Select articles of the trends spotted at the Natural Products Expo West, held in Anaheim, CA in early March…
From Emily Crowe, Progressive Grocer:
Tapping Into Culture
Gut health-focused products were a major champion at this year’s Expo West, with items ranging from soda to butter to yogurt standing out in a crowded field. According to Innova Market Insights, 48% of consumers are interested in gut health supplements such as fiber, prebiotics or probiotics, and producers at the event delivered.
Nancy’s Probiotic Foods displayed cultured, European-style butter made with organic milk from pasture-raised cows, and Stonyfield Organic exhibited its Probiotic Yogurt that promises billions of probiotics with each serving. Nature’s Garden, meanwhile, put forth its Probiotics Yoggies snacks, which consist of “real fruit bites coated in creamy yogurt” and boast 2 billion probiotic cultures plus 3 grams of fiber.
Also on the snack side, newcomer Krack’d Snacks shared its better-for-you candy bars that include prebiotic fiber, in addition to being low-carb and keto diet-friendly.
Probiotics were also well represented in the beverage space, including Humm’s Probiome Kombucha that includes 10 billion probiotics from 3 clinically researched strains, as well as Bloom Pop Prebiotic Soda, which is crafted with PreticX prebiotics to naturally support gut health.
Beverages With Benefits
Speaking of beverages, the Expo West show floor was awash with drinks that offer a little something extra. TRIP Mindful Blend, for example, is a lightly sparkling canned drink with added magnesium and lion’s mane mushrooms to promote calm and relaxation. Juni Sparkling Tea, meanwhile, includes adaptogens and nootropics that the company says help elevate overall wellness.
Elmhurst’s new Clean Protein beverage boasts 27 grams of plant-based protein per container with just 190 calories, while De La Calle! Tepache sodas pack 6 grams of protein per drink. On the newcomer side, tru cinnamon offers a cinnamon-infused water made with premium Ceylon Cinnamon that offers benefits such as good cholesterol support, brain function improvement, and blood sugar and inflammation reduction.
Back to Basics
While many of this year’s trending Expo West products featured inclusions or extras, an interesting subset of items took their ingredients back to basics. Tractor Beverage Co.’s Craft Haymaker beverage, for example, is a certified organic apple cider vinegar-based, sparkling farmer’s tonic made from a traditional folk recipe.
Zego Old Fashioned Rolled Regenerative Oatmeal is organic, gluten-free, and purity verified by a third party for heavy metals, glyphosate and more than 500 toxins. The company does not allow any of the top 14 allergens or corn in its facility to help adhere to several diet requirements, and has never had a test show any allergen residue in more than eight years.
Meanwhile, Magos Whole Egg Chips come in several flavors and are keto-friendly and certified vegetarian, while also including no gluten, oils or artificial ingredients. As for Pip’s Heirloom Snacks, the company’s popcorn, cheese balls and corn chips are made with rare heirloom corn from small family farms that offers a unique flavor and texture, on top of being sustainable and biodiverse.
Meal Inspiration
Today’s time-strapped consumers are constantly looking for ways to make their lives easier, and meal inspiration, starters and appetizers were on full display to help. Sharwood’s Simmer Sauces come in a range of Indian and Pan-Asian flavors to easily transform everyday meals, while The Spice Tailor Curry Sauce Kits offer a more immersive cooking experience with multiple sauce and spice packages. Sauces and marinades from Primal Kitchen, Tessamae’s Organic, Big Tree Farms and Truff also made a splash.
Fish Taco Kits from Premier Seafood are slowly making their way into the U.S. market, and offer all the fixings for a full meal, including seasoned rockfish, chipotle lime sauce and soft tortillas. Humble & Frank also displayed fish dinner solutions, including beer batter mix, sauces and marinades, and seasoning rubs.
As for dessert, My Better Batch offers cookie mixes that promise a finished product that tastes better than homemade with none of the hassle of baking from scratch. Flavors include Chocolate Chunk, Classic Sugar, Celebration and more.
