Extracting CBD: from artisanal practice to industrial production
As the cannabis market expands, extraction technologies are moving towards scalable processes with a lower environmental impact. The case of Herbolea Biotech and solventless extraction
Cannabis extraction: regulation, scale and sustainable manufacturing
The value of cannabis no longer lies solely in the flower. Extracts obtained from the plant have become raw materials for pharmaceutical, cosmetic and other industrial applications, while oils, tinctures and other formulations have progressively expanded the range of products associated with legal cannabis markets.
The industry, however, has changed considerably since the beginning of the decade. Euromonitor International reported in February 2026 that global cannabis value sales continued to grow at a high single-digit rate in 2025, driven primarily by adult-use cannabis in the United States and medical cannabis, including the rapidly expanding German market. CBD and other non-intoxicating cannabinoids had a more difficult year, affected by regulatory uncertainty and changing market conditions. The United States remains the leading market across the main legal cannabis segments, while Germany has established itself among the world’s major cannabis markets.
Italy has moved in the opposite regulatory direction. Law No. 80 of 9 June 2025, converting the Security Decree, amended Law No. 242/2016 and introduced restrictions covering hemp inflorescences and products derived from them, including extracts, resins and oils, with the exception provided for agricultural seed production. The measure has since generated constitutional challenges: in 2026, the courts of Brindisi and Trani referred questions concerning Article 18 to the Constitutional Court, including its compatibility with constitutional principles and EU rules on the free movement of goods.
In this context, extraction techniques must respond both to industrial demand and to increasingly stringent requirements concerning quality, repeatability, worker safety and environmental impact. CO2 and ethanol extraction remain established methods for producing cannabis extracts. Both require dedicated equipment and controlled operating conditions; solvent recovery, energy use and capital expenditure become relevant considerations when the process is scaled. Solventless alternatives have traditionally included mechanical pressing and ice-water separation, techniques often associated with smaller-scale production and whose industrial scalability and extraction yields depend heavily on the material and desired end product.
The technological question is consequently no longer limited to whether cannabis can be extracted without conventional solvents. It concerns whether solventless extraction can become part of Sustainable Manufacturing at industrial scale, while delivering consistent purity and performance.
Herbolea Biotech: solventless hemp extraction at industrial scale
Founded in Tuscany in 2017, Herbolea Biotech develops and licenses extraction technologies for botanical materials. What began with an enzyme-assisted process has evolved into a platform comprising four interconnected patented technologies covering extraction, concentration, purification and fractionation. The company currently describes its system as capable of processing fresh or dried biomass without chemical solvents and producing high-purity ingredients for pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food and botanical applications.
At the centre of the platform is Bio-Herbolysis™, an enzyme-assisted lipid extraction technology designed to transfer and stabilise the plant phytocomplex into a lipid carrier. Herbolea reports that the process has been industrially demonstrated at processing rates above 300 kilograms per hour, with extraction efficiency above ninety percent. Processing fresh biomass also avoids the preliminary drying stage and, according to company data, can preserve a greater proportion of the plant’s terpene fraction.
«The possibility of processing fresh material makes it possible to avoid the drying process, during which part of the aromas contained in the raw material can be lost, as can part of the product through the development of pathogens such as moulds and fungi», explained Marco Merciai, CEO of Herbolea. «The process makes it possible to extract the plant’s entire phytocomplex, preserving cannabinoids in their original acidic form and therefore retaining properties that can otherwise be altered during conventional extraction processes».
The distinction is important in Hemp and cannabis processing because heat can convert acidic cannabinoids into their neutral forms through decarboxylation. An extraction technology able to work at low temperatures therefore gives manufacturers greater control over the chemical profile of the resulting ingredient.
Herbolea’s more recent development has moved beyond extraction alone. Its current platform includes technologies designed to concentrate, purify and fractionate botanical extracts without chemical solvents. In June 2025, the company announced a patented purification process intended to remove contaminants including pesticides, insecticides, heavy metals and microbial loads while producing high-purity botanical extracts.
This marks a shift from the early phase of the company described in the original research: solventless extraction is no longer presented as an ecological alternative to an industrial process, but as an industrial process in its own right.
From CBD and CBG concentrates to pharmaceutical-grade cannabis
The company initially developed technologies to concentrate non-intoxicating cannabinoids including CBD and CBG to purities above ninety percent while removing THC. Conventional purification of cannabinoids can involve chromatography and crystallisation, alongside the use of solvents and additional processing stages. Herbolea’s research has instead focused on integrating extraction and purification within a solventless platform.
Its commercial network has also expanded beyond Italy. In 2024, Herbolea signed a strategic partnership and licensing agreement with Morocco-based Laso-Bio, giving the company rights to use Herbolea’s extraction and purification technologies in Morocco for hemp and cannabis extracts destined for domestic and international markets.
