The Non-GMO movement is in full swing here in the US, but for years, GMOs have been banned in many other countries. Their bans have prevented the growth, use and import of products that contain any genetically modified ingredients.

Understanding where GMOs are banned is an important discussion for any brands that are selling their products overseas or are importing ingredients to their home country.

Use the comprehensive list below to know if a state or country you’re working with requires you to avoid GMOs or not:

As we speak, bills that would require labeling of GMOs are on the docket of 30+ different US state legislatures. It’s driven by the Right To Know GMO campaign and by a growing mass of consumers that are pushing these laws towards national legislature at top speed.

Their goal? To get any products that contain GMO ingredients to be labeled as such, so that everyone can make informed choices about the food they are putting in their body (and so that people can avoid them if they want to).

Because of the concerns surrounding GMOs, the reality is that any federal requirement to label GMOs will cause most manufacturers to move away from using ingredients that contain any GMOs in the first place.

All of us in the olive oil sector are excitedly waiting for the next harvest season this winter.

This last years harvest (October 2014 - January 2015) was substantially down from the year prior, and we’ve seen both lack of supply and a resulting increase in prices over this spring and summer.

Every year, olive oil prices are at their lowest between December-January, at the peak of the harvest season. Over the spring and summer, prices continue to slowly rise as the world’s olive oil inventory is used up. In the middle of September, Spain officially announces what their next year’s harvest is going to look like (this matters because they are the world’s price driver), and prices either jump up or drop down accordingly.

Because of this annual cycle, olive oil prices in the summer are often high and many olive oil users look forward to the next season with fingers cross for a good year.

The FDA website consists of thousands of pages on food regulations, news, events and new law announcements, food safety tips and resources, answers to frequently asked questions, and other helpful information for both consumers and food business owners.

The problem that many food producers have with the FDA, especially those just starting out with their business, is that the website seems endless and requirements for proper food labeling are very complicated, sometimes even ambiguous. The advice to all food businesses is to consult experts prior to labeling their product.

This article was originally published on the K3S Blog and is shared with permission by the author. 

Somebody once told me that if you’re feet were in a fire, and your head was in a freezer, on average your body temperature would be about right.

But it wouldn’t begin to tell the story of what was going on or your comfort level.  Averages can be misleading.

I was recently planning a trip to Las Vegas. 6 months ahead of time, I looked up the average temperature to get an idea of what I should expect.  For February, the average high is 70 degrees. However, the record high is 90 and the record low is 16!  When it came time to decide whether to pack shorts or jeans a parka, I needed something, far more accurate than the average temperature.

So as the trip approached, I switched from simply looking at the average temperature to the weather forecast. Why? Because weather forecasts factors in much more than a simple average.  

At this years Natural Product’s Expo West, New Hope’s team of editors and analysts identified five nationwide trends that are influencing the natural and organic food marketplace.

These trends are having a strong influence on the emerging foods and brands, and were seen all over the aisles of Expo West.

Here's their top 5 (plus 2 more I thought deserved to be on the list).

In a recent interview with Rachel Zemser, Justin Hall gets to the root of the basics you need to know if you’re growing a young food brand. 

Rachel brings years of experience as a food scientist to the table working for big brands, and she knows how a new product is brought to market.

Even more importantly, she knows how the retail food industry works; how a food is accepted into a grocery store and how their terms can affect the ingredients that you choose and the market that you go after.

“Social procurement is a way of being a good business and doing good business”.

Ever heard of “social procurement”? Maybe not. I hadn’t.

But if you’re in the natural or organic foods sector, chances are that you’re already doing it.

Social procurement is all about making procurement choices that do social good. Choosing supply options that make the world better — not just make your company money. It’s often considered to be a cross-over with marketing and PR, because of the positive brand perceptions that often accompany it.

So how can you make smart social procurement decisions to help grow your business, all while making the world better?

