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Top 5 Organic Food Products from Natural Products Expo West 2014

Expo West 2014 was a particularly difficult show to choose only 5 products, and I easily could have selected 10 or so. The innovation at this year’s expo was fantastic, and it never ceases to amaze me what organic food companies will come up with next.

I have done something different with this year’s awards. Not only did I decide to do it in a video format, but I invited my friend Vani Hari of Food Babe to critique my selections. As you can tell from above, we had so much fun discussing these products, and we plan on repeating this at each subsequent trade show.

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Top 5 Organic Products of Fancy Food Show 2018

The Summer Fancy Food Show, put on by the Specialty Food Association, is always one of my favorite food shows of the year.

Aside from the fact that it attracts vendors from all over the world, it also features an Incubation Village, where food incubators from around the country showcase some of their most interesting brands. This gives invaluable exposure to young brands, many of whom would be unable to afford a booth on their own.

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Showstopper Award from Natural Products Expo West 2013 – Holy Crap

When I first saw Holy Crap at Natural Products Expo West 2013, my immediate thought was “It must be dog food.”

And to be honest, I was very turned off and stayed away.

Yet after passing by their booth several times, my curiosity got the best of me and I went to go see what Holy Crap was all about.

In fact, it wasn’t dog food but rather an organic superfood cereal made from chia seeds, hulled hemp hearts, buckwheat, cranberries, raisins, apple bits and cinnamon.

The story goes that an early fan of the cereal was so impressed that the words “Holy Crap” were the first ones to come out of his mouth. In a stroke of genius, founder Brian Mullin, quickly changed the name of the product to Holy Crap and sales increased 1000%.

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Harmless Harvest is the Hottest Brand in the Organic Food Industry

I see a lot of products in the organic food world but there is a buzz about Harmless Harvest and its coconut water that I have never seen before.

This tends to happen when you are in a super-hot category and you are the best tasting, healthiest product in that category.

Harmless Harvest’s raw organic coconut water is made by using a technology called high pressure pasteurization (HPP), which I named one of my top 5 organic food trends for 2012.

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Whole Planet Foundation is Doing Some Amazing Work Around the World

Everyone knows that Whole Foods is the absolute king of the organic food industry. While it does receive a good amount of criticism and is by no means perfect, I am a fan of the company.

And it is not just me who appreciates Whole Foods. When you go to Natural Products Expo West or Natural Products Expo East, the two most important trade shows in the organic industry, one of the first things that small organic food companies tell you is how many Whole Foods’ stores they are in.

Quite simply, it is a benchmark of their progress and establishes immediate credibility.

Yet, one aspect of Whole Foods that gets completely overlooked is the fantastic work it does with its Whole Planet Foundation.

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Top 5 Organic Food Products from Fancy Food Show 2016

(To follow my day-to-day organic food adventures, please be sure to add me on Snapchat: maxorganic)

Last week in New York City, I attended the Fancy Food Show 2016, one of the best food shows of the year.

While it is not an organic food show per se, there is an increasing amount of organic vendors and I would estimate that about 15-20% of the booths there do offer some type of organic product.

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Another Reason to Eat Organic — GMOs and Weedkiller Found in Conventional Cereal

If anyone you know is still feeding their children conventional cereal, maybe this piece of news will get them to change their habits.

GMO Free USA, a non-profit that educates consumers and other stakeholders about the potential hazards of GMOs, just published its results of independent lab tests (verified by DNA analysis) done on Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal.

Here’s what they found:

1) 100% of the corn in the Froot Loops was genetically-modified, containing DNA sequences known to be present in insecticide-producing Bt and Roundup Ready corn. This corn produces insecticides inside of the plant’s cells and cannot be washed off.

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