The popularity of hemp is on the rise as peer-reviewed research confirms the nutritional and environmental benefits. Chad Rosen, Founder of Victory Hemp Foods explains how this knowledge has altered the hemp market.
Chad Rosen: I think that one thing that's nice about media and just having access to information with information technology is if you put a grain, a kernel of truth, or even if it's not truthful, but it might be sensical, people are going to listen to that. They're going to think about it, and then they're going to go research and they're going to go third-party validate. Our government did just a tremendous job with the Reefer Madness campaigns in the '30s to get people thinking that cannabis was the devil's lettuce. They just squash it out with their heel and put real fear factor in people's minds. Now folks are saying, "Well, what is the truth? What was the truth? I want to know for myself."
So what we have is this little bit of a halo around hemp where people have gotten hip to the idea that this has been something that's been held back from them for really bad reasons, for no good reasons. So it's a little bit of the forbidden fruit that is actually just tremendous. As people learn more, as they read more of the white papers that are peer reviewed, and they see the nutritional benefits and they begin to understand all the benefits and look at food as medicine and sustenance, as opposed to just something to fill their bellies, but something that can actually provide them value to power through their days and live long and healthy lives, they're looking more and more towards solutions. And the blinders are off. People are looking for those solutions and hemp rises to the top of the list based on the fact that, as I said, peer reviewed research breaking down the constituent ingredients in hemp and looking at how it fits into the human diet just propel it to the top of the list of healthy foods that you really need to incorporate into your diet.
So I think that those stigmas are falling away rapidly and we're really in a phase right now where there's so much excitement and headlines around hemp and alternative proteins because people are looking for alternatives to some of the products that have been in their diet for so long that haven't been serving them well, that hemp is really at this crossroads of consumer interest and at a time when people are looking for alternatives. So we're really kind of riding this wave of being in the right place at the right time to deliver solutions to the market.