Expo West: The Ozempic Effect on Snacking, Clean Labels and More Trends

Eating breakfast before hitting the floor at Natural Products Expo West is a rookie mistake, since the annual food conference could easily qualify as the biggest multi-day sampling event in America.

Held last week at the Anaheim Convention Center just south of Los Angeles and in the shadow of Disneyland, the trade show pulled in some 70,000 attendees and 3,000 exhibitors of “natural, organic and conscious products” spanning food, supplements, and health and beauty, per organizer New Hope Network.

The shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, along with the show’s 512,000 square feet of real estate, may help to reenergize a category that has taken some lumps recently for its pricey goods and elitist marketing.

“The turnout speaks to the interest in the whole sector,” Tom Spier, founder and managing partner of investment firm BFG Partners, told ADWEEK. “The numbers suggest there’s real staying power in this industry—it isn’t a passing fad.”

While it’s not a here-and-gone segment, it may take a new form in 2024, experts say, with the proliferation of brands in recent years and the current economic climate setting off a merger-and-acquisition boom. Some brands will survive, some won’t, and some could be gobbled by CPG behemoths looking to amp up their better-for-you bona fides.

Eyes bigger than stomach

In addition to full bellies, the retail buyers and distributors, investors, entrepreneurs and lookie-loos on site got a taste of emerging and ongoing trends. Those range from the continued explosion of world flavors like Asian, Indian, Mexican and African to the omnipresence of faux meat jerky, “ugly” fruit snacks, adaptogen-boosted coffee and a Yo Egg plant-based poached egg that was practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

Dates and hot honey are having a moment, and mushrooms are still going strong—as a supplement, an ingredient and a stand-alone product in various forms. Paul Stamets, a mycologist known for his key role in the Fantastic Fungi documentary and companion book, got a rock star’s reception with consistently long meet-and-greet lines at his Host Defense Mushrooms booth.

Pistachio and pecan milk are no longer the new kids on the non-dairy block—that distinction goes to corn milk, a longtime staple in Asia and Central and South America, but largely unknown here. A startup called Maizly, readying its first U.S. distribution deal, aims to break through with its non-GMO alternative to plant- and nut-based drinks. (And speaking of alternatives to traditional milk, Lattini’s sunflower milk is also coming soon.)

Regenerative farming was an oft-cited marketing buzzword, as was “clean label” though the definition is often unclear, and monk fruit (as a sugar substitute) was everywhere. Grab-and-go convenience items were all the rage, as were gummies of every variety. Read on for more cherry-picked morsels:

Welcome to the club

If the goal is to go from cult favorite to mainstream—and for most companies it most definitely is—brands in the plant-based products space cannot continue the regrettable practice of preaching only to the choir, as some marketers have publicly acknowledged. 

Executives at Impossible Foods have been outspoken on the issue recently, using it as a hook for a brand revamp that includes new packaging and an arms-wide-open message for flexitarians. 

The move coincides with Impossible’s new hot dog launch ahead of summer barbecue season, and came to life in a massive blood-red, meat-themed booth at Expo West. (The purveyors of faux meat have been particularly hard hit by the criticism, and one of the segment leaders, the beleaguered Beyond Meat, was conspicuously absent from the show.)

Meanwhile, collaborations are bringing the plant-based and animal product worlds closer together. Kraft Heinz showed off its expanding line of plant-based products with partner NotCo, such as a dairy-free take on the iconic blue-box mac and cheese. And companies like Umaro Foods, which makes seaweed-sourced bacon, is debuting a breakfast sandwich at Whole Foods with real egg and cheese.

Gail Becker, founder of Caulipower—which promoted new products at the show like pizza bites and chicken bites—noted a communication problem in the industry when she launched her brand in 2017.

“There was a lot of preciousness—it was so exclusive,” Becker said. “I really wanted to create a welcoming brand, something that’s for everybody. We don’t food shame.”

The positioning, which Becker attributed to listening closely to consumer feedback, has helped the brand sell as well at Walmart as it does at Whole Foods.

Turning the tide for some brands may prove challenging, if they’ve established themselves even informally as products for only a select group of buyers.

“The big brands in the industry often think the consumer doesn’t know any better—they bet against the consumer,” Becker said. “We believe they do know better.”

Food as medicine

At its core, Expo West is about snacking, and companies continue to pack their products with more protein and fiber, fewer carbohydrates and calories—in short, offering the grazing public something other than junk food.

But what happens when snacking itself is under pressure? This year’s convention was coincidentally timed at the height of the GLP-1 craze, with retail giants like Walmart having already pointed the finger at drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy as the cause of a marked slowdown in food sales.

“The Ozempic effect is real, and it’s causing a bit of an identity crisis in the snacking category,” said Jennifer Stojkovic, founder of the influential Vegan Women Summit. “There was a lot of talk at the show about complex, healthy fibers and satiation—because Americans are fiber-starved—and brands were promoting themselves as ‘nature’s Ozempic.’”

Gut health was one of the major themes at the event, with brands battling against GLP-1 drugs with a “food instead of pharma” message, Spier said. 

BelliWelli was hyping its new dietary fiber and probiotics powder, debuting next month nationally at Walmart and online, while fast-growing beverage line Olipop was one of seemingly dozens of drinks touting its prebiotics and functional benefits.

Eric Greenspan ahoy!

Amid a sea of products that eschewed any and all animal products, celebrity chef and restauranteur Eric Greenspan was on hand to tout his premium American cheese made with aged cheddar, real cream and real butter.

Greenspan was stationed at the 4th & Heart booth, where workers were handing out samples of his New School artisanal grilled cheese sandwiches made with the brand’s ghee. Indulgent, bordering on sinful? Yes, please.

The entrepreneur, who beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef and pioneered the ghost kitchen concept, spent six years on the recipe, aiming to disrupt a commodified category best known for mass-produced, plastic-wrapped slices.

But along with fine-tuning the product, Greenspan and partner Alan Leavitt have kept their eye on the business end, knowing that competition is inevitable.

“We have to make sure we’ve built a brand that’s as defensible as our product,” Greenspan told ADWEEK. “When somebody else goes, ‘Oh, that’s super smart to do a premium American cheese, we can do that too, and we have more money and more reach,’ if we’ve solidified our brand, we can protect our position.”

Plenty of consumers, even at the foodie end of the spectrum, love American cheese for its nostalgia and comfort, but the lowbrow grocery staple was ripe for a thoughtful revamp, Greenspan said.

It is, after all, a $70 million niche market with few entrenched players outside of Kraft, whose label reads “pasteurized prepared cheese product.” For legal reasons, it can’t be called American cheese—it’s made mostly of whey, skim milk and preservatives.

“If I can get 1%—or less than 1%—of the market, I get a yellow-colored yacht called the S.S. Melty,” Greenspan said. “Which would be great.”