Andrew Abraham

Unintended muscle loss, which often accompanies rapid weight loss, is a common concern—and another reason why products like MYOS MD are easily digested supplements containing the patented ingredient Fortetropin, to help patients maintain and develop lean muscle. Please visit www.myosmd.com to learn more #myosmd #leanmuscle #fortetropin #sarcomenia #liveyourbestlife

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Only 27% of cannabis businesses are profitable, down from 42% in 2022. When it comes to minority owned businesses only 17.5% are profitable. According to The US Chamber of commerce, 65.3% of all small businesses in the U.S. are profitable. There is no easy fix, but starting at the local level is really important and a lot of times overlooked. Very restrictive zoning, creates an artificial shortage of available real estate. Real estate is usually the biggest cost and because of limited supply landlord charge outrageous rent. A lot of local governments charge predatory permitting fees and have very lengthy process to get permitted. We are less then three months away from the presidential election. This is time to hold your local officials accountable. Thank you Tony Lange from Cannabis Business Times for the economic update. https://lnkd.in/gcy2igMF

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🔬 Featured Product Review 🔬 Strain: Lime OG Lineage: Lime Skunk x Triple OG Cultivator: CROPS Dispensary: BLOC Bloc Dispensary 27%THCa 2.96% Total Terpenes Hybrid General Overview: We love us some Terpinolene which just happens to be the main terpene in this strain! Out the jar you get smacked in the face immediately by that very distinctive Terpinolene scent. These buds are big & pretty dense. A great amount of orange pistils & trichomes throughout the nice sticky buds. Tastes earthy, citrusy, & dank. One may experience euphoric, focused, and/or blissful effects after consuming some Lime OG! A prime strain to consume any time of day, maybe before work or even to relax after a long day of work. Have gotten this strain multiple times already. Would obviously get again.

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🔬 Recent epidemiological studies, including insights from a recent publication, highlight the nuanced roles of odd chain saturated fatty acids (OCSFA). Just as we've learned that different types of carbohydrates—like potatoes versus candy—impact our health differently over the long term, a similar understanding is evolving about fats. Traditionally, fats have been broadly categorized into saturated and unsaturated fats. More recently, we've refined these categories into saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and trans fats. However, it may be beneficial to delve even deeper, examining how different structures within saturated fats, like the carbon chain length of OCSFA, influence our health outcomes. This deeper understanding could revolutionize our approach to dietary fats and metabolic health. OCSFA can be derived through multiple pathways including α-oxidation in peroxisomes, de novo lipogenesis, dietary intake, and synthesis by gut microbiota. Despite their low concentrations, their potential as targets for reducing the risk of metabolic disease is significant. 🌿 Understanding how these fatty acids function could open new avenues for nutritional and metabolic health interventions. Let’s delve deeper into how integrating this knowledge could impact wellness strategies! https://lnkd.in/gUsGH55W #NutritionScience #MetabolicHealth #PublicHealth #Wellness

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🚀 Exciting News in the Shaker Bottle Industry! 🚀 A recent report reveals that the U.S. shaker bottles market is set to grow by $74.2 million from 2024 to 2028, fueled by the rising health and fitness trend! 🌱 With a projected CAGR of 4.51%, this growth is driven by an increasing demand for convenient, eco-friendly solutions—especially recyclable plastic options. Key insights include: Sustainability Focus: Consumers are leaning towards eco-friendly products, pushing brands to innovate with recyclable materials. E-commerce Boom: Online sales are becoming the primary channel for shaker bottles, making them more accessible than ever. Health Consciousness: The surge in fitness activities is driving demand for protein shakes and nutritional beverages. As we embrace a healthier lifestyle, it's fascinating to see how the shaker bottle market adapts and evolves.💬   What are your thoughts on the importance of sustainability in product design? Let's discuss! Read the full article here.

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While weight management is all the rage, are GLP-1 agonists really the answer? Check out my latest article in Natural Products Insider's digital magazine. "Unraveling weight management: Body Composition" 12-Ingredients to consider when formulating "Outside the Box" It starts on page 17 and is a simple download.

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As we open up the memory box, we find out that in this past video Fruit d’Or Cranberry seed has so many nutritional benefits to offer as a dietary supplement, cosmetic and functional food and beverage ingredient. Cranberry seed from Fruit D’Or has been tested by companies as a food source to help feed certain probiotic strains. Cranberry seed powder show benefits for healthy gut microbiome. Inside the cranberry seed you will find cranberry seed oil, which has been tested to contain omega-3-6-9 Health Canada has given Fruit D’Or and NPN registration number for cranberry seed oil to promote a claim asas a good source of Omega 3. Cranberry seed oil has many benefits for the dietary supplement industry and for cosmetic applications Fruit D’Or continues to innovate and as a zero way sustainable company finds ways to use all the components of the Cranberry to take Cranberry beyond UTI.

