Astra Hemp CBD Chewing Gum 17mg, Blister Packs

Seventeen milligrams of what, exactly

The manufacturer's specification block, which appears verbatim across several of its labels, reads as one unit: seventeen milligrams of CBD, content twelve pieces, seventeen grams. Presented that way, the milligram figure describes the blister. Twelve pieces sharing seventeen milligrams works out at roughly one and a half milligrams in a piece of gum.

The only UK retailer we found ranking for this product reads it the other way. Its listing is titled two hundred and four milligrams, seventeen milligrams each, which is twelve times seventeen. If that were right, a single piece of this gum would carry more CBD than most gummies in the same catalogue.

A European wholesaler manages a third answer, with a figure in its own URL that appears to be a mangled version of the second.

Two things make this easier to get wrong than it should be. The blister weighs seventeen grams and holds seventeen milligrams of CBD, so the two numbers look the same at a glance and are trivially swapped. And the display carton weighs four hundred and eight grams, which is twenty four times seventeen grams, confirming that the seventeen is a weight in that context and telling you nothing at all about the milligrams.

Our reading is that seventeen milligrams describes the blister, because that is how the manufacturer's own copy lays it out. We are stating that as a reading rather than as a fact, because the maker has never said it unambiguously, and we have asked our supplier for the pack artwork to settle it. If a precise amount per piece matters to you, wait for that answer rather than ordering on ours.

The two flavours

Two in this strength, and they are genuinely different propositions rather than two fruit flavours.

Sold-out options stay visible in the picker rather than being hidden, so you can see the whole range and what is due back.

What is in it, and where the sister labels differ

The declaration is a fairly standard sugar-free gum with two additions. Sweeteners are sorbitol, isomalt, maltitol syrup, acesulfame K and sucralose. Then a gum base containing soy lecithin, flavours, glycerol as a humectant, gum arabic, hemp oil at nought point three per cent, CBD oil, rice starch, a green colouring given as E141ii, carnauba wax as a glaze and E321 as an antioxidant.

Soy is the allergen to note, and it sits inside the gum base rather than being flagged separately. One page in the market lists it and only inside an unbroken ingredient string.

Then there is the sweetener system, which matters more than it looks. Sorbitol, isomalt and maltitol are polyols, and food information law requires any food containing more than ten per cent added polyols to carry the statement that excessive consumption may produce laxative effects. Sugar-free gum is essentially all polyol. Not one listing in this market carries that statement, and it is the sort of thing you would rather read here than discover empirically.

The last point is a genuine surprise. This gum is made by the same factory that produces the MediCBD and Bubbly Billy Buds gums, and on other products those labels carry word for word identical declarations. On the chewing gum they do not. The Astra Hemp list includes rice starch and one colouring. The MediCBD and Bubbly Billy versions declare two colourings, one of which is E171, titanium dioxide, and no rice starch.

That is worth knowing because E171 has not been authorised as a food additive in the European Union since August 2022, following a European Food Safety Authority opinion that it could no longer be considered safe. Great Britain took a different view: the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland reviewed the same evidence in March 2022 and kept it permitted here, so it is one of the clearer points where UK and EU food law now diverge. Northern Ireland still follows the EU rules.

The gum on this page does not declare it. Two of its sibling labels do. We are stating that precisely rather than tarring the whole range, and it is a reason to read the declaration on whichever of these gums you actually buy.

What chewing one is actually like

A firm pellet gum rather than a soft stick, with a hard shell that cracks and then softens over the first few chews. It holds its texture longer than a sugar gum does, which is what the polyol base buys you.

The flavour goes early, as it does in any gum. Strawberry lasts a couple of minutes as a distinct fruit note and then settles into generic sweetness. Eucalyptus lasts noticeably longer, because the cooling sensation persists after the flavour itself has faded.

The hemp is barely there. At nought point three per cent hemp oil and a small amount of CBD oil, there is a faint green edge underneath the flavour in the eucalyptus and almost nothing detectable in the strawberry. If you have avoided CBD products because of the taste, gum is the format that hides it best.

Gum also releases whatever it contains slowly, over the minutes you chew, rather than all at once. That is a property of the format rather than a claim about anything, and it is the practical reason people choose gum over a sweet.

The CBD chewing gums we stock, compared

This is a small category with a lot of overlap, because most of it comes out of one Dutch factory under several labels. The differences that are real are the strength tier, the flavour and, as covered above, the colourings.

Two strength tiers exist across the range. Everything else is presentation.

The legal position

Every listing in this family carries the line that the product is legal for consumption in the European Union. Britain left in 2020, so that is not the British assurance it appears to be, and the titanium dioxide point above is a concrete example of why the two are no longer the same thing.

The UK consumer test on controlled cannabinoids is one milligram per container, applied to the container rather than a portion and never as a percentage. Every source states this gum as containing no THC.

As an ingestible CBD product the Novel Foods regime applies. We have not verified an authorisation for this line and claim none for it.

Eighteen plus, as with everything we stock. Neither the UK retailer nor the wholesalers ranking for this product state an age restriction, which on a confectionery format is worth noticing.

Who should skip this

Anyone who needs a known amount of CBD in each piece. Until the milligram question is settled the honest answer is that we do not know it precisely, and a product where the figure is printed unambiguously is the better purchase.

Anyone avoiding soy. It is in the gum base and there is no version of this without it.

Anyone sensitive to polyols. Sugar-free gum is built on them and the laxative statement exists for a reason, particularly if you would be chewing several pieces across a day.

And anyone hoping for a strong hemp flavour. There is almost none here. That is a feature if the taste is what has put you off CBD before, and a disappointment if it is what you were looking for.