With over 30 years’ of protected crop cultivation experience, our Technical & Cultivation Director, Andrew Fuller has been leading our research and development work in Hemp and Cannabis cultivation.

As a result of extensive cultivation trials on a number of different varieties of Hemp and Cannabis plant, we have been able to selectively breed our own proprietary genetics. Working with our own genetic plant material ensures we achieve consistent plant growth suited to our large scale glasshouse environment, with optimised Cannabinoid yields.

Led by Professor Ray Marriott, our team of process chemistry and product development experts have been working for a number of years on perfecting the extraction process for Cannabinoids using CO₂.

This ground breaking research includes a patent filed for the production of purified Cannabidiol in one single process without the need for further distillation, winterisation or the use of solvents, and a second patent filed for cannabinoid interconversion.

In a market with significant regulatory barriers, since 2018 we have been progressively developing our research and development capabilities within the Home Office’s domestic licensing framework for controlled drugs.

We have held a research and development licence for high THC Cannabis since January 2020 and are permitted under this license to cultivate, extract and test Cannabinoid products for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical markets.

In January 2019 it was confirmed that Cannabidiol (CBD) is regarded as a Novel Food and as such requires authorisation before it can be legally sold in Great Britain and the European Union.

In August 2022 we submitted a Novel Food application to the UK Food Standards Agency for our UK cultivated, high purity Cannabidiol extract. Our submission included proprietary safety, toxicology and stability data demonstrating its suitability for human consumption as a food/food supplement.

Since 2020 Bridge Farm Bioscience has been partnered with Loughborough University looking at the effects of Cannabidiol on the physiological and metabolic functions in the human body.

Involving the funding of a 3 year PHD student under Dr Lewis James, a senior lecturer in Human Nutrition, the research carried out has been able to support our UK Food Standards Agency Novel Food application with essential pharmacokinetic safety data.

In 2022 we began funding a second PHD student’s research, looking at the effective administration of topically applied Cannabinoids.