Interview with Marco Cappiello, CEO of Enecta
"After more than two years writing as a freelancer blogger for Enecta, I decided to call Marco Cappiello (a.k.a my boss) to ask him a couple of questions about the company I’m working with"
After more than two years writing as a freelancer blogger for Enecta, I decided to call Marco Cappiello (a.k.a my boss) to ask him a couple of questions about the company I’m working with.
I have noticed an abundance of new CBD companies appearing on the internet and I have become fascinated with the new methods that people are using to cure themselves.
Here are some of the most interesting points that Mr Cappiello told me about his experience in this field: I have learned more about CBD in a 10 minute phone call than I did reading all the misleading articles on the web.
Here is part to the interview.
You told me that Enecta started in 2012, what was it like back then for CBD extracts, and how did you decide to start?
“I started a company with my partner Jacopo, we were both extremely motivated to start our own venture. At the time, we were both living in Amsterdam and the cannabis scene here is more mature than in the rest of Europe. Enecta started introducing personal vaporisers meant for medical Cannabis inhalation. We wanted to bring a product to the market that could allow users to safely inhale not only THC, but also other Cannabinoids.
In 2012, CBD was pretty new; nobody knew what it was. We closely studied the compouds found in cannabis in order to determine their specific vaporization points.
How did you go from vaporisers to CBD?
“We started to ask ourselves about the legal status of Cannabinoids other than THC.
CBD is not part of any drug schedules, is not illegal, and it therefore is possible to extract it from the plant for a wider market as long as the level of THC is below a certain limit.
When we understood that it was possible for us to offer CBD to the market legally, we decide to dedicate our lives to these extracts. Little did we know that this choice would change our lives…”
It changed your life in which way?
“We decided to start extracting CBD oil for few customers using a small facility and a small extractor, our first “house made” extract created a lot of buzz in our network; lots of people got interested in what we were doing. We decided that we needed to bring the right people into the company if we wanted to offer a safe product. That’s when we started our quest for chemists, Phd’s and anybody that knew a little more about extracting cannabinoids”
How long did it take you?
“Surprisingly, not long at all. It was 2013 when we made our first “house extraction”. Two years later we already had a professional facility supporting our extractions. We designed a protocol for testing our product, and by the end of 2015 we started exporting CBD extracts to the first manufacturing companies, while developing our first branded product called “Ambrosia” which is an eliquid infused with CBD.
Where does the hemp you extract CBD from grow?
“In 2013, when we started extracting, we were purchasing Cannabis from local growers. Nobody knew what we were doing with it. At the time, Hemp was only considered good for fiber and seed oil. My partner comes from a long agricultural tradition in Italy, and we started to ask farmers to grow hemp for us. Some were uncertain, since hemp wasn't cultivated in Italy for many years. Others were very excited. We now cultivate all of Cannabis in Italy, only using material from farmers who follow our protocol and meet our quality standards.
This is the land where we were born, and this is the land we love the most for growing Hemp for CBD extraction”
What will be new this year? What are Enecta’s future plans?
“After almost 5 years of intense sacrifice, we have build a company which is made of professionals and experts in the field of Cannabinoids extraction. We have introduced our first product in several markets, and now we are busy getting as much feedback from our customers as possible so that we can continue to imporve our products. We want to be able to produce high quality CBD at affordable prices, because this product has to be accessible to anyone that wants to use alternative cures. Price is the biggest barrier we will break. In 2017, more people will be able to buy our extracts. That’s our promise.”Giuseppe Cantelmi