Cannapower CBD Infused Fruit Cubes 1200mg, 125g

A correction, first

On our page for the 400mg cherries in this same range, written recently, we said that Cannapower publishes no ingredient list for its gummies and that we therefore could not tell you what colours them. We checked the brand's own listing and our distributor's, and neither carried one.

That was wrong, and the fault is ours for not looking further. One UK retailer publishes the panel in full, and it turns out to be one of the more informative ingredient lists in this category.

Here it is: broad spectrum hemp-derived cannabidiol, glucose syrup, sugar, invert sugar, citric acid, malic acid, pectin, sorbitol, fruit juice concentrate, apple at one per cent, trisodium citrate, natural fruit and vegetable flavours, and natural colours from black carrot concentrate, spirulina concentrate and turmeric.

We would rather correct ourselves in the open than quietly publish the right answer somewhere else and leave the wrong one standing. The cherries page is being revisited.

Everything below follows from that panel, and it is worth reading because three separate things in it are more interesting than the milligram figure on the front.

The colours are all plants, and that closes a question we have been chasing

Black carrot concentrate, spirulina concentrate and turmeric. No synthetic dye, no insect-derived colour, and three plant sources between them covering red-purple, blue-green and yellow.

That matters more than it sounds, because colouring has turned out to be the one area where sweets on our own shelves genuinely differ, and we have now found four separate answers.

The Multitrance berry lollipops use E120, which is cochineal and is derived from insects, so those two flavours are not suitable for vegans. A blue confectionery colour, as on the blue raspberry lollipops, essentially requires a synthetic dye because neither plants nor insects supply that shade at that intensity. The Euphoria cannabis gummies use spirulina and carrot concentrate. And these use three plant sources and nothing else.

So if colouring is a deciding factor for you, this is the cleanest answer on our sweets shelves, and it is published rather than assumed.

The rest of the panel supports it. The gelling agent is pectin rather than gelatine, which makes these suitable for vegans without caveat, and the retailer publishing the panel also states the formulation is free from dairy and wheat.

Sorbitol, and a labelling rule nobody mentions

Sorbitol appears in the panel, and it is worth knowing what it is, because it comes with a rule attached that no CBD gummy listing anywhere mentions.

Sorbitol is a polyol, sometimes called a sugar alcohol. It is used in confectionery to add sweetness and to keep sweets soft, and it is entirely ordinary in this category.

UK and EU food labelling requires that foods containing more than a set proportion of polyols carry the statement that excessive consumption may produce laxative effects. That is a mandatory labelling statement rather than a health warning or a claim about this product, and it applies across sugar-reduced confectionery generally.

We cannot tell you whether this product crosses that threshold, because the panel lists ingredients in order rather than by quantity and sorbitol sits well down the list. What we can do is tell you the rule exists and that a polyol is present, which is more than anyone else selling CBD gummies will.

If you know polyols disagree with you, that is a reason to check the packet before eating several. If you have no idea what a polyol is and have eaten sugar-free sweets without incident, it is unlikely to be relevant.

Broad spectrum, not isolate

One more thing the panel settles, and it contradicts our own catalogue.

The ingredient list names broad spectrum hemp-derived cannabidiol. Our catalogue records this product as an isolate. Those are genuinely different things.

An isolate is CBD on its own, refined away from everything else in the plant. Broad spectrum retains a wider range of the plant's cannabinoids and compounds with the THC removed. Full spectrum keeps the THC too, which is why it carries the compliance questions we write about on our hash and vape pages.

For a buyer the practical difference is modest but real: broad spectrum brings minor cannabinoids that an isolate does not. For us it is a data problem, and we are flagging it rather than quietly picking whichever suits.

We are following the manufacturer's published panel, which says broad spectrum. Our catalogue field is being corrected. Our guide to the three extract grades is linked below if the distinction is new to you.

The cube is the only shape here not imitating anything

Every other shape in this range is a picture of something. Bears are a character. Cherries, strawberries and peach rings are fruit. A cube is a cube.

That is not a lack of imagination, and it has a consequence worth knowing about.

Detailed confectionery shapes are produced by starch mogul moulding, a process in which liquid jelly is deposited into trays of cornstarch that serve as both mould and drying medium, then sifted and polished out at the end. It exists precisely because it can hold fine detail: the fingers on a bear, the stem on a cherry.

A cube asks none of that. It is the simplest geometry a sweet can have, and a simple geometry is dimensionally consistent in a way a moulded figure never quite is. Every cube in a bag is essentially the same size as every other cube.

That connects to something we have been circling for several pages. The recurring problem with a CBD gummy is that the milligram figure describes the bag rather than the piece, and the piece is what you eat. If consistency between pieces matters to you, the shape that varies least is the one that is not shaped like anything. A retailer's copy for this product makes the same point from the other direction, claiming each gummy carries a consistent amount.

On flavour, the panel is fruit juice concentrate with apple named at one per cent, plus natural fruit and vegetable flavours, and two acidulants in citric and malic acid. Two acids rather than one is what gives a cube its tang, and the fruit note here is described as light with the sweetness carrying most of it.

The numbers, briefly

A 125 gram bag with 1200mg of CBD stated across it, sold alongside a 400mg version in the identical pack.

Our two pages for the bears cover those figures properly. The 1200mg page sets out why a bag-total figure is difficult when nobody publishes a piece count, along with the FSA advice and where Novel Foods currently stands. The 400mg page infers the likely count from a comparable product and argues that the per-sweet figure is the one that governs what you take.

Both apply here unchanged and both are linked below. The one thing this shape adds to that argument is the consistency point above.

Who should buy something else

If you know polyols disagree with you, check the packet before committing to a bag. Sorbitol is present, we cannot tell you at what level, and that is a fair reason to ask us first.

If you want a pronounced fruit flavour, this is the mildest option in the range by design. The panel puts apple at one per cent and the fruit note is light, with sweetness doing most of the work. The cherries and strawberries are far more emphatic.

If you are new to CBD, the 400mg version of this bag is the same sweets at a third of the concentration, and our page on the 400mg bears explains why the per-sweet figure matters more than the headline.

And if you want a stated per-piece figure rather than an inference, nobody publishes a count for this bag either. The consistency argument above is about the sweets being alike, not about anyone having told you what is in one.