow for a decade or more. The demand for CBD products is continually growing, and the market is still struggling to meet consumer demands. Thus, though the CBD oil market may be much saturated, the market of CBD-infused foods is still nascent and offers many business opportunities.
Top Ways to Boost Functional Food Intake?
If you have decided to get into the functional food segment, there is still a lot to think about before launching any food product. One of the ways to start is to identify the segment that you want to enter, such as the CBD-infused foods mentioned in this guide to CBD in functional food. For example, some may come up with a vegan range of products, others focus on foods for brain health and more.
If you want to know more about ways of boosting functional food intake, it is not very difficult. Here, the secret is pretty simple: instead of choosing usual foods, it's better to choose food products with added health benefits.
Take dietary oil intake as an example. Everyone consumes oil in one way or another. However, instead of going for regular vegetable oil, you could opt for organic, cold-pressed, omega-3 fatty acids-rich vegetable oil. If you can find such vegetable oil with CBD, that would be even better.
Similarly, instead of a regular glass of juice in the morning, why not consider multi-fruit juice fortified with vitamins or other beneficial herbs? Such a juice would not only be nutritious but also beneficial to your health.
About us
At Essentia Pura, we specialize in manufacturing high-quality white-label and private-label CBD products, helping businesses launch their own unique CBD brands. With cutting-edge hemp extraction methods and a commitment to compliance and quality, we support companies in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Whether you’re looking for ready-to-market formulations or custom solutions, we’re here to help you succeed in the growing CBD market.
