Ed Krug is giving a tour of his CBD product line at an East Hampton health store.
Like a proud father, he explains the benefits of each lotion, cream, tincture, or oil. The real estate developer and co-chair of the Peconic Land Trust is also explaining the growing interest in alternative pain management — something that became particularly important to him after a bone marrow cancer diagnosis two years ago.
That helped spur the company, hmptns, that he and business partner Tom Eslinger launched on the East End. Hmptns names its products after favorite Hamptons haunts. So there’s an Accabonac Harbor full spectrum lotion, a Ditch Plains gel, a Bluff Road cream, Butter Lane tincture … you get the idea.
Are all your products named by WAZE?
Ed Krug: (Laughs) We’re really about the Hamptons. We decided to base this brand about hemp from the Hamptons. We actually buy our hemp from Dave Falkowski [of Open Minded Organics in Bridgehampton].
Our theme here is that it has to be “farm first” — that’s growing food, outdoors, in sunlight. We’re not about industrial hemp growing in greenhouses. You get a purer product when it’s naturally grown. Hemp is actually a very bio-absorbent plant, so if there are toxins in the soil it’s going to absorb them.
What about the years of pesticides used out here?
The chemicals used for potato farming 40 years ago are slightly overstated. Many fields out here have been converted to organic soil, it just takes a certain amount of time. The residue of “sins from the past” is actually minimal by now.
And the farmers here are hemp friendly?
Yes. One of the things that appealed to us was using a farmer out here like Dave and focusing on smaller, family-owned farms. I’ve been involved in preservation out here for a long time on the board of the Peconic Land Trust and that’s one of our traditions. To preserve the agriculture of the East End. And Bridgehampton loam is considered one of the four or five most productive agricultural soils in the country.
Well, I think that’s common knowledge. (Laughs) No, actually, I didn’t know that.
It’s really rich. So it’s a nice benefit to work with farmers out here. It gives them another crop to grow.
How did the idea for hmptns get hatched?
Tom and I have been East Hampton friends since he and his partner came here five or six years ago. Tom got turned on to CBD by a cool brand in the U.K. that his agency was working with on their launch of a premium CBD product line. Tom was the Global Chief Creative Officer for Burson-Marsteller. He was also at Saatchi, so he’s a very creative, smart guy.
He discovered that not only could CBD help him stay focused during the work day, but also that oils and tinctures didn’t need to be branded like a head shop.
I was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer two years ago. And nothing was concentrated enough. You had to keep reapplying. The topicals were better because the tinctures or drops I tried tasted like bong water.
The Hamptons were clearly a prime market for this kind of artisanal, small-batch CBD from hemp grown organically in our area’s amazing Bridgehampton loam. So, ironically enough, while he was driving me into the city for a chemotherapy appointment, he asked me if I wanted to jump in to this business he envisioned. My response was an enthusiastic “Hell, yes! This is the only thing that’s working for me. Oxycontin does absolutely nothing. So yeah, by all means, let’s explore this.”
It was the only thing that had helped my back pain from the bone marrow cancer and I had been won over. Plus, he knew I was chair of the Peconic Land Trust board and was interested in supporting local farmers. A collaboration was born on that ride into the city.
What makes your topicals stand out?
We felt that while there were some very pleasant lotions and creams containing CBD on the market, they just didn’t seem strong enough to do the trick. Less the case for tinctures, but definitely for topicals.
I was suffering from a lot of lower back pain from the cancer as well as lumbar stenosis and needed something concentrated. Most topicals were in the 100 mg to 500 mg range when we started 18 months ago. We talked to surfers, tennis players, horseback riders, and golfers who wanted strong, fast relief from aches and pains, and we enlisted the help of physical therapy therapists who needed something effective to use professionally on their clients.
Working with that input and our formulators, we came up with first, an absorbent moisturizing lotion for keyboard hands and facial use; second, a gel for targeted muscle pain; and third, a cream for massaging chronic problem areas. No bad stuff in any of them, all natural, and they range from 2000 mg to 4500 mg, so exponentially stronger!
Why is there so much CBD ‘noise’ out there? So much confusion?
It goes back to 1970 when the government made it a controlled substance. They classified all hemp together as marijuana. That started the confusion and it was unfair. And if you go back to the 1930s people who were growing lumber didn’t want hemp grown as a crop. People like the Hearsts had huge timber holdings.
You’re available in the Hamptons, so where to next?
The products are also sold through our website. We have some outlets in the city and in California, which is amazing because California is kind of the home of CBD, but the Hamptons are working into that market because of our topicals. Ours are just much stronger.
Okay, so here we are today. Standing in a Second Nature store. What’s most popular?
Our topicals are our best sellers. We have a cream, we have a lotion and a gel. Our sports gel is named after Ditch Plains, because we have a lot of aging surfers out here, right? Jocks in their 50s and 60s and older who are still out there like they’re in their 30s.
And things like Icy Hot in the drugstore don’t do that?
They have lots of really bad things in them like acetone. Really bad stuff. I mean bad is a judgment call but basically, yes. We have things like Daikon radish oils, arnica, aloe. Admittedly we have things like emulsifiers but you need that to hold a lotion together.
So expanding the health brand, how do you two become the ‘male Gwyneth Paltrows?’
(Laughs) Well, that’s what we’d like to become. We’ll be ‘Goop-ier.’ But right now we are really focused on CBD. Getting the right mix for this market and then working it from there.
You and another partner, Joe Blatz, rehab houses, now you and Tom have this hemp company, and you also oversee land preservation. How does it all fit together?
There are a lot of people growing hemp out there. It’s up to the farmers to decide if it’s economically feasible for them. Thirteen thousand acres out here have been saved from being developed. We try not to be anti-development at the Land Trust, but it’s important to preserve valuable productive farmland.
Are you wearing any hemp now?
No, but I have a hemp yoga mat. Does that count? I just used it this morning.
Hmptns offers a complete line of CBD products. They are small-batch, independent farmer grown, and produced in Upstate New York and Bridgehampton. The majority of their products are 100% certified organic. Visit hmptns.co for more info.