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As the cannabis industry matures, we are starting to get reliable data. This can help make decisions based on real sales figures and not predictions. 10 years ago, there was only one state with adult use sales (#colorado) and a handful of states with medical seals. Now there is 24 sates with adult use sales and an additional 15 states with medical seals. At the moment #california leads with total seals but #michigan leads with per capita seals. #florida leads in medical seals. #missouri with a relatively small population and only 17 months since they launched their adult-use market, is already in fifth place. Thank you Debra Borchardt from Green Market Report for the financial update. #cannabisindustry #cannabiscommunity #cannabisnews #cannabiseducation #cannabispolicy #cannbislaw https://lnkd.in/gc96gcCh

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Ingredient Listings: The best defense against Food Marketing Shenanigans True to its name, an "ingredient listing" is a listing of all the ingredients in a product. Taking advantage of their vital health information isn't easy, however. Manufacturers use the tiniest print legally allowable so most of us don't even notice the listings on a package. And anyway, who wants to read a paragraph of tiny gobbledygook? That's the idea, of course, since manufacturers don't want you to know what you might be eating.   Save your health--and life--by reading the fine print and finding out what you're really eating. Sure, you can get the calories, sugar, vitamins and fat content from the nutrition facts label, but far more important is knowing where those calories and fat are coming from: e.g., highly processed refined grains? poor oils? addictive sugars? questionable preservatives, fillers, colorings, etc.?   Pictured is an example of an ingredient listing. It's from Lay's Veggie Poppables assessed in the previous newsletter: https://bit.ly/487e3vi . Once you locate and read a listing, take a minute to consider what it's telling you. On the plus side, the Poppables are made with real foods. On the downside, ingredients are listed by their weight in the product, so you can see that these "Veggie" Poppables are mostly starch, flour and oil--and the oils are not the best. What's more, even if tomato, spinach and beet powders were a good substitute for the real thing, they are far down on the ingredient list. So don't get fooled into believing these are a great way to get more veggies into your diet! They're still just a snack food!

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Variables to consider when it comes to packaging and POS are relatively consistent across cannabis* and non-cannabis CPG. Some are pretty unique to cannabis. 📌 Standardization Across Markets Each state is a different planet in terms of packaging and label regs (resealable vs not resealable, terpenes vs no terpenes, what’s defined as “appealing to children”, etc.). To optimize COGs, packaging that conforms to your most conservative market is best as it’ll work across all markets. Bigger order quantities usually means lower pricing. To stand out on the shelf, boundaries need to be pushed. If the goal is to maximize market share, using overly conservative packaging in less conservative markets is not going to help. State-specific packaging leads to lower order quantities which generally means higher pricing. 📌 Static vs Variable Data, Printing, Touchpoints  Cannabis label info requires static data and variable data. Using external printers for static labels and in-house printers for variable labels is often best from a brand standpoint as external printers almost always have more capabilities than what cannabis operators have in-house. However, if printed separately this means two touch-points. Using in-house printers for static data and variable data means all data can be combined into one label (less touch-points) and the risk of relying on external vendors is eliminated. Unique branding elements may be more limited though. External printers can create labels that come with static info applied and a blank section where variable data can be printed in-house. To make this work, operators need to be able to feed the partially printed labels into an in-house printer that can add the variable data. This route can offer the best of worlds as branding elements can be maximized and touch-points minimized (one label). Mylar bag exception: All the static info can be printed directly on the bags (this looks the best) and simple black and white variable data labels can be printed in-house. This typically requires market specific bags though. 📌 Storage Space Cannabis producers and retailers almost always have less storage and transport space in comparison to the non-cannabis CPG world. Jars take up more space than mylar bags. Prerolls with external packaging take up more space than prerolls without. And so on. On the producer side, packaging that takes up more space means vaults fill up faster, transport vans can’t fit as many units, etc. On the retail side, the larger the packaging the smaller an order may be. Retailers only have so much storage space for each brand. They can fit way more mylar bags vs jars in the same space. 📌 POS displays There are no “big box” cannabis retailers. They’re mostly the size of C-stores. There’s no space for big end caps, etc. The more compact a display is, the better chance a retailer will find space for it. *the regulated THC dispensary market What’d I miss?

