We are excited to announce CannMed 2021’s Keynote Presenter in the Safety Focus Area is Grace Bandong, Scientific Strategy Leader Contaminants for Eurofins Food Integrity and Innovations.



The title of Ms. Bandong’s presentation is “Risk Based Hazards Analysis: A Tool for Building A Comprehensive Analytical Testing Program,” in which she will explore the vulnerability of products/ingredients to contaminants and present a risk-based process for identifying potential hazards. Her presentation will also include a review of current regulation and requirements for pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents and other contaminants in cannabis and cannabis-derived products.



Ms. Bandong is a sought-after expert, speaker and author on the subject of product safety and risk in the cannabis industry. She is the Scientific Strategy Leader for Contaminants for Eurofins Food Integrity and Innovations and has spent over 25 years in the food and supplement industry specializing in contaminants analysis and risk assessments.



Over the years, Ms. Bandong has developed contaminant testing programs that support supplier verification for food manufacturers and recently, the hemp industry. She has developed a process for a hazards-based chemical risk assessment of ingredients that has been used by companies to respond to global regulatory requirements. She is an expert on the analysis of risk assessments of contaminants in food.



Product safety and quality are obviously a major concern for the cannabis industry. But an area that is often neglected in the development of standards is the definition of specifications for contaminants in general and chemical hazards in particular. The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 calls out microbial contamination, as well as the concern for chemical hazards and requires a risk-based hazard analysis for ingredients used in the manufacture of food.



In the cannabis industry, regulations concerning microbial contamination vary from state to state, compounding the issue of insuring quality control for cannabis products. But what’s worse is that regulations regarding pesticide use and other chemical contaminants are seriously lacking. Ms. Bandong’s position is that adapting regulatory practices from the food industry to the cannabis industry would be highly beneficial. And here’s where a risk-based analysis model could prove to be worthwhile.



Chemical contaminants can cause serious damage to customer’s health and have major effects on a business. But it’s often not realistic to test every lot of an ingredient for every chemical contaminant. A risk analysis model would be able to identify and weigh risk for various ingredients resulting in a better understanding of the product, from the ground to the shelf, and allowing for a balanced allocation of resources for monitoring ingredients as well as final products.



Ms. Bandong is in an ideal to affect the adoption of such recommendations. She is an active member of AOAC and is currently on the Executive Board of the AOAC Pacific Southwest section. She is also on the Technical Committee of the US Hemp Authority and a member of the HIA’s Sampling and Analytical Task Force.



She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of the Philippines and her M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Houston.



We are looking forward to her keynote presentation at CannMed 2021 and enjoyed having her as a guest on the CannMed Coffee Talk Podcast. Click the player below to listen!