Pure Protein
While this roundup has touched on protein here and there, the trend really deserves its own section. Protein is, quite literally, everywhere, and consumers of all ages and health levels are seeking it out to add to their daily routines.
Organic Valley’s Protein Plus Milk made a splash, promising 50% more protein and 50% less sugar than regular milk. FUEL10K granola from Premier Foods Group delivers about 10 grams of protein per serving, and Kodiak creatively displayed its protein-packed Overnight Oats, Oatmeal, Power Cakes pancake mix, Chewy Granola Bars, and frozen breakfast items like French toast sticks and waffles.
Silver Hills Bakery showed off its Smooth & Sprouted Protein Bread filled with plant-based protein, while KIND Snacks displayed its Protein Max snack bars with 15 grams of protein. On the other end of the spectrum, Wilde Snacks, known for its high-protein chips made from chicken breast, egg whites, and bone broth, shared its new crackers made from the same ingredients.
Finally, Chad & Barney’s shared what they’ve deemed the “world’s first high-protein pasta sauce.” In flavors like Garlic & Herb, Marinara and Sweet Basil, the sauces clock in at 80 grams of protein per jar, or about 20 grams per serving.
Dairy is not only back, but more innovative than ever. Lifeway unveiled its Muscle Mates line, a drinkable yogurt packed with five grams of creatine, 20 grams of protein and probiotics. Organic Valley showcased its new Protein Plus Whole Milk, which boasts 50% more protein and 50% less sugar than regular milk, while tasting just as creamy and sweet. I also indulged in a Mexican Hot Cocoa flavored Sheep’s Milk Frozen Yogurt from Le Zette and Tattooed Chef’s Cottage Cheese Crust Pizza. Got milk (but make it easy on your stomach)? The show floor was also brimming with A2 options. Standouts included Moozy’s A2A2 Horchata Milk and Trimona A2A2 Bulgarian Yogurt.
We all knew protein would be big at Expo West this year, but I wasn’t prepared for the protein ramen bonanza. Hethstia sampled a Plant-Based Protein Ramen with a whopping 32 grams of protein per serving and 30% fewer carbs. I also tried Sun Noodles’ Yakisoba, which boasts 12 grams of protein per serving and Momofuku’s Sesame Miso Noodles, which also contain 12 grams of protein while bringing bold, punchy flavors to the table.
But it wasn’t just the ramen. Protein noodles, whether a blend of wheat and legumes or enhanced with wheat protein, deliver the same taste and texture as regular noodles, so this category boom seems only natural. My takeaway? People want to have their carbs and eat them too. Who can blame them?
Restaurant-quality frozen food
Frozen food has not always been synonymous with quality, but oh, how the times have changed. Now, frozen food is no longer purchased for convenience alone but because it’s an ideal format for enjoying global flavors or hard-to-make recipes at home.
As we enter a new era of personalized health, wellness and dietary plans, I noticed something else this year: Beverages have also gone niche. Depending on your mood, the time of day or even the activity you’re about to engage in, there’s a beverage for that. Although I don’t golf, I had to sample Course Record’s Lemon Lime Birdie Time—a functional hydration beverage formulated specifically for tee time. Prioritizing skin health? O’kra’s Pineapple Sparkling Okra Water is a drinkable skincare product made with—you guessed it—okra. The beverage had a refreshing flavor and zero okra slime.
There were also myriad adaptogenic beverages to be found, each supporting a different mood, from Phenom’s Daily Balance Sparkling Super Drink to Brez’s Strawberry Mango Uplifting Tonic. I also found a wellness soda from Refrezz specifically formulated to support a good night’s sleep thanks to a proprietary postbiotic blend.
