The tag line for the new topical from Wildwood Labs says it all: healthy, not high.
Shane Wiebe, Wildwood’s co-owner and managing director, was on hand at Little Leaf in Stratford Friday, Dec. 13, to help usher in the company’s newest product: the Hempstick Warming Cinnamon Ginger, something that Weibe says is one-of-a-kind of the market in Canada.
“It’s a full spectrum product, which means we take the hemp itself and extract is since we don’t use any chemical processes to turn it into a very isolated product,” he said. “We’re finding that using slow extraction is a very effective way in helping people with their symptoms of pain – muscle pain, joint pain and so on.”
The stick resembles a deodorant roll-on and contains beeswax, coconut oil, shea butter, the full spectrum hemp extract, and then cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, wintergreen, clove and orange organic essential oils. Each unit contains 525mg of cannabidiol (CBD) and between 55-75mg of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The effect, Wiebe said, is soothing relief without getting high. And by introducing the product through Little Leaf in Stratford, it’s reaching the desired market.
“It’s almost like a race to see how much THC you can have (in products) for as little amount of money as possible, and that’s what we’re seeing in some of these larger chains,” he said. “Little Leaf has done a beautiful job of focusing on wellness, which is a better descriptor for the holistic approach to what cannabis is.”
The process for this project began a few years ago when Wiebe and his partners began experimenting with hemp to see if they could make an effective topical relief stick. They started small, getting feedback from family and friends while they continue to research.
“Hemp is one of those amazing products – it houses us, it heals us, it feeds us,” he said. “There’s a lot of versatility to it, so we grew that with intention to be part of the hemp market and we then thought about how effective it was as a product that brings relief to people. It’s been three years of cutting red tape with the government to get this in place, but we’re here and it's exciting to see it hit the market finally.”
That process of getting the stick accepted to the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) was arduous at times, and Wiebe credits Leanne and Paul McPhie from Little Leaf in Stratford as acting like cheerleaders and tour guides at the same time as they helped shepherd him through the regulations. Wiebe called the product launch more of a partnership, and Leanne McPhie said it feels good to support a local producer with a product that is all natural.
“It’s really, really important to me that we offer products that are natural to people, so it’s just an awesome kind of marriage between two companies like this,” she said. “It’s incredible to see Shane and Wildwood get across the finish line because when they came to us about a year and a half ago with a sample of their product, I absolutely loved it and told him you need to get this to market because we don’t have anything like it in the cannabis industry right now. We truly believe in the wellness aspect and I want it to be as natural as possible, and they’re the only one with a full-spectrum product on the market. I think it’s going to be great for our customers.”
Paul McPhie added they played a part in the product’s evolution, contributing thoughts on which essential oils to include.
“I thought that was neat, and it speaks to the fact that they weren’t just a bunch of guys sitting in the basement trying to come up with some concoction,” he said. “It was really wanting to know what the market needed, and so coming through us, being the leaders in Canada’s wellness in Ontario, was added value.”
Leanne McPhie said the stick will be very complimentary to the store’s other products, allowing people the opportunity to find their own unique path to wellness from both inside and out.
Wiebe is excited to be able to pair up with ‘their hometown store’ to get the stick into the OCS and make it available for consumers.
“This is the first item to become available among the projects we have going,” he said. “Over the next year, there will be more. And that we’re releasing it at Christmas makes it a good gift idea but we do have another product coming out in January. But like we say, you can be healthy and not high.”
