What do Lesser Evil Foods, Bethesda?s Honest Tea and new organic versions of well-known products such as Clif Bars have in common?
They are part of the boom of natural products sweeping the nation, and they all came to Baltimore for the Natural Products Expo East this week. The largest natural products show on the East Coast returned to Charm City after five years in Washington.
“It?s definitely becoming more mainstream; conventional grocery stores are opening natural product sections,” said Lisa Conover, spokeswoman for event organizer New Hope Natural Media.
More than 1,100 exhibitors and vendors welcomed about 20,000 attendees to the Baltimore Convention Center, taking up almost the entire third floor.
Bethesda-based brewer Honest Tea represents a new breed of product eager to wade into an open market.
“It?s tea that tastes like tea; it?s not that sweet,” said Founder and Chairman Barry Nalebuff. However “even if 90 percent of the people down South like sweet tea, for the 10 percent that don?t, we?re it. I?d rather have that 10 percent all to myself than have to share the market with Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, Vanilla Coke, whatever.”
Like anything else, he said, our tastes grow up. So should our beverage options.
“Organic producers have worked hard to develop the tastes of the products,” said Sylvia Tawse, president of Fresh Ideas Group in Boulder, Colo.
It?s no longer “cereal that tastes like sawdust and an apple with a worm in it, but that?s OK because it?s good for the environment, man,” she said.
Natural foods are grown without pesticides, herbicides, hormones or heavy doses of antibiotics, she said. Organic products have a much more stringent set of standards set by the Food and Drug Administration.
Consumer trends are driving the natural and organic markets, Tawes said. Moms are looking for healthier snacks for their children, from traditional chips and cheese puffs to organic Clif Bar energy snacks sized for the lunch box. They have also seen a rise in so-called “lesser evil” products ? healthy versions of Oreos, Gummi Bears and Cheetos for the health-conscious.
Another rising trend is when conventional product companies go organic, like the makers of Clif Bars, Conover said. “In the past three years, their products have transitioned so their whole line is at least 75 percent organic. Most of their products are 95 percent to completely organic.”
