Weekend Edition Hot off the Press #14: 2011 Natural Products Expo West

Natural Products Expo West

This past weekend, I got the opportunity to go down to Anaheim, California for the 2011 Natural Products Expo West held at the Anaheim Convention Center.  It is an annual event, this was the show’s 31^st, put on by New Hope Natural Media.  According to their website, www.expowest.com, it is the largest natural, organic, and healthy products trade show with over 3,000 exhibits and over 58,000 industry members in attendance.  The purpose of the show is to allow industry members to showcase and discover the newest products and latest trends in the industry. 

My first impression of the show was that it was HUGE!  I said the same thing about the Fancy Food Show here in San Francisco, but after seeing this show, I can say that that the Fancy Food Show was small in comparison.  While the Fancy Food Show had over 1,300 exhibitors in 2 halls, the Natural Products Expo West had over 3,000 exhibitors in 5 halls.  The show was split up into 8 sections: Hot Products Pavilion, Health and Beauty, Pet, Natural and Specialty Food, Natural Living, organic, supplements, and the Supply Expo.  It’s safe to say that there was something for everyone at this show.    

At this year’s show, gluten free was definitely a hot topic.  Just walking around the show, I overheard many people talking about the latest gluten free products they saw and making comments about how big of a showing Gluten Free was making at the show.  This is all good news at the show because it is a topic on the minds of many people.  This extra publicity will only help the gluten free product base grow and I can see that the future for gluten free products is bright. 

There were a lot of gluten free products at the show.  There were some familiar companies like Mary’s Gone Crackers, Bob’s Red Mill and WOW bakery, but there were also a lot that were new to me with very innovative and unique ideas.  One of the companies that stood out was Crunchies Natural Snacks who produces freeze dried fruits and vegetables and has these corn snacks that are basically freeze dried corn kernels that are healthy delicious.  Another company is Hodgson Mill who makes brown rice pasta made with flax seeds which is a good source of Omega-3 oils.  After a generation where we saw many unhealthy snacks created and still doing well, it’s nice to see that many companies are producing healthier alternatives.   It’s not to say that unhealthy snacks are going to vanish, but the public is a lot more educated and we are moving in the right direction.

Overall, I thought that the show was a valuable experience.  It allowed me to find a lot of gluten free products that I probably wouldn’t have found otherwise.  After seeing how big of a showing gluten free products had at this large show, I can’t help but be optimistic about the future for the gluten free community.