ZenBears CBD Gummies: Review

Please note: our ZenBears CBD gummies were received free of charge, but this in no way impacted on our opinion. We were not obliged to write a positive review, and the brand did not see this review before it was put up on the site.

COVID-19 has hit people’s mental health hard. One survey reports that one in four adults has had their mental health affected by the pandemic, with younger people (those aged 18-30) the hardest hit. And, to me, that comes as no surprise: as well as the obvious health fears, issues like job losses and lower furlough pay, the inability to spend time with family, a lack of childcare, worries about the recession and more are giving people plenty to worry about.

So, how are people coping? Well, data published by Alphagreen.io – the UK’s largest CBD product marketplace – suggests that CBD is the answer for some. They’ve seen a sharp spike in sales via their website since the start of March, with people looking for CBD products that will help them to relieve pain, tackle insomnia and address anxiety.

These (legal) products contain CBD – a totally legal compound found in marijuana which, it is claimed, can help with all of the problems detailed above – and more. You’ll find it in oil and balm forms, as well as being added to various food and drink products to make it appeal to (and be more palatable for) a wider audience.

One of the many other sites selling CBD products to British consumers is CBD Shopy, which prides itself on having over 500 Trustpilot reviews. Founder Layton Brooks has said that sales via their online shop have doubled since mid-March, with one of their most popular ranges being their ZenBears CBD gummies.

Describing themselves as “the UK’s favourite bears“, ZenBears offer all the benefits of CBD use in gummy sweet format. They guarantee 20mg of CBD per bear, extracted from hemp farmed using organic methods in Oregon, USA.

ZenBears themselves are made in a British facility, and they’re vegan, too. Rather than being injected with CBD, as many gummies are, these are instead pharmaceutically coated – meaning that the effects will be noticed more quickly than with many other edibles.

One jar contains 30 bears – each around the same size as regular jelly babies sweets. The branding is relatively plain and simple, but all of the key messages get across clearly on the jar’s label. And each jar also features the batch code, which you can type into their website to look up lab reports for that batch yourself.

The label suggests that you either chew or suck the gummies, taking either one or two per day, as needed. But how did they taste – and did they have any effect?

The verdict

Opening the jar, the ZenBears gummies looked like any other gummy sweet. There was no discernible “different” smell – and the same goes for the flavour, too. Whether sucked or chewed, they tasted exactly like “normal” jelly sweets, with a consistency that wasn’t excessively soft but that was easy to chew with minimal effort.

I found it hard to distinguish any difference in flavours, but they were pretty delicious – dangerously so, almost, if I were to have just these and nothing else sweet in the house! And they did seem to have an effect, too, with stress and anxiety seeming lower within an hour of taking them.

At 20mg of CBD per sweet, they’ve certainly got a higher CBD content than many other gummies on the market. Priced at £39.95 per jar (or £35.96 per month if you go for a monthly subscription), you’ll find them for sale on the ZenBears website.