Alongside Encouraging Trends that Emerged at Expo West 2023, Tension is Growing Over GMO 2.0

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Natural Products Expo West returned to Anaheim last week, attracting 65,000 people with more than 3,000 brands exhibiting, and the show could be characterized as similar to the weather we experienced — a mixture of sunshine and rain.

On the one hand, Expo West was filled with tremendous excitement and energy, and many organic companies I spoke with had an incredibly productive few days. Furthermore, some very positive industry trends began to take hold.

On the other hand, the continued allowance of GMO 2.0 companies at Natural Products Expo West resulted in a palpable sense of anger among a growing number of attendees, and it cast an inescapable shadow over the entire show, particularly for those who attended the very contentious GMO 2.0 panel discussion.

Here are my key trends, thoughts and takeaways:

SERIOUS COMING OUT PARTY FOR REGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFIED® BRANDS

If you were in the Fresh Ideas Tent on the opening day of Expo West, you could not help but notice the plethora of Regenerative Organic Certified® (ROC) products. And these happened to be many of the most compelling products at the entire show.

With its three pillars — soil health & land management, animal welfare, and farmer & worker fairness — ROC is raising the bar for what organic represents.

But this very impressive display at Expo West 2023 is just the beginning, as the number of ROC brands should continue to explode.

REAL ORGANIC PROJECT MAKES ITS FIRST APPEARANCE

(Paul Muller of Full Belly Farm, one of the most revered organic farmers in the U.S., speaking to a visitor at the booth. Photo courtesy of Real Organic Project.)

Until recently, Real Organic Project (ROP) had been solely focused on certifying organic farms.

However, as a result of its groundbreaking partnership with Germany’s Naturland, ROP is set to become much more of a consumer-facing add-on label, which means that ROP certification will soon be available to organic CPG companies.

ROP having a booth at Expo West was a very big deal and an important step for the organization.

As I have said many times, our best hope to save the integrity of organic in this country is if both add-on labels — Real Organic Project and Regenerative Organic Certified® — achieve significant success and scale.

They are doing critical work that the USDA is not doing, such as prohibiting organic ‘factory farms’ and banning hydroponics in organic.

NOTEWORTHY ORGANIC INGREDIENTS

At the show, Tradin Organic introduced its organic watermelon seed protein.

Sourced from both the U.S. and Canada, Tradin supplies a defatted organic watermelon seed protein powder with a 60% protein concentration. It can be packed for retail, or it can be used as an ingredient in juices, smoothies and protein shakes.

Ciranda has come out with Agave Syrup AL40 and Agave Syrup N10, both of which are USDA certified organic and Non-GMO Project verified.

Agave Syrup AL40, produced by hydrolyzing the carbohydrates in the blue agave plant using enzymes, has 40% less sugar and 40% fewer calories than the standard organic agave syrup.

The Agave Syrup N10 has 9% less sugar and 8% fewer calories than standard agave syrup, with 10% of solids as inulin fiber.

The Brazilian-based company, Organovita, showcased its organic grape skin powder and organic grape seed powder, both of which are made from Bordeaux grapes.

The grape skin powder is a tremendous source of resveratrol and is currently being used by a handful of supplement companies in the U.S.

The grape seed powder is made from non-fermented organic grape seeds that result from the cold extraction process of the grape seed oil, and the powder is very rich in antioxidants and fiber.

INNOVATION FOR KIDS

With organic being incredibly important for kids, we saw some impressive innovation for this demographic, including new products from Suja Organic, Forager Project, Kor Shots and ZenOsa, among many others.

EMERGING BRANDS TO WATCH

There were two very impressive start-up brands that caught my eye, and each had a real social mission component.

While all of their ingredients are organic, these companies are not USDA certified organic just yet. However, organic certification is in the plans for both.

Texas-based Tatemada makes delicious salsas and Nixtamalized maíz totopos (corn tortilla chips). The chips are Non-GMO Project verified, oven-baked, contain five ingredients or less, and are made with no oils.

The company’s short-term mission is to empower women through a safe and dignified work environment in rural communities in Mexico.

Tatemada is as authentic as it gets, with its Mexican heritage running up and down the organization, and the products are outstanding and extremely on-trend. This could be a very big brand one day.

