Online retail giant Amazon has launched a pilot program allowing the sale of select CBD ingestibles on its UK website.
The company says “sellers participating in a limited, invite-only pilot” on the UK site are exempt from its sales ban on edible products containing CBD or other cannabinoids.
“This pilot only applies to products listed on Amazon.co.uk and is not available on other Amazon websites,” the company wrote. “The pilot is not accepting additional sellers currently.”
Brands participating in the pilot program include the UK-based supplement makers Healthspan and Natures Aid.
Harry Staight, who handles corporate communications at Amazon’s UK office, told Hemp Industry Daily that the program was launched over the summer. He declined to comment on how many companies were invited to take part in the programme, the criteria used to select them and how the pilot program will be evaluated.
Food products and supplements containing plant-derived CBD have required pre-market Novel Food authorization in the UK since 2019, but discrepancies in enforcement have allowed them to proliferate across Europe.
In an effort to bring the CBD market into compliance, the UK’s Food Standards Agency set a deadline of March 2021 for companies to have their products tested and validated by authorities in order to remain on the market. Products without a validated Novel Food authorization application will be removed from shelves starting April 1.
Staight declined to say whether Amazon has aspirations of selling CBD brands with validated Novel Food applications after the FSA deadline.
