why we started a cbd house.

this is the first of what we hope will be a very long run of seasonal letters. four a year, one per quarter. it is also, we realise, the obligation to explain ourselves. so: why does a small cbd house exist, and why does this one exist here, in cheshire, in 2026, and why are we writing to you about it?

the shelf, in 2021.

we opened in the spring of 2021. the uk cbd shelf at that point — post-novel-food announcement, pre-authorisation — was in a peculiar state. hundreds of brands had launched on the back of a single import-rule change. most were reselling the same three white-label distillates under different logos. mg counts on bottles were, to put it politely, aspirational: we tested two high-street oils and found one at 40% of its labelled strength, another at 180%.

the marketing was worse. wellness-adjacent language had colonised the category. calm. rest. stress-relief. words that skirted the line where the fsa draws its medical-claim rule. most brands, we noticed, were run by people who had never met the plant.

what we decided to do differently.

we had three small convictions and not much else.

• fewer products, tested often. rather than a full spectrum of every possible strength and format, we'd pick a short line and test every batch. the shelf would stay small on purpose.
• plain language. no adjectives we couldn't evidence. no claims we couldn't print. the label would describe what was inside, and that would be the end of the copywriting.
• local, small, local. packed here, shipped here, mistakes answered here by us. no fulfilment centre, no call script. if it took longer, it took longer.

this third point is, in our experience, the one that makes the other two possible. you cannot claim to know a product if you've never touched it. we still hand-pack every order. we still read every email.

the coordinates we settled on.

bhp operates out of brereton heath, cheshire — 53.18° n, 2.29° w. a small local nature reserve with a heronry and a shallow pool that freezes in january. we are not based in the reserve, but a short walk from it, and on the days the polytunnel is open you can see the sandstone escarpment of the cloud in the distance. it is, to us, the spiritual centre of the operation. we think it shows up in the oil.

we are not, as our footer now states, in lancashire. we were, for the first eight months of the company, and the footer copy from that era lingered on the site for longer than it should have. it was corrected this spring. we mention it only because we aspire to be the kind of house that corrects itself in public.

what you can expect from this letter.

four letters a year. spring, summer, autumn, winter. notes from the lab, quiet product changes, occasional thinking on sleep and calm and the plants that aid both. no pop-ups. no tracking pixels. no "10% off your next order." if you want the letter, subscribe on the homepage newsletter block. if you want to stop getting it, one click and it's gone.

thank you for reading this first one. whatever brought you here — an order, a search, a friend's recommendation — we are glad to have you.

— the bhp team
brereton heath · 18 june 2025