Question 1

What does consultancy actually mean at Rehemption?

Accepted Answer

Consultancy here is not a slide deck. It is sitting with you on the commercial path: which product can legally move, who can buy it, what the contract has to say, and which licences, analyses and customs steps stand between a farm and a buyer in the EU.

Richard leads that work. We map the lawful avenue for your product, structure the offtake or supply agreement, and stay with the deal until product is moving — not until a PDF has been emailed. If the answer is “this route is closed,” we say so early and look for the route that is open.

Question 2

How do you connect businesses with farms?

Accepted Answer

We match demand to production. A processor, brand, or importer in Germany, the UK, Poland, France, Portugal, or the wider EU needs volume, quality, and paperwork they can stand behind. A farm needs a real offtake — price, spec, timing, and a buyer who can actually receive the goods under EU rules. Rehemption sits in the middle: we qualify both sides, agree the product specification (variety, THC, moisture, intended use), put the contract in place, and line up the movement file — certificates of analysis, origin, and the import or intra-EU documents the destination country will ask for. The farm is not left hunting for a buyer. The business is not left buying a load it cannot legally bring in.

Question 3

What EU laws decide whether hemp can be grown, imported, or sold?

Accepted Answer

The EU treats industrial hemp as an agricultural crop when it stays within set THC limits. For cultivation eligible for CAP support, and for imports of raw hemp and hemp seed for sowing, the Union threshold is 0.3% THC. That rule is about the crop and raw hemp — it is not a free pass for every finished product on a shop shelf. Finished goods sit in other boxes: food and novel food, cosmetics, medicines, or controlled drugs. Those boxes do not all use the same 0.3% test. We start every mandate by classifying the product correctly, then we follow the law that actually applies to that class and to the Member State you are selling into.

Question 4

What is the difference between industrial hemp, medical hemp, THCA and medical cannabis?

Accepted Answer

They are the same plant species, Cannabis sativa. The law does not care what is printed on the bag. It cares about THC and THCA, what the product is for, and which licence you hold. Mixing these four up is how loads get seized and contracts fail. Industrial hemp is the agricultural crop: fibre, seed, hurd and low-THC biomass from listed varieties. In the EU, cultivation eligible for support and imports of raw hemp sit under a 0.3% THC threshold. This is a farm-and-commodity path — offtake, a COA, and movement as an agricultural good, not as a drug. Medical hemp is still hemp, not a licensed medicine. In trade it usually means CBD-rich flower or biomass grown inside those same hemp limits, destined for extraction or a therapeutic-positioned ingredient. If THC or THCA pushes it over the hemp line, it has left this category. It does not give you a medical-cannabis licence, and it does not let you sell a high-THC flower into the EU as “wellness hemp.” THCA is the acidic form of THC sitting in the raw plant. It is not intoxicating until heat — drying, smoking, baking, or some lab methods — decarboxylates it into Δ9-THC. EU food law does not ignore that conversion: maximum levels are set as Δ9-THC equivalents, meaning Δ9-THC plus 0.877 × Δ9-THCA, because THCA becomes THC in processing. High-THCA material that looks legal on a delta-9-only test will typically fail EU movement. We spec and test total potential THC, not a loophole assay. Medical cannabis is a controlled medicines path: authorised products or national special-access preparations, with defined cannabinoid content, GACP/GMP production, and narcotic or medicines licences. THC can be high. It does not travel as industrial hemp. Different contracts, different warehouses, different competent authorities. Rehemption will tell you which of the four you actually have before anyone books a container.

Question 5

Can hemp and hemp products move freely within the EU?

Accepted Answer

Raw industrial hemp that meets Union agricultural rules can move more easily than people expect — but it is not a blank cheque. Intra-EU trade can still hit national drug, food, or plant-health rules, and Member States do not all treat flower, extracts, or consumer CBD the same way. The Court of Justice has held that a Member State may not simply ban CBD that was lawfully produced in another Member State when that CBD is not a narcotic. That protects movement of qualifying goods. It does not override food law: ingestible CBD is still treated as an unauthorised novel food at EU level until a specific product is authorised. In practice we plan the corridor before the truck moves: origin, spec, COA, intended use (fibre, seed, food ingredient, cosmetic, or otherwise), and the national gate at destination. If the product cannot enter that Member State in that form, we do not ship it there.

Question 6

How do we bring farm product from outside the EU into Ireland or another Member State?

Accepted Answer

Third-country product — including African hemp — has to clear Union import rules as well as the destination country’s controls. Raw hemp and hemp seed for sowing must meet the 0.3% THC condition and the variety / verification requirements that sit with those imports. Food uses have separate contaminant limits (for example THC equivalents in hemp seed and hemp seed oil). Extracts and CBD intended to be eaten are not authorised as novel foods until the Union list says otherwise. That is the work: match the farm’s output to a lawful EU use, get the lab file and commercial contract right, and only then move the goods. We do not treat “hemp” as one product. Fibre, seed, biomass, extract, and a consumer SKU are different legal objects, and only some of them have a clean path into the EU today.

Question 7

Is this legal advice, and who signs the contracts?

Accepted Answer

We are consultants and deal-makers, not a substitute for your solicitor or the competent authority. What we do is translate the EU and national framework into a commercial plan you can execute: the right farm, the right buyer, the right product class, and a contract that names spec, volume, price, COA, Incoterms, and what happens if a load fails the lab. Richard works the legal avenues and the paperwork with you. You (and your counsel) remain the contracting party. Our job is to make sure you are not signing a deal the law will not let you perform.

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EU laws, product movement, and how we connect businesses with farms.