Gut health everything
After a few days of indiscriminately sampling different products, I needed something to support my gut. Luckily, I had come to the right place. One of the best things I tried all week was Gutzy’s USDA Organic Prebiotic Plant Protein Smoothie. Made primarily from fruit and loaded with eight grams of fiber, it was the perfect Expo West snack. As a matcha lover, I was also intrigued by Korean tea brand Osulloc’s stick-pack Good Gut Matcha. Kefirkult’s new Guava Kefir, made from coconuts, packed a tangy punch and contains trillions of probiotics. Does butter support gut health? Lifeway’s new Kefir Butter just might. Even sugar is getting a gut health glow-up thanks to Dolca’s USDA Organic Cane Sugar, a blend of 75% cane sugar and 25% chicory root fiber.
Where do we go from here? If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to not judge a trend too quickly. Sometimes the products that end up becoming beloved staples are the ones we can’t initially wrap out heads around. That’s innovation for you.
Also from the New Hope Network, here is Douglas Brown’s take on trends at Expo West this year:
It spotlights the many trends that electrify the vast and thriving natural and organic products industry. Years past witnessed the rise of movements such as gluten free, keto and plant-based meat. This year? For one, protein emerged as a mega-trend—it’s almost like the stuff of whey, chicken breast and ground peas has become table stakes.
We encountered protein jello and many protein coffees. Protein sodas, protein pretzels, protein ice creams and protein chocolate. Protein ramen? Tangled vats of it. One New Hope friend became so overwhelmed by protein-bright branding that she started taking photos of the products as she walked the show floor. The endeavor didn’t last long, however, it seemed she had to stop at every other booth.
One twist on Protein Palooza 2026: More brands trumpeted animal proteins, over plant-based, than in recent years. The word whey appeared nearly as often as protein.
The broad trend of returning to tradition—fewer ingredients and simple formulations—got much attention during the CPG Innovation Summit morning keynote with Whole Foods Market CEO Jason Buechel and food journalist legend Mark Bittman. It played out on the show floor, with meat and dairy products everywhere.
The innovation here wasn’t so much about research and development as it was simply bringing quality animal products to consumers in convenient and delicious forms. It also merged with protein—the animal kind.
The trend surely contributed to the proliferation of products containing tallow, especially potato chips and corn chips. The push to return to tradition did lead to some fresh innovation: a pizza with a cottage cheese crust, for example, and chips crafted out of dried eggs.
Nonalcoholic caters to adults
The nonalcoholic category made its first big Expo splash at the last Expo East, in the fall of 2023. Since then, the nonalcoholic trend has effervesced with mounting intensity. In 2025, for example, nonalcoholic beer surpassed ale among beer sales; only lager sales surpassed nonalcoholic.
The category showed up—especially with canned cocktails and wellness tonics—in force at the 2026 Expo West. The movement within the category clearly is broadening beyond mocktails simply removing the alcohol from traditional drinks. At this year’s show, most of the booths revolved around bringing adult flavors—think bitter, savory and herbal—to the booze-less bar.
Pizza party
Pizza in general, with dairy rather than plant-based cheese, got pretty saucy at the show. The 2026 Expo West may have served the most slices yet—perhaps in part due to the rise of frozen, uncooked pizzas as a category leader (rather than traditional frozen pizzas, which just get reheated).
Multi-beneficial RTDs
Beverages flooded the show, too. Given the relatively small footprint available for cold beverages at retailers, you might think entrepreneurs would shrink, at least a little, from the category.
Instead, they’re going all-in, especially with canned drinks bringing benefits: prebiotic, postbiotic, probiotic, protein (naturally), energy, mental acuity, sociability, relaxation and much more. Other beverage plays fixed on more straightforward innovations. Banana water, for example.
Creatine on the rise
On the supplements side of the show, creatine commandeered space like a superhero, muscling in on protein’s quest for show dominance. But given their complementary benefits—pump up those biceps!—protein and creatine swan through culture today more as a dynamic duo than heated rivals. In fact, they even appear together in some powder supplements.