California-based Chakra Chai is committed to regenerative agriculture, transparency, responsible business practices and social impact. Its line of truffles and superfood elixirs, which contain herbs such as shilajit, ashwagandha, gota kola and shatavari, was formulated with the help of two master Ayurvedic practitioners, and all of the products are aimed at supporting the chakra / subtle energy systems.

I can never remember eating an organic food product at Expo West and feeling as if it were bespoke. That is the impression I had each time I took a bite from or sip of a Chakra Chai product.

Chakra Chai is doing something incredibly unique, and its intentionality is apparent.

NEW HOPE’S GMO 2.0 PROBLEM IS GETTING WORSE, ALTERNATIVE ORGANIC TRADE SHOW IS BEING DISCUSSED

(On the stage with me, from l. to r., is Megan Westgate, executive director of the Non-GMO Project; Alan Lewis, vice president for government affairs at Natural Grocers; Karen Howard, CEO and executive director of the Organic and Natural Health Association; Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, which oversees the Regenerative Organic Certified® label. Photo courtesy of Ken Roseboro.)

At last week’s show, I moderated a panel called Is Precision Fermentation Regenerative? Problems and Solutions with GMOs 2.0, and the only reason this panel took place was because the Non-GMO Project paid for and fully sponsored this time slot.

During the Q/A period, a pro-GMO audience member, who did not identify himself and was flanked by numerous other GMO advocates, aggressively challenged the panel about precision fermentation (GMO 2.0), and it became very confrontational. This pro-GMO audience member successfully hijacked the Q/A session and shut every other question out.

While everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion as to the best way to preserve our environment, the irrefutable truth is that GMOs represent an existential threat to the organic industry. It is that serious.

Nevertheless, New Hope Network, the organizer of Natural Products Expo West, recently put out a report justifying its inclusion of GMO 2.0 technologies at its shows, despite the fact that 92% of Natural Product Expo buyers do not believe that precision fermentation/GMO 2.0 technologies are “enabling positive product innovations that should be part of the natural products industry.”

With New Hope allowing and encouraging these GMO 2.0 technologies, it has resulted in contentious interactions at its “Natural” Products Expo, such as what we experienced at the GMO 2.0 panel, and resentment among attendees is accelerating.

In fact, it is building to such a degree that there was a tremendous amount of chatter at Expo West, including from some of the most respected figures in the industry, that a separate organic and Non-GMO trade show is needed. Discussion of an alternative trade show has even begun on LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, Mark Squire, co-founder of Good Earth Natural Foods, started a petition for New Hope to ban ingredients made via genetic engineering.

The reality is that New Hope is now facing a predicament that it can no longer sweep under the carpet, and using the excuse of transparency, when it comes to GMOs at its shows, does not hold water. Simply disclosing that a company is using genetic engineering in its formulation, which isn’t even happening now at the booths or on the products themselves, in no way exonerates the allowance of this technology at Natural Products Expo West.

At their core, organic and GMOs are very different.

No one owns organic. No one owns organic tomatoes, organic apples or organic milk.

Organic is all about trust, nature, openness, collaboration, community and regenerating our environment.

GMOs utilize genetic engineering technologies that involve patents, secrecy, unpublished and hidden processes, and novel proteins that have never been consumed by humans until only recently.

GMOs are food that is owned by corporations, benefit a very small group of people and are not in the public interest.

GMOs are all about controlling the food supply, amassing power and enriching the pocketbooks of a select few. The primary motive of GMOs is the accumulation of wealth and not the betterment of the planet, as much as they would like you to believe otherwise.

Seemingly, New Hope has a decision to make.

It can continue with business as usual, allowing and encouraging GMO 2.0 companies at its shows and risk alienating the organic industry, which could possibly result in a separate organic trade show to be spun off from Expo West.

Or, it could make a policy change, ban GMOs and stand in complete solidarity with the organic industry — the industry that played an absolutely essential role in making Expo West the behemoth it is today.

Make no mistake about it. The anger around GMO 2.0 at Natural Products Expo West is growing and is not going away.

(A few of the GMO 2.0 companies that had booths at the show.)

With gratitude, Max Goldberg, Founder