2018

Organic and natural tradeshows draw huge crowds

Natural Products Expo West, BIOFACH, and MOSES Organic Farming Conference draw nearly 140,000 people as interest in organic food and farming continues to grow worldwide. Interest in organic and natural foods continues to grow significantly as evidenced by the large crowds attending industry tradeshows and conferences. Natural Products Expo West, held in Anaheim, California in […]

Natural Soybean and Grain Alliance developing non-GMO opportunities for Arkansas farmers

A new organization aims to help Arkansas farmer realize opportunities in non-GMO food and agriculture markets. The Natural Soybean and Grain Alliance (NSGA) was established in 2015 after co-founders Kelly Cartwright and Lanny Ashlock helped develop the edamame food soybean industry in Arkansas. “We’re trying to develop markets for non-GMO soybeans,” says Cartwright, NSGA’s executive […]

Impossible Burger exec grilled at Sustainable Foods Summit

An executive from a company selling a genetically engineered meat alternative faced tough questions at the Sustainable Foods Summit held in San Francisco at the end of January. Nick Halla, chief strategy officer of Impossible Foods, gave a presentation about his company’s Impossible Burger as a sustainable solution to the problems of industrial meat production. […]

As U.S. organic corn acres increase, imports decrease but organic soy imports remain high

By Rachel Storey and Ryan Koory, Mercaris Last year was a newsworthy one for organics. Two major topics of interest were 1) high proportion of organic imports compared to domestically-produced commodities (in the 2016/2017 marketing year, about 78 percent of organic soy and 41 percent of organic corn were imported, per Mercaris data), and 2) […]

Plant-based foods: A robust trend and key mitigator of climate impacts

It’s been called the Trend of the Year for 2018 by restaurant consultant Baum + Whiteman, as plant-based foods capture increasing supermarket shelf space and infiltrate mainstream eating habits. Last year saw an 8.1 percent growth in the sector, compared to a loss of 0.2 percent for all foods sold; the non-dairy milk sector grew […]