6 Sizzling Food Trends Marketers Need to Know

There’s no escaping politics these days, even at the natural foods extravaganza called Expo West, where more than 65,000 people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center near Los Angeles last week. 

Expo West, with more than a half-million square feet of real estate and some 3,200 exhibitors, may appear to be a vast sampling extravaganza, which it is, but it’s also a cultural barometer of broader social issues. Held within striking distance of Disneyland, reportedly the “happiest place on earth,” entrepreneurs, manufacturers, retail buyers, marketers, and other attendees had weighty topics to discuss.

Among them: the still-amorphous goals of the new presidential administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) platform and the on-again, off-again trade tariffs. Bryce Lundberg, co-owner of Lundberg Family Farms, used a newly-coined term—“tariff-ying”—during a mid-week panel, summing up some popular opinion at the annual event.

“It was the first political Expo West,” Jennifer Stojkovic, founder of the influential Vegan Women Summit, said after attending the show. “There’s a large overlap in people in the natural products space that align with the messaging of RFK Jr. [Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services].”

A smattering of MAHA hats were visible throughout the exhibit halls, though what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s cabinet position will mean for the space is still unknown. 

“The natural food movement has been largely ignored for years by presidential administrations on both sides,” Stojkovic said. “This is the first to take it seriously, and now there are people in power who can change regulations and have an impact on what Americans are eating, so it’s not a surprise to see brands openly aligning with that.”

Here are some of the highlights of a trade conference that LAist has called “the Cannes Film Festival of natural nibbles” and “the Super Bowl of conscious consumer packaged goods.”

Long live the cow!

While that statement may seem like anathema at a convention known for its plant-based, animal-free, hippie-crunchy-granola roots, it was an oft-cited trend at this year’s show.

The number of faux meat players and their footprint on the show floor has dropped noticeably, the result of a bursting bubble and cultural headwinds—see also, high prices, elitist marketing, and cripplingly effective “ultra processed” accusations. 

The spotlight was on real meat and dairy, with the once-shunned protein sources seemingly regaining their “wholesome” street cred. And a much-discussed substitute for seed oils? Beef tallow.