The Natural Foods Expo West is a delicious hub of all things healthy, specialty and innovative in the food industry. With over 1,800 companies attending to showcase their products, it is literally a buffet of brands serving up what’s hot in 2016. Expo West draws an immense audience of buyers, agents and investors, but there’s one group of attendees brands want to make sure to impress – Influencers.
Here are some of the powerhouse influencers to watch out for this year:
Candice Kumai Candice is one of the food industry’s top clean-food chefs, promoting green eating and healthy recipes in her best-selling cookbooks. She wams the youngest chef in history on Bravo’s Top Chef at age 23, is the Resident Culinary Adviser at Clean Eating magazine and contributes regularly to multiple TV shows and publications including E!, Access Hollywood, The Doctors, Women’s Health and Cosmopolitan. With an excited and diverse audience ready to follow her suggestions, be sure your brand catches her eye!
Lauren Slayton Lauren is an author and founder of Foodtrainers in NYC, offering clients nutrition counseling, brand sponsorships and corporate lectures. Along with the Foodtrainers’ services, Lauren shares her expertise through appearances and contributions to Dr. Oz, The Today Show, and more. This year, Slayton says she and her team have certain “healthy hoops” they look for in a brand. Topping list of criteria are sound ingredients, deliciousness (if edible), pretty packaging (yes, looks matter!), and newness (new flavor profile, new use of an ingredient, etc). “At any show there are always a couple of standouts that we get inappropriately excited about, I want to find those,” says Slayton.
Rachel Pitzel is Mommy Extraordinaire. As the founder of ClubMomMe, a community of expecting parents and new moms and dads, Pitzel has the ear of a niche market that is constantly looking for latest and greatest in family products. Club MomMe hosts a variety of social, educational and wellness events, each featuring great new brands their followers can trust. Each year, Rachel says she looks for brands with buzz-worthy products that solve a problem. “Our community tends to be very informed and educated about what they are consuming and the products they are using,” said Pitzel, of her task to find the best of the best for her audience.
So what are you bringing to the table?
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