Just picture it: you’re walking the aisles of Whole Foods Market… How many natural and organic foods are touting green packaging? A lot, right?

That’s the new trend (and thank goodness for it!): biodegradable, recyclable, and green packaging.

But retail products are not the only category looking for green packaging options.

Procurement managers in the industrial manufacturing realm are also looking for ways to increase their positive impact -- both on their community and the world. If you don’t care about doing good, chances are that your customers do.

Whether green buying is a part of your business strategy or if it's simply a PR exercise, we have the tips you need to make the switch to greener, more environmentally-friendly packaging options for industrial healthy oil ingredients.

If you’re looking at bulk oils for the first time from a bulk supplier (vs. a distributor like Costco), you’ll need to know how much oil you’d get in a bulk shipment, determine the weights of the different packaging types and understand how much oil comes on one pallet.

This article will address these three basic questions, as well as why you need know these calculations:

What is net weight? You need to know this to figure out and compare pricing.

What is gross weight? Gross weights help you choose the right packaging and do shipping calculations.

How much oil fits on one pallet? We’ll give you the calculations.

Are you having your food product Non-GMO Project Verified?

The process is a lengthy one — we know. But totally worth it! We’ve gone through the process ourselves, so we understand. But the good news is that with this experience, we are able to help our own customers understand their oil ingredients and get the right documentation for their verification process.

If you are starting this process (or going through R&D for your ingredients with plans to get verified later), it’s important to understand how your different ingredients are classified, and how the categorization can affect your verification process.

“Manufacturing faces a serious skills gap. Part of this gap is the underrepresentation of women in the industry.”  — The Manufacturing Institute

Did you know that while women make up approximately 50% of the labor force, they make up only about 24% of the manufacturing labor force?

Manufacturers are scrambling to fill their need for skilled professionals, and the women of the future will fill a big part of that. In 2013, approximately 600,000 manufacturing jobs were unfilled because companies couldn’t find qualified workers to fill them.

In the coming years, many manufacturers will turn to women to fill that need.

Non-GMO. Organic. The Non-GMO Project Verification. We’ve talked about this already, haven’t we??

If you are a natural food manufacturer, the discussion about the non-GMO trend is probably getting redundant now… You’ve switched to non-GMO ingredients, or you’re at least working on it. You’ve compared non-gmo vs. organic prices. You’re done with your Non-GMO Project Verification.

But if you are in the food service industry, your answer is probably different. Half of you reading this right now are saying, “What?? Non-GMO? All my customers care about is getting the lowest price!” The other half of you, however, are nodding along saying, “Yes!! I've started to get questions about non-GMO products, especially oils!”

While the non-GMO trend has completely saturated the manufacturing sector at this point, the food service sector is always slower to keep up. Right now, we are right at the brink of non-GMO and organic products beginning to permeate more and more of the food service sector. Is your company prepared?

It’s all about making your customers happy, isn’t it? Creating a product that they’re excited to eat and share with their friends — that’s how to your make your business successful.

This is why it’s so important for food manufacturers to stay on top of the consumer trends in the natural and organic industry. It’s the best way to give your customers what they want, and it all starts at the sourcing level.

If you’re trying to track down the right organic oil for your organic or natural food product, look no further!

Here are the top for organic oils in healthy products today. These are going to be the ingredients that are used in your competitors products and that are all over the shelves of Whole Foods Market.

Your natural food brand needs more eyes on it.  It needs more shares.  More likes.

We can all agree on that, because that's part of marketing now.

But it's in your hands to begin marketing your products and get the chain reaction started.  It won't happen without you, young business owner.  If you're not a marketer in the food industry, it can be hard to do (much less make time to do it!).

You're not alone in this struggle.  Most people that start food brands are not marketers-- they're entreprenuers!  

For those of you that need a boost expanding the reach of your brand, here's a list of my favorite marketing tools for growing food brands that are selling directly to consumers.