This article was originally posted by our friends at Alchemy Systems, and is shared here with permission.

Things are looking pretty sweet in Bakery and Snacks. Bread is back, and the sandwich is enjoying a bit of a renaissance in all its glorious forms: burgers, bahn mis, tortas, gyros. Enriched and sprouted grains are also on the rise, ensuring the low-carb craze has finally cooled off.

Wanting to dive into the coconut oil debate more thoroughly this year, I read:

Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol, by Mary G. Enig

Enig was one of the first few scientists who lobbied against trans fats, and asked the FDA begin to require trans fat listings on the side of nutrition boxes (they listened, and that trans fat listing requirement on nutritional labels exists today). This research and information eventually led to their recent decision to take trans fats off of their GRAS List (Generally Recognized As Safe) starting in 2018. To learn more about this decision, you can read FDA Recommends Removing Partially Hydrogenated Oils From Food.

Needless to say, Enig (now deceased) was one of the most well-versed on oils of her time. In addition, she was a scientist who shared and tried to break down the complex concepts for consumers. She wrote this book in an effort to share the truth 

If you haven’t heard yet, Costco has now surpassed Whole Foods Market in organic sales. It happened a little while back, and it was a quiet race for the win.

Olive oil has a specific way that it should be tasted to get the full effect of the oil -- just like you would taste wine. I do a lot of olive oil tastings in meetings with customers, along with training our staff internally.

Here's a quick run down if you've never officially been taught how to taste olive oil.

It’s always interesting to me to look at the natural and organic trends on a larger scale; they show the incredible power that consumers have to shape what we as food manufacturers make. It’s also amazing to me how, by acting as consumers, can shape this change through what we buy.

With this in mind, I recently ran across an infographic that I thought would be worth sharing. It outlined the timeline of the growth of the “natural” and organic food market, from the mid-90s to now. The changes are gradual at first, but clearly snowball in recent years.

In honor of the last blog post of 2016, these are the top 10 articles of the last year.  The blog posts below are listed by popularity, from most to least.  Learn about olive oil grades and calculations, along with sunflower oil, coconut oil and goal-setting advice for purchasing teams.

Today, the sale of organic products makes up 5% of the current food market, with the remaining 95% being conventional or non-GMO products. However, the demand for organic products has been on the rise, with growth percentages recently in the double digits.

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.

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?

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.

Have you turned over the back of a snack food bag lately? You’ll now find a whole army of claims and seals that wouldn’t have been there 10 years ago. These claims border the line between quality seals and marketing descriptors, and help back up the quality of the food inside.

Why so many claims? This is something that’s picked up over the last few years as quality seals have increased in importance and more and more people hold allegiance to a certain type of diet like vegan or paleo.

Today I’m going to go through a list of the most common quality claims, so that you can both understand what’s commonplace in the industry and determine if you’re missing any marketing opportunities or quality seals that your product should be taking advantage of.

Should your healthy food company exhibit at Expo West or the Fancy Food Show? Perhaps both?

These two trade shows cater to the natural and specialty food industry here on the west cost. The question of which show to attend is typical for any marketing and sales team selling (or trying to sell) into Whole Foods Market or the natural section of any grocery store.

If you’re just starting to grow a young food company and comparing these two options, we’ll help you run through the pros and cons of each and compare these two popular food industry trade shows.

Vermont is the first state to pass a law requiring foods sold within it’s borders to have GMOs labeled.

This law, which originally passed in 2014, will go into effect on July 1, 2016. This small law is creating big ripples, and with the July deadline looming, major food manufacturers are changing their packaging to include voluntary GMO labeling on a national scale to meet Vermont’s requirements.

Why not make the change for just the food they sell in Vermont? The current retail distribution system is set up on a national scale: manufacturers sell to distributors, and these distributors sell to many different retailers throughout the US. Any state-specific labeling changes would add big costs both in packaging and in the segregation systems that would be required throughout the distribution channels.

This means that the laws for this one tiny state has made big food manufacturers go through some major labeling changes. Even though a national GMO labeling law hasn’t passed through federal government, the requirement for this one state is essentially having the same effect as a national requirement, and large brands are preparing for the changes they will have to make.

This March, Natural Products Expo West had another record setting year with 6.9% growth, and hosting more than 77,000 attendees. This event brought together an inspired community of industry members and more than 3,000 exhibiting companies, including more than 600 first-time exhibitors.

As an exhibitor and attendee myself, this is one of my favorite food industry shows, and is, in my opinion, the best place to be if you are launching a new food brand into the natural foods market, or if you have any desire to sell to Whole Foods or Costco in the future.