The Business of Hemp, Part 3: Beyond CBD—Hemp Products, Opportunities & the Federal Ban

Hemp isn’t just CBD, THC gummies, or cannabis beverages. It can become animal bedding, seed oil, fish attractant, fire starters, automotive components, building materials, and entirely new business opportunities.

So what happens when federal hemp restrictions threaten the profitability and investment that help make those innovations possible?

In the final episode of The Business of Hemp, a three-part special series from Small Business Success Talk, host Christy Smallwood welcomes Katie Moyer, founder of Kentucky Hemp Works, a family-owned business in Christian County, Kentucky.

Katie’s journey into hemp began with grassroots advocacy, not farming. Her passion for agricultural freedom, property rights, and plant-based products led her to work with legislators and serve on Kentucky’s Industrial Hemp Commission during the movement to legalize industrial hemp.

Today, Katie and her family create and sell hemp-based products that demonstrate just how versatile this crop can be.

But she also sees a serious challenge facing the industry: many of the innovative products made from hemp fiber, seeds, and stalks aren’t yet profitable enough to support themselves without revenue from established cannabinoid products.

In this episode, we explore:

• How grassroots advocacy helped bring industrial hemp back to Kentucky
• The difference between hemp cannabinoids, fiber, seeds, stalks, and other plant materials
• Surprising hemp products, including animal bedding, fish attractant, seed oil, and fire starters
• Why CBD and hemp-derived THC revenue can help fund new product development
• How federal hemp restrictions could create unintended consequences for seeds and agricultural production
• Why hemp-based automotive components and other industrial products haven’t reached their full commercial potential
• The costs of continually navigating changing regulations as a small business owner
• Katie’s proposed three-stage approach to federal hemp policy
• Why she supports age restrictions, product testing, and labeling instead of broad prohibitions
• How consumers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers can better understand the hemp industry
• Katie’s personal definition of success through service, contribution, and community

Katie also shares a wonderfully entrepreneurial perspective: rather than protecting every product idea, she wants other people to discover new uses for hemp and start businesses of their own.

This conversation is about more than saving existing hemp businesses. It’s about protecting the opportunity to build the next generation of them.

Visit https://kentuckyhempworks.com/ to learn more.

Learn more about the advocacy efforts discussed in the episode: https://savehemp.org

Subscribe to Small Business Success Talk for Parts 2 and 3 of The Business of Hemp, exploring additional perspectives from across the industry.

Thank you to our sponsor 502Hemp and 812Hemp! (https://502hemp.com and https://812hemp.com )

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