Today, we are going to review some of the trends in the natural food industry over the last few years.

There’s a lot of data surrounding the natural food industry showing how it’s growing. As food manufacturers, however, you’ll want to know which product claims are growing and declining and why — so that you can make educated decisions about your future product lines and how they will be marketed.

We are going to review some statistics based off of the product claims that are being used on packaging — and how the use of those product claims have changed over time. We’ll also review how natural grocery stores are growing and more importantly, why.

Do you use non-GMO canola oil in your food products, or are you considering using it in the future?

Today we will overview of the popularity and availability of this oil. It will help you get a better picture of why manufacturers like you are using this oil and the state of the supply chain, both short and long term.

As the popularity of snacks and convenience foods in the natural space has increased, food bar trends have also grown over the last few years.

The number of adults consuming nutritional bars grew by 11% between 2004 and 2014. Similarly, 44% of all adults ate cereal or granola bars in 2014. Not only do bars hold a large market share in the snack food sector, but their use is also on the rise.

In February 2015, Packaged Facts reported that the market for bars, which includes nutritional, granola and cereal bars, will hit $8 billion by 2019. With that in mind, here’s what you need to know if you’re a food manufacturer releasing a new food bar line.

Recently, we reviewed The 10 Year Evolution of Healthy Food Trends, using consumer data aggregated online by Google Trends.

Today, we will do a similar review looking at the trends of different oils over time to see which oils have the most interest, when popularity spiked, and which oils consumers are most interested in today.

This will give your R&D department some new tools to be able to answer the common question, Which oils should we use? Or better put, Which oils do our customers want us to use?

Olive oil is the juice that comes from the olive, a fruit that is grown on the olive tree. The answer to exactly how olive oil is made will depend on the type of olive oil, or grade, that it is.

Today we’re going to do a basic review of the grades of olive oil and how they are made. You can learn in any way that you want — reading, visual slideshares or videos.

To be able to make smart decisions about your supply chain, you have to look at the availability of the different oil ingredients you may use. I thought today would be interesting to take a look at the data on which oils have the highest global production, and see which have gone up and which have gone down over time.

The USDA Foreign Agriculture Service provides an online tool which allows us to track the availability of different oils within a particular country or around the world. You can see information like total supply, imports, exports, production, crush, etc.

Analyzing this information allows us to glean some data and make smart decisions about future oil purchases.

All trends wax and wane over time.

In the healthy foods industry in particular, we have a lot of trends that have grown in recent years. Today we will be looking through real-time data that shows the growth or decline of those trends over the last 10 years.

With the non-GMO trend in full swing, it’s important to understand which oils are naturally non-GMO and which ones you’ll need to specifically search out (and make sure that all of the quality certifications are in place) to ensure that they are non-GMO.

Sometimes it seems that as an insider to the oil industry, we are privy to little tricks or information that others aren’t. For example, I know that if I see Extra Virgin Olive Oil, I don’t have to look out for a non-GMO seal or logo — it’s all non-GMO! On the flip side, I know that any soybean oil I see (unless it’s specifically called out as non-GMO) will definitely contain GMOs. How do I know? It’s just a little extra knowledge and experience.

So today we’re creating a easy-to-review oils list.

Why would any food manufacturer choose to go with a high oleic oil over a traditional one?

This is a hot debate right now, especially for snack food manufacturers. There’s a number of reasons that a food manufacturer would opt to go with a high oleic oil over a traditional oil.

For simplicities sake, we’re going to discuss this in terms of High Oleic Non-GMO Canola Oil vs. regular Non-GMO Canola Oil so that the only variable is the oleic value. Of course, the same discussion applies to both non-GMO and GMO varieties of oil, as well as many different types of oils — sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, etc.

The smoke points of oils are important. These temperatures indicate at what temperature a particular type of oil will begin to smoke at, and they are key for allowing manufacturers to choose the right oils for their production process.

But depending on who you ask, you may get different smoke point temperatures from different suppliers, even when they are supplying the same type of oil.

If you walk down the oil aisle of any grocery store, you are bound to find a plethora of different coconut oils – it's one of the most popular oils in today's food market.

After being demonized in the 80s and 90s, scientists are now debunking the myth that it is unhealthy. Fans of coconut oil (especially in the snack food industry) are rejoicing this drastic shift in health and perception.

A common question that we get from food manufacturers who are choosing coconut oil as an ingredient is, which kind of coconut oil should we choose? There are multiple types, or grades, of coconut oil — just like olive oil. And it’s important to choose the right grade of coconut oil to meet both your product attribute needs and functionality. 

Coconut Oil is now considered one of the best super-foods by some of today’s healthiest nutritionists, scientists and chefs.

It’s loved because of it’s health benefits — lowering cholesterol, supporting aging and those who are affected by Alzheimers, helping folks lose weight and simply supporting healthy body functioning. (Source)

Prior to now, this oil had a bad rap for years.

Over the years we’ve showed a lot of information on how olive oil is made. We haven’t, however, showed much on how canola oil is made.

Given the popularity of this oil (it holds the #2 spot in terms of US oil production volume, and Non-GMO Canola Oil is now Centra Foods’ #1 item), I thought it would be good to answer all of your canola oil questions with a video that explains and demonstrates canola oil production.

The demand for coconuts has skyrocketed in the last few years. Coconut everything can be found in the natural food market. Coconut oil, coconut sugar, coconut water. Not to mention just plain old coconuts!

At the same time, coconut producers are having a hard time keeping up. Supply on coconuts has also gone down slowly over time, which as a matter of simple economics, has driven prices up. If you are using coconut oil in your production — or even thinking about using it — here’s what you need to know.

If you fry food in a restaurant or if you produce a retail product by using frying, this article is for you. Today we will review the three most popular oils in today’s natural foods market that are used specifically for frying.

Healthy consumer trends are driving each of these oil choices, because they are looking for ingredients that are healthier and cleaner options than the industry standard conventional commodity oils.

If you want to keep an eye on oil industry trends, this is it!