Enterprise and education – a CBD story

From selling personalised chocolates to CBD balms and edibles, Medivita founder Mike Peates tells Cannabis Health how his latest venture was inspired by his chronic pain.

As a salesman, Mike Peates was used to spending hour after hour in his car, travelling around 25,000 miles a year.

And when he stopped to set up his own business, making and selling personalised chocolates with company logos printed on them, he found the problem only increased, as he spent up to five hours a day standing.

“The final quarter of the year, from October through to January, would be my busiest time, and I’d be spending most of my working day on my feet,” he says.

“I already had chronic back pain from my years spent in cars, and, over the five years, I had the chocolate business, it just got worse and worse.

“It got to the point where I’d come home from work and I’d be lying on the floor for about an hour to try to straighten my back out. And then the next morning, it’d be very much a question of, ‘okay, how do I move to even just get out of bed?’.

“The pain was so bad; it was a question of doing every action in stages, like pushing a chair back, then standing up, then managing to walk and get out of the house and do a full day’s work. And I managed all this for a couple of years.”

It was a chance remark on a Facebook post that prompted Mike to look into alternative remedies for his pain – despite being a self-confessed sceptic.

He said: “I saw a post from an old school friend about a health food shop in Lincolnshire that was moving to larger premises in order to stock CBD products.

“I happened to be off work for a few days at the time and so I ended up in a bit of a Google wormhole, researching what CBD is and what it could be used for.

“And to be honest, I was the biggest cynic ever in regards to what I’d call ‘herbal medicine’ in inverted commas, I always thought it was just one of these fads people are joining up to more and more.”

However, Mike’s curiosity was piqued, and, having thoroughly researched what would be the best product to start with, he decided to give it a try.

“I must admit, the price was a little off-putting, and I was concerned it was quite an expensive way to try it and for it not to work, but then I thought, why not?

“So, I ordered some; it arrived the next day, and I told myself to be open-minded and give it a go.

“Well, I took a couple of drops and within 20 minutes, I could feel a huge difference. I mean, it wasn’t just like taking the edge off the pain; the pain almost disappeared. And that was just my first dose!”

Mike continued using the CBD – “it was just the case that it really, really worked for me” – while working on a project at a tech incubator hub in Basingstoke, where he lives. In need of a little extra cash, he began reselling the CBD he was buying online to family and friends, which was the catalyst for his latest venture.

He explains: “I got talking to my mentor at the tech incubator about it and said, ‘look, I’ve been doing this, I’ve sold about £700 in the first few weeks without even doing any marketing’.

“Now, he knows what he’s doing – he founded two businesses which he exited very successfully – and he suggested we sit down over coffee and have a chat about it all.

“So, one Saturday morning, we have that meeting, we came out and we decided we were going to set up a CBD business together.

“It wasn’t a quick process – it took most of the summer to actually choose a name and choose the branding – but by September we were ready and Medivita was born.”

Mike admits it took a while to get established, and both he and his business partner were keen to ensure they got the right product, which is where his own experiences proved invaluable.

“Because I’d taken CBD before, I knew what worked, but we went through about six or seven different samples of CBD oil before we before we decided on the one we now sell,” he says.

“We knew we wanted full spectrum (a variety typically high in CBD, with only trace amounts of minor cannabinoids, and very low in THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana). We knew we wanted it to be full plant and we knew that it actually had to work when I tested it – it actually had to deliver some benefit from taking it.

“To be honest, there were a few that I had which left me just feeling, ‘well, it’s okay, but it’s not great, it’s not just quite hitting the spot’. And supply wise, even a year ago it was actually quite difficult to find people wholesaling and white labelling (the practice of putting a different brand on a product than that of the original producer). I think in 12 months that has really, really changed, and it’s now a lot easier to find wholesalers and white labels.”

Since then, the business has gone from strength to strength, but Mike is keen to stress that Medivita is not simply about selling a product – he works with a number of groups to help them understand the potential benefits of CBD.

He explains: “We sell online and we sell quite a lot locally, but we also do a lot of work in the local area with the Basingstoke Disability Forum, doing talks at their events, to educate people.

“That’s why we closely follow the likes of Professor Mike Barnes and Dr Dani Gordon with what they do. It helps to keep ourselves up to date with what’s happening, but it’s also useful to have that knowledge when people ask us, not simply about our product, but about CBD levels and THC levels and the endocannabinoid system, and so forth.

“We want to become people who consumers can trust, through knowing what we’re doing so that we can give best information and let people make a really informed choice, rather than just buying the cheapest bottle on the shelf.”

Mike is aware of the cynicism surrounding the use of CBD as a food supplement, but, as a former sceptic himself, he is able to relate to a level of mistrust.

“When we’re talking to disability forums and the like, we are met with quite a bit of resistance – which I understand,” he says.

“We do find that because a lot of the people we speak to are on a full regime of medication, they can be quite reluctant to try something new. I remember one lady in particular from when we attended the Chronic Pain Forum, who we’ve just had a testimonial from.

“In January, I went to a meeting and met her, and in May, she bought her first bottle – so that was four months from me seeing her to her deciding to buy some. 

“And you know, she had exactly the same experience as me; as soon as she tried it, she was sleeping better, her pain was better, she’s a lot less stressed. And she wrote and told me, ‘You know, I was a cynic, when I saw you that night and I didn’t believe it’.

“So, we can definitely turn people’s opinions around, but we still meet with resistance.”

As for the future, Mike hopes to see more clarity in the industry, giving consumers the ability to make informed choices.

He said: “My vision, as a consumer as well as a seller, is getting to the point where consumer confidence is there, and I don’t think it is at the moment. I think that’s why some CBD businesses struggle, because we need clarity of labelling, we need clarity of what’s in the bottle, backed up with the lab reports on websites – very much like with alcohol, where, if you go and buy a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer, you can tell how much alcohol is in it.

“I think we need to get to that sort of standard whereby a bottle of CBD tells you exactly how much CBD is in there and how much THC is in there, so that people can make that informed purchase.

“If things continue as they are, then we may get to a position where a lot of CBD is synthetic, made by the pharmaceutical companies and that, from a consumer point of view, isn’t possibly the best way forward.

“In the industry, we know that the natural product is the one that works, and that should be what’s being promoted to the consumer.”

Whatever happens within the industry, Mike says Medivita is here to stay: “We’re quite small at the moment, I make no bones about that, but we’ve got plans to grow.

“We’re not in it for the short term, we’re in it for the long run; we’re not just interested in making a quick buck overnight.”