Opportunities ‘around the edges’ of the cannabis market may open up for functional food and nutrition companies as a handful of European countries have now legalised non-medical personal use, says one expert.
February 3, 2025
Four countries in Europe – Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, and Switzerland – recently reformed laws on recreational cannabis, offering varied models around personal possession, home cultivation, cooperatives, pilot programmes, and consumption.
Germany and Malta had legalised home cultivation and the sale of some variants of cannabis – flowers and hashish in Germany, and flowers and seeds in Malta.
The Netherlands and Switzerland had legalised the sale of cannabis flowers, hashish, and edibles, with supplies required from permitted designated growers, licensed cultivators, and private companies only.
Across the four markets, personal consumption rules varied, with consumption inside and on the terraces of coffee shops allowed in the Netherlands; public consumption restrictions in place for Malta and Switzerland; and Germany limiting public consumption to certain areas and times.
Speaking to Vitafoods Insights, Barnaby Page, editorial director at Tamarind Intelligence, the company behind specialised cannabis data firm CannIntelligence, said the current regulatory state of the European cannabis market could be best described as a “kind of halfway house”.
“We've moved forward from the days when cannabis was strictly prohibited everywhere,” Page said. “...What we don't have in any European country as of yet is a kind of US, Canada, Uruguay model of complete legislation.”
So, do these regulatory shifts across Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, and Switzerland present any real opportunity for industry – notably, companies in the functional food and nutrition space?
Because these new laws target cultivation, distribution, and sales for personal cannabis use, Page said businesses are “more or less excluded from the equation”.
However, with cultivation cooperatives, associations, and pilot programmes permitted under these new regulations, there will inevitably be need for supply and services, he said, which presents “some small opportunities” for industry. Research and development, for example, could be an interesting space that nutrition and food companies could play into eventually.
“It's not like they'd face competition from a large number of cannabis specialists, because Europe hasn't had the opportunity to develop that cannabis ecosystem,” he said. “So, from an R&D side of things, particularly when it comes to edible product, there is clearly something food companies could add.”
There will also probably be scope for partnerships, including with pharmaceutical companies, on the research and development side of the medical cannabis market, he said, adding: “We see medical cannabis being, in many ways, a more promising or active area.”
And while medical cannabis is more closely aligned with the pharmaceutical industry, Page said that for food and nutrition companies working in human health, the scope and potential is not “totally unrelated”, and thus partnerships make a lot of sense.
Similarly, nutrition and food companies with specialties in protective packaging may also find space to contribute to this new and evolving personal consumption cannabis market.
“There may be some opportunities around the edges; it's the marginal, little things, but it's a sector worth watching,” Page said.
The sector is worth watching, Page said, because the potential is huge and changes to legislation across other European countries are inevitable in the longer term.
“It's potentially such a large market if it did open up, that it is worth tracking.
“...Clearly, if cannabis did become fully legalised in any part of Europe, the [nutrition and food] space would be well positioned, I would think, to provide edible products – a fairly large part of the market,” he said.
But changes to law – and thus, large-scale opportunities – are not set to happen overnight.
“For any dramatic, pan-European opening up as a market, we would have to see an EU-wide liberalisation of the rules,” Page said. “Now, I don't think that's impossible, but I wouldn't expect it to happen tomorrow.”
Over the next year or two, he said, changes to cannabis regulation across Europe would remain small – but within a decade it is likely that large parts of the EU will have some form of legalisation.
“Don't expect very rapid change, do expect change over the longer term,” he added.
Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, and Switzerland each have different regulations on non-medical, personal use of cannabis. Further details can be found below:
Germany: www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/en/themen/cannabis/faq-cannabis-act.html
Malta: https://legislation.mt/eli/act/2021/66/eng
The Netherlands: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0043738/2022-06-1
Switzerland: www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/gesund-leben/sucht-und-gesundheit/cannabis/pilotprojekte.html
Read more about:
Europe
