Walk around a local farmers’ market or a big chain like Whole Foods or even Walmart and you’ll be overwhelmed by the sheer variety of “natural” and “healthy” foods. Consumers want foods they believe offer more health benefits and are made without artificial ingredients, and farmers and food manufacturers are happy to sell to them. But how can you trust that all those products are truly “natural” and “healthy”? It’s complicated.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the government agency that oversees food labeling in the United States, is changing its definition of what “healthy” actually means–and are still trying to figure out a definition for “natural foods.”
The FDA recently ended a public comment period–a length of time during which the agency accepts letters from the public–when they took input on what their definition of “natural foods” should be. But different industry players have very different definitions of what natural and healthy actually mean; many consumers aren’t too sure either and it will take quite some time for the FDA to come up with its own answers.
In an email to Fast Company, press officer Lauren Kotwicki said that the FDA is currently reviewing hundreds of comments and “cannot speculate on how long this will take to review or what will happen next.”
One thing is for sure—the agency’s definition of those two terms will have an enormous financial impact, both on the food industry and on consumers’ grocery budgets.
Enter The Naturalplex
This past March, a cavernous convention center in Anaheim, California, was taken over by a unique trade show. The Natural Products Expo West bills itself as “the world’s largest natural products event,” and is indeed a big deal: More than 75,000 attendees crowded the Anaheim Convention Center to find out about foods, drinks, and vitamin supplements. Speakers such as former White House chef Sam Kass addressed the crowd, and buyers from America’s biggest supermarket chains and small health food stores alike hustled to make deals.
Attendees at Natural Products Expo West are at the center of a massively growing industry. Vendors hawked the virtue of multivitamins, organic breads, compassionately raised meats… and more newfangled innovations like boxed macaroni and cheese dinners and peanut butter cups. One of the more familiar brands, Annie’s Homegrown, which sells “natural” macaroni and cheese, is a reliable moneymaker for their parent company, the multinational General Mills.
