Ben Walker is the founder of Canavape, one of the largest CBD oil manufacturers in the UK. Canavape was the first company to sell CBD vape oil in the UK and European markets all the way back in 2014 and have since gone from strength to strength introducing a whole range of CBD oil products to the market.
Table of Contents
Q: What brought you to this career path?
I was diagnosed with a degenerative autoimmune disease that I found could be managed quite well with phytocannabinoids like CBD. I had always found the cannabis plant to be fascinating and I wanted to understand it more and see how it could help others.
Q: When did you first hear about CBD benefits?
My father was an arboriculturist and so I was heavily influenced by trees and plants from an early age. I would have read a lot regarding the compounds that make up the cannabis plant but it wasn't until 2011 when I started seeing GW pharmaceuticals making waves that I really stood up and took notice and finally in 2014 I incorporated Canavape.
Q: What’s the most interesting thing that has happened to you since starting your company?
Like most people starting out, the business was confined to a spare bedroom and a small shed in my home. Within a couple of years though, the Canavape customer base had grown so much so that we proudly moved into a warehouse in Camden Town in London.
Q: What is the most exciting thing about the CBD industry?
I see the lead into full regulation of cannabis and cannabis extracts as the most exciting thing to happen in the business. Regulation may not sound exciting but it will result in only quality products being placed on the market and will remove inferior questionable products, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and further acceptance.
Q: What has been your biggest obstacle?
The biggest short term obstacle at the moment is the sheer number of brands out there but we are confident that future regulation will remove this. Competition was obviously a huge obstacle at the beginning for us but we found that listening to our customers and implementing their ideas into our products created a trusting and loyal customer base. Finding a award winning cbd white label company in the UK
Q: Do you use CBD and what for?
I suffer from a degenerative autoimmune disease which is basically arthritis of the skeleton, an inflammatory disease that causes chronic pain that I use CBD oil to manage.
I use CBD oil once every three days in a really high dose. I either take 1ml dose containing 200mg of CBD or I take 2 capsules which contain 200mg of CBD once every three days.
Q: How do you stand out from the competition?
We produce our own third-party tested CBD oil in a state of the art lab using pure CBD and CBG cannabinoids. Each bottle is handmade by experienced professional staff to ensure only the highest quality oil ends up in our customer's hands.
Q: To what do you attribute your success?
A lot of people thought I was crazy talking about starting a cannabis business back in 2014 but my family believed in me and believed in what CBD could do for me and others.
My diagnosis pushed me into CBD and my family motivated me into starting Canavape but I am forever grateful to the fantastic staff I have working with me every day who help produce the highest quality CBD oil and vape oil on the market.
Q: What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting a CBD company?
I tried to do everything at once earlier on which slowed me down but I learned over time to look at the bigger picture. You have got 3-5 years to do something, not 3-5 months.
Plan everything and know it is a marathon, not a sprint.
I was the first man in the UK to sell CBD vape oil and back then there was not a lot of people to turn to for advice but now there are fifty people in my phone I can ring from scientists to researchers to hemp farmers if I ever need advice.
Q: Are you working on any new exciting projects?
We are going out to mainstream retailers over the next few weeks so the Canavape brand is going to be everywhere.
We are really excited by our ECS brand and we will be expanding our product line for a whole range of new applications. We are constantly trying to improve our products by making them taste better, look better and be more affordable so everyone can benefit from CBD.
RELATED: Six questions about CBD