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To "better for you" CPG founders: SUNFLOWER OIL IS NOT BETTER FOR YOU. It may sound chic and healthy, but do not be fooled, sunflower oil is actually one of the oils with the highest amount of omega-6 fatty acids (read: bad) clocking in at a whopping 70%. This is ~3-4x worse than canola oil. For reference, humans should be eating foods that have 0-5% omega-6. These fats bioaccumulate in your tissues and take 2-4 years to get replaced after you stop eating them in high amounts. They oxidize the entire time they are in your body. Not good. And sorry to say, this also applies to "natural" skin and personal care products. Unstable oils react with UV and can damage DNA in skin. Not good. There's nothing "natural" about getting an ultra-processed fat from chemicals and machinery in a factory via a seed from a flower and then eating it or lathering it on your skin. Yes, the sun is great, flowers are beautiful, and sunflowers are cool, but that does NOT mean sunflower oil is a health product. If you are using these oils in your products, you are actively harming people. Please adjust accordingly. Please tag someone who uses sunflower oil in their product who doesn't know about this. And if you currently use any of these oils and want to improve your product DM me and I will personally help you (FOR FREE) transition away from seed oils.

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The cannabis companies that ‘WIN’ in 2025 and beyond will have these five things in common: 1) They understand the scale that they are trying to achieve and their entire operation is appropriately focused based on that scale. -Local companies need to market and connect locally (in an extremely authentic way) while focusing on profitable, sustainable revenue streams that are mostly consumer driven. -Statewide companies need to do the hard math and modeling to understand what realistic growth means for them. Set specific growth targets based on achieveable modeling. Too many statewide brands operate, market and spend like a national brand, and it will cost them in the end. -National brands must focus on lean profitability and maintain a highly targeted approach to their spending, despite a world that may seem like it has limitless customers. 2) They don’t try to do it all. Developing mastery and economies of scale in specific sectors, while building strong partnerships in the rest of the market, is the model for success in the years to come. The great companies from 2025-Federal Legalization will seek out expansion via truly strategic partnerships (and careful aquisitions) while the mediocre companies attempt to do it all themselves. The largest, best capitalized MSOs will be buying up statewide and regional businesse with lean, focused, positive-cashflow operations, which solve specific problems in their infrastructure. 3) They are building a business that is designed for the New World of Cannabis, and the Era of Commercialization. -We aren’t trappers anymore. -Hitting licks can only take you so far. -Weed is a CPG product. -THCA is sold openly online and in gas stations. -D9 Bevs and Gummies are sold in some of the deepest red states. -Weed by mail is probably here to stay. -Mushrooms are legal in various cities and states. -Consumer trust in a brand is the most valuable asset in the industry. No matter their scale, the companies that win in the next five years will integrate themselves into the new ways consumers interact with and purchase cannabis…. (Online, DTC, Low-Dose, Mixed Nootropic, Bev, Smoke Shop/Gas Station, Mass Market, Seshes, N.A. bars/lounges, add-on dispensary licenses) 4) They build continuous feedback loops with their customers. The great brands and companies that succeed into the 2030’s will have a deep, data-based understanding of their consumers at all levels. Brands must understand the buying criteria of the stores that carry them as well as the buying criteria of the consumers that drive sell-through. The very best will encourage a rewarding consumer engagement loop that directly influences operational decision making. 5) They just don’t quit. (In fact, they continue to innovate, pivot, and understand that at the end of the day, their business is change). A lot of cannabis operators will quit in the next five years. In all business, but especially in cannabis, sometimes it’s just about being there tomorrow.

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UPF [Ultra-processed foods] So, anything wrapped with an ingredient listed that you wouldn't find in your kitchen. If you check labels, you'd find ingredients you don't recognise which means that your body doesn't either. Which means that not only does it have to find a way to metabolise it, it has to deal with detoxing it too. When this process is repeatedly happening to rid the body of unnatural components, it'll tire you and your internal systems, creating all sorts of problems. The effects of this during our life cycle are bad enough, but when the hormones that work to protect and support us start to decrease, we need to really wake up. UPF is not food! Yet it's the main thing we eat. 60% of people in the UK are now overweight and it's what we're feeding our children. "It's addictive, highly profitable and the main cause of the global obesity pandemic. It's destroying our bodies, brains and the environment." (Dr Chris Van Tulleken) Thanks to Dee Murray of Menopause Experts Group Limited for highlighting these podcasts and his book 'Ultra-Processed People - Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food...and Why Can't We Stop?'. If you're interested to learn why people are fooled into this deadly habit, I can highly recommend Dr Chris and his twin Xand, their podcasts and books. #UPF #meg #menopause

