Tag Archives: gloves

budgloves

BudGloves Makes Handling Cannabis Safer

By Aaron G. Biros
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budgloves

Kush Bottles, a packaging provider specific to the cannabis industry, recently launched the product BudGloves aimed at reducing the amount of human contact to cannabis products. The company is known for their child-resistant, regulatory compliant packaging.budgloves

The product BudGloves is the first glove of its kind engineered specifically for cannabis. The nitrile gloves do not contain any powder and are designed to prevent any transfer of resin, latex or powder to the cannabis. They are also slightly thicker than most other gloves to avoid getting caught or tearing, extending their life to withstand the typical shift of a trimmer or processor.

Nick Kovacevich, chief executive officer of Kush Bottles, wants to see a standard for preventing human contact with cannabis products to reduce the risk of contamination or loss in quality. Whether it is during cultivation, trimming, inspection, processing, transferring cannabis to instrumentation or even at the point of sale, it is important to minimize human contact to the cannabis.

“In California, we see bud tenders in dispensaries actually reach in a jar and grab cannabis to show the patient without gloves, which is a terrible standard operating procedure,” adds Kovacevich. “I would want all bud tenders to handle cannabis with gloves on.”rsz_budgloves2

Particularly when handling food-grade products, most health code regulations require the use of gloves like these. According to Kovacevich, oils and extracts can be at a greater risk of contamination. “It is imperative that concentrates and extracts, especially those with activated THC, are handled with gloves to prevent any outside materials or contaminants from sticking to them,” says Kovacevich. The gloves are manufactured to meet stringent quality standards. To promote safety and quality of cannabis, reducing human contact with the product should be an important part of any company’s employee manual.

Cannabis Coaching & Compliance

Food Safety Training: A Story of Poo

By Maureen McNamara
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Cannabis Trainers: A Story of Poo

Are you an excellent hand washer?
Almost everyone answers this question with a big “YES!”

The reality? Researchers let us know that most people don’t wash their hands thoroughly or frequently. Especially men… sorry fellas!

I know, I understand that this sounds super basic. However, it is an integral part of ensuring that your business doesn’t contribute to any of the millions of food borne illnesses each year in the United States. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are approximately 48 million cases of food borne illness, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3000 deaths resulting from food borne illness. 

For us in the cannabis industry, many of our products are known as “ready to eat foods” or, foods that do not require heating prior to eating. This allows us to keep things a bit simpler for our customers and patients. The most prevalent foodborne illness is the norovirus, which is linked to ready to eat foods and poor personal hygiene factors.

Keep in mind that even though we [typically] are not working with high risk foods (think: poultry, fish, beef etc.), we may very likely be creating food for a high risk population (patients with compromised immune systems), and great personal hygiene is imperative.

  1. Is your team using gloves or utensils to handle all ready to eat foods?

  2. Do you wash hands prior to gloving?

  3. Are hands being washed with at least 100*F water for 20 seconds?

One tool that I like to use in our food safety classes to illustrate the point that hand washing is typically done quickly and poorly is GloGerm. This highlights where the areas for improvement are for each person with hand washing.

I am often asked about hand sanitizer. For all you busy people out there… listen up! Hand sanitizer does NOT replace hand washing ever.
Seriously- never. Here is my analogy for you:
Hand sanitizer on dirty hands is like whipped cream on poop. You’re welcome for that mental image.

Frequent, thorough hand washing is essential to ensure that your team creates food safely and with integrity. The truth is, fecal contamination is a big deal. And although we may all claim that we are great hand washers, there is often room for improvement.

Ready to learn more? Join us for one of our ServSafe Food Handler courses that we customize to the specific needs of the cannabis industry.

www.CannabisTrainers.com