(Co-Founders Jarrett McGovern and Grant Gyesky accepting their award at BevNET Live. Photo courtesy of Nathan Brescia/BevNET)

In all honesty, I am not a huge coffee drinker. So, when it comes to the up-and-coming trends in the coffee world, I am definitely not ahead of the curve.

Yet, when I was at BevNET Live recently and watched RISE Brewing Co. win the 13th Annual Beverage Showdown, it was clear that I was missing something. And I knew that I had to take a closer look.

After I did, I thought to myself that this could very well be the next big organic beverage success story to come out of New York City. Read more »

For the last few days here in New York City, I was attending the Fancy Food Show, one of my absolute favorite trade shows of the year.

What makes this show different from many of the others that I attend is the number of international exhibitors. This gives me the rare opportunity to discover organic products from abroad that I otherwise would not get to see. And two of my picks below are produced from countries outside of the U.S.

(If you’d like to get my full recap and analysis of Fancy Food Show, be sure to sign up for a free trial of Organic Insider – no cost, no obligation, no credit card required – and I will send it right over.)

Here are my Top 5 Organic Food Products from Fancy Food Show 2017.

HAVEN’S KITCHEN KALE WALNUT PESTO

Nearly every time I go to the refrigerated section of the supermarket, I go looking for an organic pesto sauce, knowing full well that I probably won’t find one. For some inexplicable reason, they barely exist.

So, when I saw that Haven’s Kitchen had introduced a kale walnut pesto – and an amazing one at that – I was beyond thrilled. Not only is it flavored perfectly and has great texture, but this product fills a massive void in the market.

Alison Cayne, owner of New York City’s Haven’s Kitchen and author of The Haven’s Kitchen Cooking School, has also rolled out a few other fantastic sauces, including an herby chimichurri and a red pepper romesco. Read more »

With Friday’s blockbuster news of Amazon buying Whole Foods Market for nearly $14 billion, I gave my own analysis on Organic Insider about how this would impact the organic food industry.

Yet, wanting to hear from the people who actually run organic food companies, I reached out to a handful of CEOs and founders, all of whom sell their products to Whole Foods, to see what they think of the deal.

It was important for me to get insight from CEOs and founders of small, medium and large organic brands since companies of varying size may view this acquisition in a different light. Read more »

Yesterday, in a blockbuster deal, Amazon agreed to purchase Whole Foods Market in an all-cash deal for $42 per share or nearly $14 billion.

While there is a tremendous amount of analysis about what Amazon’s plans will be for the stores and how this will forever change the overall grocery landscape, I took a different approach. Read more »

Each day, more and more news comes out about the harm that pesticides can do to our bodies.

This time, a report out of Europe says that pesticides can cause brain damage. Yes, brain damage. Read more »

Two days before President Obama left office, he passed very important Organic Animal Welfare Standards, which will vastly improve how animals are treated. (Why he waited until the last minute to do this is a whole other story.)

Nevertheless, he pushed them through, and it appears that the Trump administration is looking to reverse course and kill them. Read more »

Whether you’re new to organic or have been eating it for decades, here is a very likely scenario when you go to buy eggs.

You stand in the refrigerated section of the market, look at all of options, check out the prices and make a decision largely based on the packaging of each brand.

Some have attractive pictures of rolling farmland, others show actual farmers, some have photos of the animals. Most certainly, the brands are using buzz words such as “cage-free”, “sunlit porches”, “omega 3-s” or “heritage breed”.

Are these brands being falsely deceptive?

I don’t believe so at all. They are trying to make the packaging as attractive as possible, and rightly so. I would do the exact same thing.

While brand recognition and price are key factors, what the packaging looks like and the emotional reaction that it has on you can heavily influence purchasing decisions.

As I have written about before, all organic eggs are NOT the same — all birds are fed differently and are treated differently — but people forget this and may get seduced by wholesome, folksy packaging.

So, I took a sampling of 8 different organic egg brands and pulled their ratings from the Cornucopia’s Organic Egg Scorecard to see how they stacked up versus the attractiveness of the packaging.

The Organic Egg Scorecard classifies each brand into one of five categories:

“5-Egg” Rating: “Exemplary” – Beyond organic

“4-Egg” Rating: “Excellent” – Organic promoting outdoor access

“3-Egg” Rating: “Good to Very Good” – Organic, complying with minimum USDA standards

“2-Egg” Rating: “Fair” – Some questions remain concerning compliance with organic standards

“1-Egg” Rating: “Industrial Organics” – No meaningful outdoor access and/or non-transparent

Here is what I found.

VITAL FARMS === 4-EGG RATING

Read more »