Page 25 - MENU Magazine - March/April 2018

The brand and ethos
of Starseed Medicinal: Building a safe program. Understanding their customer base
is paramount, as is returning people
to work who have not been able to work
to foodservice professionals across the country. Many Canadian foodservice professionals, anecdotally, are users of cannabis products. Foodservice operators work long hours, standing and engaged in physical activity for much of their shifts, and foodservice professionals may index higher for pain much like those employed in construction and other physically-demand- ing jobs. According to former CNN food reporter Kat Kinsman, who is the founder of the Chefs with Issues website, 80 per cent of respondents to the site’s foodservice mental health survey reported anxiety, panic disorders and depression.1 The legalization of cannabis has huge medical implications for foodservice.
Says Tsebelis, “there’s not enough education in the market yet, to di erentiate between the two main components, the THC and the CBD. CBD has therapeutic properties but without the same psychoac- tive e ects. Starseed has created a us- er-friendly product system—a continuum of products, some with high CBD and almost no THC. Cannabis has a place in therapy, but more studies will be needed—clinical trials and patient studies—before cannabis will be treated like other more traditional prescription drugs.”
The perception of cannabis as an insured bene t is changing. Tsebelis says that insur- ance providers a year ago were unsure. That has changed. Today insurers are looking at how they will cover and reimburse medical
1 Source:cbc.ca
2 Source: Government of Canada
cannabis and they are creating products and plans to adjudicate.
It was a “meeting of the minds” between Starseed and LiUNA. The “brainchild of our founder,” says Tsebelis. He credits LiUNA as one of the most progressive if not the most progressive union in Canada. He says the union has taken unprecedented steps
in understanding the challenges with other prescription drugs and making sure they know how to deal with the families and the members of their union.
The brand and ethos of Starseed Medici- nal: Building a safe program. Understanding their customer base is paramount. Returning people to work by building bene ts plans that support medicinal cannabis prescriptions is one of Starseed’s guiding principles. The total
number of workers paying dues to a union in Canada was 4.83 million at the end of 2015, up from 4.75 million at the end of 2014.2
Taco Bell, McDonald’s, as well as every independent operator, they’re as relevant
to the conversation; all businesses will have to look at these implications. “I grew up working in the restaurant industry; it helped put me through school. Everybody forgets how hard the work is. For the most part it can be demanding. Employers in the foodser- vice industry should be thinking about this now, and looking at how and why providing employee bene ts plans ensures a healthier, more present and productive workforce and ultimately a better bottom line.”
starseed.com
MARCH / APRIL 2018
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