Bridget Ludy is not your typical cannabis manufacturer, the 60-year-old married mother has lived in the Central Valley for the past 25 years. Ludy is a grandmother to two small children and she doesn’t smoke or drink.
In the past four years, she has been researching and later making medical marijuana chocolates. Following the passage of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act sometime last November, she is now thinking to start a small-scale manufacturing of her chocolate edibles in Ceres.
“I think everyone is scared, and I don’t blame them,” she said. ‘But it is going to come to our community, and I want to make sure I’m a voice for good decision making on behalf of our town.’
She also hopes to become licensed and permitted to manufacture in her hometown soon. Ludy is among the increasing number of individuals, groups and businesses that are paying close attention to how Central Valley city councils and boards of supervisors handle the pending legalization of certain recreational marijuana use, cultivation, manufacturing and retail sale and delivery.
Reports indicate that from the 1st of January, legally licensed cannabis businesses will start opening across the state. Ludy’s road to cannabis manufacturing was an unlikely one. For decades, her family and friends had complimented her on her homemade chocolates and sweet concoctions. In 2011, that turned into its own full-fledged business when Bibby’s Chocolates was born.
Ludy manufactures her own proprietary blend of the chocolate mix for commercial sale out of a facility in north Modesto. She started her business while she was taking care of an elderly aunt who was ailing from Alzheimer’s.
Four years ago, she approached by people with cannabis businesses in Colorado about using her chocolate for marijuana edibles. She was at first studied by the idea as she laughed it off. However, they persisted, and she started to look into the idea.
Ludy pointed out that she had always taken a scientific approach to her cooking and confectionery, and hence she applied that same approach to cannabis. She began using a facility in Oakland to manufacture her products. She makes about half a dozen cannabis products, all using her signature blend of dark chocolate.
Majority of her items are of a relatively low-dose, from 5 mg to 10 mg of THC, However, she also produces a 45-mg-per-dose chocolate bar. She’s also revealed that veterans use her products to combat PTSD and others battling illness about the benefits of medical marijuana.
Proper dosing is one of the biggest concerns surrounding upcoming regulations in recreational legalization, manufacturing and sale have to do with proper dosing. Ludy also revealed that part of the problem with the current medical marijuana system is the vast variances between stated doses and actual doses in products.
This sounds delicious. Maybe if the entire world ate one we would have world peace?