BRANDON, FL. Back in March 2026, state agricultural inspectors walked into Twist Vapor, a hemp specialty shop in Brandon, and left with 29 stop-sale orders, products pulled from shelves, and a list of violations that included expired hemp extracts, kratom capsules missing required labeling, and hemp products designed in ways the state says are attractive to children.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conducted the inspection on March 9, 2026. By the time inspectors were done, the shop had nine total violations, two of them repeats from a prior inspection, and not a single one had been corrected before inspectors arrived.
What Inspectors Found
The hemp product violations were among the most immediate. Inspectors found Venera brand hemp extract products whose scannable QR codes did not link to a certificate of analysis from an independent testing laboratory, as required under Florida law. Without that link, a customer scanning the code has no way to verify what is actually in the product.
Other hemp extracts on the retail floor contained color additives, which Florida prohibits in hemp products for human consumption because of the risk those products present to children. The person in charge voluntarily discarded those products after a stop-sale order was issued.
Hemp products held past their expiration date were also pulled. The inspector noted that the person in charge voluntarily discarded those items as well, with a stop-sale and release order attached.
The kratom violations were equally specific. White Rabbit brand kratom products on the retail floor did not declare the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine in parts per million on a dry-weight basis, as required under Florida's emergency rule 5KER25-6. That compound is the primary psychoactive alkaloid in kratom, and its concentration is the number regulators most want consumers to see before purchase.
Club 13 and O.P.M.S brand kratom products in capsule or tablet form lacked a supplement facts panel entirely. The inspector issued stop-sale orders on both brands. O.P.M.S products were voluntarily discarded. Club 13 products were relabeled with documentation provided by the manufacturer during the inspection and then released.
Operating Without a Permit, Again
The shop was operating without a valid food permit on the day of the inspection. That violation was marked as a repeat, meaning inspectors had documented the same problem before. The inspection record notes that an application for a permit had been submitted, and the establishment was directed to remit the appropriate fee within ten days.
The permit violation was not the only repeat finding. The person in charge also failed to correctly answer questions about preventing the transmission of foodborne illness, which was also flagged as a repeat. That same inspection found the shop had no written procedures for employees to follow in the event of a vomiting or diarrhea incident on the premises. An inspector provided written procedures during the visit.
What These Violations Mean
The QR code requirement for hemp products exists for a specific reason: if a customer has a reaction to a product, regulators and medical personnel need to be able to trace exactly what was in it. When the QR code on a hemp extract does not link to an independent lab's certificate of analysis, there is no verified record of potency, contaminants, or ingredients. At Twist Vapor, inspectors found Venera brand products in exactly that condition.
The kratom labeling violations carry similar stakes. Kratom products that do not disclose the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine leave consumers without the information they need to gauge potency or compare products. Florida's emergency labeling rule was written specifically because that compound's effects scale with concentration, and unlabeled products make informed purchasing impossible. White Rabbit brand products at Twist Vapor lacked that disclosure entirely.
The color additive prohibition on hemp products is a child safety rule. Products designed with bright colors or appealing visual packaging are more likely to be mistaken for candy or conventional food items by children. Inspectors found products at Twist Vapor that violated that standard and ordered them pulled.
Operating without a valid food permit, particularly as a repeat violation, means the shop was selling regulated consumable products without the state's current authorization to do so. That is not a paperwork technicality. It means the state had not verified the establishment met current standards at the time of sale.
The Longer Record
Twist Vapor's FDACS inspection history in Brandon is short. The only prior inspection on record was a focused inspection on January 14, 2025, which found zero violations.
That clean January 2025 visit makes the March 2026 findings harder to explain away as a first-time oversight. Two of the nine violations documented in March were explicitly marked as repeats, which means they had been cited in an earlier inspection cycle. The permit violation and the person-in-charge knowledge gap were both problems inspectors had seen at this location before.
None of the nine violations from the March 9 inspection were corrected before inspectors arrived. Several were addressed during the inspection itself, including the kratom relabeling and the hemp product discards. The sanitizer test kit shortage and the missing air gap beneath the three-compartment sink, however, were not corrected on site.