Our mission: to be the safest vaping brand in the world
EDGE® vaping products produce 98.81% less harmful chemicals than cigarettes*
*This does not necessarily equal a 98.81% reduction in risk
Since its foundation, EDGE has been committed to manufacturing the safest vaping products in the world. The core ethos of the EDGE brand is that safe, premium-quality products should be available to anyone who wants to use vaping as a smoking cessation option. While empowering people worldwide to improve their wellbeing, it is vital to EDGE to have safety at the centre of every part of their approach.
EDGE is potentially the only vaping brand to manufacture to the quality standards expected within the pharmaceutical industry. This is evident at every level at their UK-based manufacturing site, from the clinical processes to the multiple ISO-7 clean rooms. Having grown exponentially, EDGE continues to invest in their laboratory capabilities and future-driven technologies, enabling them to keep setting the standard for vaping industry safety.
EDGE’s dedication to transparency regarding ingredients and manufacturing processes allows them to share their unrivalled commitment to quality here. Head of Technical & Development, Lizi Jenkins, tells us more about the journey EDGE has taken to become trailblazers of safety in the vaping industry.
How are you so sure that vaping is safer than smoking?
The safety of vaping as a smoking alternative has been misunderstood by the customer for some time, and discredited by the media since the 2019 outbreak of a serious lung condition, which became known as EVALI. It was eventually proven that EVALI was caused not from vaping itself but specifically by a substance known as Vitamin E acetate which EDGE has never and will never use in our e-liquids. Experts on the subject continue to support vaping as an effective way to quit smoking.
Leading Health Organisations, such as the Royal College of General Practitioners, British Medical Association and Cancer Research UK, as well as both the NHS and Public Health England, are in agreement that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than cigarettes, with the NHS providing vape devices as part of their smoke-free campaign. Based on all available evidence, Public Health England estimates e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes and advocate vaping as a harm-reduction product. Their 2015 independent evidence report concluded that “While vaping may not be 100% safe, most of the chemicals causing smoking-related diseases are absent and the chemicals which are present pose limited danger”.
Our goal at EDGE was to take this further, by providing a full safety analysis of our products and launching an international campaign to reassure our customers and instill confidence in EDGE’s safety.
What was the journey to achieving these results?
Our first step was to commission the services of BIBRA Toxicology Consultants to carry out an independent review of Health Critical Values for the six main carbonyls found in e-liquids. Health Critical Values are safety limits for chemicals that the general population come into contact with. These were determined through analysis of local toxicity levels when assuming typical vaping usage patterns. We then enlisted the services of Essentra Laboratories, an accredited Analytical Laboratory approved by Public Health England for analysis of Tobacco Products. This allowed us to ensure full impartiality and gave us a set of results that allowed us to draw direct comparisons between EDGE products, three leading brands of cigarettes and three heated tobacco products. The results were compelling in their difference. While cigarettes exceeded the Health Critical Values by an average of over 3503.12% and heated tobacco products by an average of 290.56%, EDGE products were below the values by an average of 88.91%.
Essentra Laboratories also conducted a more expansive study that compared Tobacco Specific Nitrosamines and Volatile Organic Compounds, as well as Carbonyls, in the same set of products. These are important because they are the harmful chemicals that cause smoking related diseases, such as lung cancer. Even when comparing the cigarette brand with the lowest levels and EDGE product with the highest levels, the results showed that EDGE products contain 98.81% less harmful chemicals than cigarettes*, far safer that even Public Health England’s estimate of vaping products being 95% less harmful than cigarettes. They also showed that EDGE products produce 69.91% less harmful chemicals than heated tobacco products, making EDGE products a better smoking cessation tool.
We continue to strive for higher levels of safety, and are currently working to ensure all our products contain 99.9% less harmful chemicals than those found in cigarettes. We hope to achieve this target by Q4 2021.
Why is EDGE so much safer?
We have invested heavily in the safety of our products. Our UK-based manufacturing facility is the largest vaping-specific site of its kind in Europe and contains a state of the art, on-site testing laboratory which allows us to analyse all our products for potentially harmful compounds. Our testing goes well beyond the UK regulations, which only require rigorous testing of nicotine-containing products. We test to the requirements of the EU-wide Tobacco Products Directive, performing tests such as Carbonyl Emissions Testing. We believe that all products should be tested according to the same stringent rules, so we analyse all our products prior to sale regardless of whether they contain nicotine or not.
Does in-house testing take place for all flavours and ingredients?
Of course. We carry out ingredient analysis and review all our flavour components. Our flavour analysis systems allow us to verify that the ingredients listed by our suppliers are correct and ensure we clearly state any allergens on our packaging.
How does EDGE source high-quality ingredients?
It’s vital to us that our customers can trust the quality of what they inhale, so we only ever use suppliers that have completed our rigorous supplier approval process. This includes attributing a supplier rating based on the quality of their products and systems. Our core e-liquid ingredients are pharmaceutical-grade quality and our flavour suppliers are all UK-based, which limits our company’s carbon footprint.
What is it about EDGE that means it’s doing better than competitors?
We invest heavily in safety because our ethos as a company is that people deserve safe, quality vaping products to help them to quit smoking. I think we’re the only vaping brand actively pushing for more regulation in the industry. We don’t just do the bare minimum to satisfy regulators, we’ve invested in the capabilities to test our products to the highest standards because we believe customers deserve products they can trust. It’s from this standpoint of focus on customer wellbeing that we work.
We’re always breaking new ground to help our customers to make the switch easier. A recent example of this is the development of our patented HYBRID vaping device which is the first vape device in the world to host a filter, making the experience of vaping more familiar to smokers starting their journey to quitting smoking forever.
Why aren’t other companies also promoting the effectiveness of vaping as a smoking cessation tool?
The main vaping competitors present in the market are tobacco brands which continue to sell cigarettes alongside their vaping products. EDGE on the other hand is owned by a pharmaceutical company, which we believe gives us our distinctive ‘edge’ in the market to be able to develop safe, viable products that can free people from cigarettes.
Start your journey to quit smoking with EDGE.
*does not necessarily equal a 98.81% reduction in risk