The latest development moves the technology directly into pharmaceutical manufacturing. In February 2026, Herbolea and Portuguese pharmaceutical manufacturer Iberfar announced a collaboration to produce a solventless medical-cannabis active pharmaceutical ingredient under GMP conditions. The companies specify the ingredient at at least ninety percent total cannabinoids, with THC accounting for more than eighty percent of cannabinoid content. Commercial availability is scheduled for November 2026.
The extract can also be formulated with a terpene fraction obtained from the same plant, a system intended to improve traceability and consistency in medical formulations. Iberfar brings pharmaceutical manufacturing and GMP infrastructure to the partnership; Herbolea contributes its solventless extraction platform. Herbolea now reports operating facilities using its technology in seven countries.
The development illustrates how far cannabis extraction has moved from the small-scale solventless techniques that characterised an earlier phase of the industry. The question is now whether extraction technologies can satisfy pharmaceutical requirements for repeatability, purity and traceability without relying on conventional chemical solvents.
Beyond cannabis: hop extraction and botanical raw materials
The technological platform developed for cannabis is not restricted to Cannabis sativa. Herbolea has progressively repositioned its technology around botanical extraction more broadly, applying the same principles to different plant matrices.
Hops are one example. Conventional production of concentrated hop extracts can rely on supercritical CO2 systems, which require high-pressure equipment and substantial capital investment. Herbolea has tested alternative extraction processes for hop compounds, including alpha acids responsible for bitterness. Its current technology portfolio also includes the recovery of hop terpenes and concentrates containing xanthohumol, a prenylated flavonoid naturally present in hops.
The company’s diversification has extended further into bio-based industrial materials. In August 2024, Herbolea acquired a minority stake in Agroils Technologies, a company developing bio-based, formaldehyde-free resins for the wood-panel industry. The investment places botanical processing within a wider discussion about replacing petrochemical-derived materials with plant-based alternatives.
What began as a technology for cannabis extraction is therefore becoming a broader biorefining platform: the plant changes, while the industrial problem remains similar – how to separate and concentrate valuable compounds from botanical raw materials with fewer processing steps and without conventional chemical solvents.
The Military Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant in Florence and medical cannabis
Herbolea’s development is closely connected to Tuscany’s pharmaceutical and industrial ecosystem. In its early research, the company tested its technology on FM2 medical cannabis produced by the Military Chemical Pharmaceutical Plant in Florence, using the material to validate the performance of its extraction process.
The Florence facility remains a strategic component of Italy’s medical-cannabis system. Operated by the Italian Defence Industries Agency, the plant produces medicines and healthcare products of strategic interest, including orphan drugs and cannabis for medical use. As of May 2026, the Ministry of Defence continues to list medical cannabis production among the facility’s institutional activities.
The plant was originally established to meet the healthcare requirements of the armed forces and subsequently developed collaborations in pharmaceutical research and the production of medicines that may be difficult to source through conventional commercial channels. Its role in cannabis is therefore different from that of private extraction companies: it belongs to the country’s pharmaceutical supply infrastructure rather than to the consumer CBD market.
For Herbolea, access to this environment provided an early testing ground for turning an extraction concept into a reproducible industrial technology. Almost a decade after the company was founded, its partnership with Iberfar brings that trajectory back to pharmaceutical cannabis – this time within a GMP manufacturing system and an international supply chain.
CBD as food in Europe: from the 2020 opening to the Novel Food question
The regulatory position of CBD in food also requires a substantial update. In December 2020, following the United Nations decision to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the European Commission resumed the examination of CBD Novel Food applications after concluding that cannabidiol should not automatically be treated as a narcotic drug.
That development did not, however, amount to a general EU authorisation of CBD as food.
Under the current European framework, CBD extracts can fall within the Novel Food Regulation and require pre-market authorisation before they can legally be marketed for the relevant food use. The European Commission’s Novel Food status consultation records both CBD isolate and CBD extract as Novel Foods, while the Commission stresses that Novel Foods require authorisation based on a safety assessment before being placed on the EU market.
The scientific position has continued to evolve. In December 2025, EFSA derived a provisional safe intake of 0.0275 milligrams of CBD per kilogram of body weight per day – approximately two milligrams per day for a seventy-kilogram adult – for food supplements containing CBD with purity of at least ninety-eight percent, provided the production process is considered safe and genotoxicity has been ruled out. The provisional level does not apply to people under twenty-five, pregnant or breastfeeding women, or people taking medication. In May 2026, EFSA applied this framework in its assessment of a CBD isolate produced from Cannabis sativa.
Regulatory assessment is therefore becoming more specific at the same time as extraction technology becomes more sophisticated. Purity, production method, contaminants, cannabinoid profile and reproducibility are no longer merely manufacturing variables. They increasingly determine whether a cannabis-derived ingredient can move from botanical extract to regulated industrial product.