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Optimizing egg quality is crucial to your fertility journey, especially if you're considering IVF. At AIM Women’s Wellness Center, we guide you through natural strategies to improve egg health—nutrition, stress management, and quality sleep play a key role. Ready to elevate your fertility naturally? Discover how holistic methods can enhance your chances of conception: https://vist.ly/3migic9 #fertility #fertilitysupport #eggquality

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Fruit d’Or leads the way as they have recently launched Cranberry and Wild Blueberry ingredients for Softgels and gummies. Fruit d’Or innovation team does it again as they have formulated cranberry and Wild Blueberry ingredients specifically for Softgel and gummies Click on this link below to read Press Release https://lnkd.in/g533uKTp As a result retail brand owners in the dietary supplement industry can take advantage of the FDA limited qualified health claim where Cranberry fruit powder is now recognized to support healthy urinary tract. To qualify for this FDA claim you need daily dose of 500 mg of cranberry fruit powder. This is a win-win situation as retail owners can generate greater sales and consumers can purchase new products that offer different delivery systems. To learn more visit Fruit d’Or website nutra.fruitdor.ca

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🔬Featured Review 🔬 Not much to really say here, just look & admire the greatness that is Strawberry Jelly #20 from Breakwater Treatment & Wellness dispensary via Terp Wizard. This is a SWEET cross between Strawberry Pie & Grape Cream Cake F2. “It’s exactly how you think it would smell & taste” - Words from our friend when we first opened the jar. Super heavy sweet scent pours out the jar after opening it. The buds are big, amazing structure, meticulously trimmed to near perfection. A plethora of orange pistils & crystals covering these extremely sticky, dark green, dense buds. While consuming, you can pick up the taste is aligned with it’s scent & strain name. Almost identical. Very tasty, super smooth and sweet with a bit of citrus to it as well. Some effects after consuming Strawberry Jelly #20 can be blissful, euphoric, stress-relief, content, focused, and/or uplifting. Great morning smoke with a cup of coffee (but really perfect for any time of day, especially for dessert 😋). Overall, 11/10. We would get this one hundred times over again. Also would (and already did) recommend to others! Keep up the insanely good work Breakwater!!!

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We had a great time at the DSHEA Summit in Salt Lake City, UT United Natural Products Alliance and NutraIngredients put together a great event, as always It was interesting to hear from the folks who actually developed DSHEA A few key takeaways: 1. FDA data related to inspections seems quite self-congratulatory when we, anecdotally, have seen a sharp decline in the quality of inspectors. As we know and was restated today, dietary supplement facility inspectors are first and foremost trained for food inspections and “dietary supplement training is available” - if it’s available, is it not required for those inspecting DS facilities? There’s a major gap here when we look towards protecting a $60B industry. 2. Mandatory Product Listings (MPL) continue to be a polarizing topic. I have thoughts (against) MPL but will save those for another post! 3. New Dietary Ingredient Notifications (NDIN) remain a challenge with FDA. Looking forward to Final Guidance here. 4. FDA - and many within the industry - have a limited understanding of the role influencers play in the modern supplement industry. My perspective? If you engage an influencer as a brand, they must receive some type of training and/or guiderails to ensure they don’t overstep when making claims. There’s a massive education opportunity here. 5. As an industry, we outpace FDA and always will. The dominant retailers and platforms like Amazon, Whole Foods Market, etc., and their requirements shape the industry beyond the confines of regulatory requirements and enforcement. Great to hear from: Scott Bass Bob Durkin Jim Emme Loren Israelsen George Paraskevakos Cara Welch, Ph.D. Christine Burdick-Bell Peter Reinecke Stephen Daniells And many others! It was also great to run into: Sarah Burden Asa Waldstein Alex Koves 🥦 Jacob Fishback Edgar Grigorian Caden Carter Israel Zepeda We can’t rely on FDA to keep our consumers safe or the industry honest; which is exactly why we built Qualitas Executive Group. With bright minds like Amber Rowley and Carly Tolman, we are ready to repair a fractured industry. #DSHEAsummit #dietarysupplements #quality #GMP #auditing #FDA

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🚨 Insightful DEA Report: Illicit marijuana flowers average a THC potency of 16%. 🌿💨 This statistic underscores a significant advantage of purchasing from licensed dispensaries—quality and safety. Unlike the unregulated market, dispensaries offer products that are tested, compliant, and consistent in their THC content. This not only ensures a safer consumer experience but also supports the legal cannabis industry committed to high standards. Why risk the unknown? Choose quality, safety, and reliability every time with dispensary-bought cannabis. Let's advocate for more informed consumer choices and support regulations that emphasize these benefits. Stay informed and choose wisely. #CannabisIndustry #ConsumerSafety #DispensaryQuality #THCPotency #RegulatedCannabis

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