Creatine arrived in gummies. It came blended with other ingredients (such as protein, of course) for smoothie powders. Creatine got served in capsules and ready-to-drink beverages, liquid drops and bars, sodas and coffee, chocolate and cookies and much more.
Women’s health across the board
The rising women’s health category also swooped into Expo West with robust power, carrying with it myriad products and applications targeting everything from stages of menopause to vaginal and urinary health, and skin, hair and other beauty-from-within products.
One of them, the Ayurvedic herb shatavari, gets tapped traditionally to support female fertility, vitality and hormonal balance. Its name roughly translates as “she who possesses a hundred husbands,” and is often referred to as the “Queen of Herbs” in Ayurveda due to its wide-ranging benefits for women’s health. And this hundred-husbanded herb landed with swagger at Expo West 2026.
From Jenna Helwig, Real Simple:
Last week I attended Expo West—a ginormous natural and organic food trade show—in Anaheim, California. When I say “ginormous,” I mean it. There were more than 60,000 attendees and over 3,000 exhibitors, many of them offering free samples. You basically never have to eat lunch at Expo West, since it’s easy to spend the whole day enjoying (or, in some cases, tolerating) a taste of this and a bite of that.
My favorite thing to do at Expo is just to walk aisle after aisle (after aisle), seeing what new-to-me brands are on-hand, what new products some of my favorite brands are featuring, and picking up on a few trends. While not all of the trends or brands will last, Expo West is a fascinating snapshot of where the packaged food business is likely headed. Here’s what I discovered.
Protein-Powered Snacks
I also tried two protein-y pretzels: Crisp Power’s 1.75-oz. bags feature a whopping 25 to 28 grams of protein, thanks to ingredients like hydrolyzed wheat protein, carob seed protein, and soy protein isolate. Kindling Protein Pretzels have nine grams of protein per ounce, supplied by wheat protein isolate and chickpea protein. Kindling’s tasted most like traditional pretzels to me.
I remember a few years ago when dates and date sweeteners were a major trend at food trade shows. While I did spy a few date-centric brands at Expo West, I was surprised by the number of both honey brands and food products sweetened with honey. My guess is that we’re seeing this trend because honey presents as a more natural, less processed sweetener, appealing to health-conscious consumers. What did I find sweetened with honey? Among others, peanut butter, tea, chocolate cake, hot sauces, and ice cream from a brand I would nominate for cutest packaging: Ice Cream for Bears.
Functional Beverages
Foods With Nutrition Call-Outs on the Packaging
A Few Favorite Bites and Sips
As a food editor, I’m continually surprised at just how mediocre some new food products are; this goes for everything from granola bars to yogurts to frozen treats and snack chips. The amount of time and money that goes into developing and marketing a packaged good is enormous. After all that, for the product not to taste good is mind-blowing to me.
So, when I try new-to-me products that are actually delicious, it’s cause for celebration! Here are my Expo West highlights:
- I lapped up Oatly’s popcorn-flavored oat milk. I know this sounds weird, but it was delicious. If you’ve ever tried Milk Bar’s cereal milk ice cream, this is in the same world. The oat milk will likely be available in the United States in the fall.
- Zahav Foods’ hummus from the chefs behind the landmark restaurant Zahav in Philadelphia was the smoothest hummus I’ve ever tasted, and the new matbucha hummus variety had a fantastic kick.
- I am a sucker for anything peanut butter chocolate, and I love chunky peanut butter. I’d tried Bonne Maman’s smooth peanut chocolate spread before and was thrilled to taste their crunchy variety at the show. It hasn’t officially launched yet, but it should be in stores sometime this summer.
- I sampled O Olive Oil’s Meyer lemon and basil oils. They both had incredible aroma and flavor.
- I enjoyed every bite of my slice of Katie’s frozen pizza (also available at Target). The ingredients are simple, and it tasted fresh and flavorful. I’d be delighted to heat one up for a last-minute dinner.