Natural Products Expo Wrap-Up, Days 2 and 3
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 9:54PM If you read my post about my first day at the Natural Products Expo aka Expo West, you will remember I was lazy and didn't break out the camera or talk to many people. Days two and three were a whole different story. I've got so many products to talk about, let's not waste space, let's just get into it.
Eartharvest is a new vegan cookie dough company with four different flavors. Super moist and delish.
Amy's was debuting a new vegan pizza made with Daiya. This was probably my favorite new item of the show. The sauce is unbeatable and although it looks like there's not a bunch of cheese on it, that actually turns out to be a really good thing. Amy's was also serving slices of their classic vegan no-cheese pizza on gluten-free rice crust.
Clif had samples of my beloved peanut butter Builder's Bars as well as some tasty Sierra Nevada on tap Saturday evening.
Coconut Bliss, a Vida Vegan Con sponsor, was premiering their four new flavors, and all of them are DIVINE. My favorites were the Ginger Cookie Caramel (caramel made from coconut sugar) and the Chocolate Walnut Brownie (orgasmic). Shout out to Vince from Coconut Bliss for pulling me aside and giving me the full synopsis of each flavor like a good sommelier does for the best vino. Vince also took some time to explain the company's stance on the merger with Lochmead Dairy, and let me just say these folks have their heads on straight about the whole thing. Nothing but love for Vince and the Coconut Bliss team.
For two years in a row, my main place to stop for lunch at the show was the Daiya booth. They were debuting their new pepperjack shreds in quesadillas, this new cheese has just the perfect amount of bite to it, Daiya really stepped up their game on this one. They were also serving the Amy's mac 'n cheese made with Daiya as well as last year's staples: pizza and grilled cheese.
The Chicago Soy Dairy booth downstairs was off the charts. All you can eat Dandies, a preview of their new Peeps-inspired "Tweets", Teese mozzarella sticks and spicy nacho cheese pump for fresh nachos were all the rage, as well as the debut of the new Teese shreds. They also had some of the coolest people working their booth.
Attention world: VEGAN POP TARTS!!! Eco-planet was showing off their new vegan, gluten-free toaster pastries. Holy wow, words cannot describe.
Follow Your Heart was showing off their new branding with lots of crisp veggies and all of their wonderful vegan dressings, thicker dips and of course, Vegenaise.
Gardein never disappoints, and this year was no exception. Besides having King Kong size packages of their products (see the size of the human next to the package in the photo), they were handing out plenty of samples of their new Ultimate Beefless Burger.
Goodbelly, the vegan probiotic drink, had a big booth with a King Kong size version of their carton as well as a new top to their vegan probiotic yogurt shot sporting a fresh grin.
Harmony Valley makes some super delicious faux ground meats that just need to be rehydrated, seasoned and cooked. They had samples of their ground burger with Mexican spices on tortilla chip cups that were super good. Full review of the Harmony Valley products coming to the Double V soon.
I love me some in-shell hemp seed. I always pick some up at the show.
Jillian Michaels from Biggest Loser was hanging out at the So Delicious booth after her speaking engagement. I caught her in the act of throwing out some t-shirts, her fans were going straight Sheen for her.
Lightlife was steady serving up Smart Dogs like they were going out of style. Spicy mustard please!
Maria and Ricardo's is a new organic vegan tortilla/wrap company that was serving up some delicious tofu salad wraps in their sprouted wheat tortillas.
Downstairs there was a booth serving up some really yummy natural vegan licorice.
My childhood friend Brian Miller is a top salesperson at Ojio, a maker of fine raw organic superfoods. They were sampling many of their products but the best was an amazing raw sprouted quinoa salad.
ProBar is an awesome new vegan energy bar company, and they were displaying their original bars as well as their candy-like Halo bars and their fruit bars.
The people from Rudi's breads are a bunch of hippies. Just look at this booth.
This company called Sophie's had a faux version of every type of seafood under the sun. I only tried the most generic breaded fish style, but it was actually really good. I'm a fan of fake meat, but imitation seafood just freaks me out a little.
Steaz had a happy hour Saturday evening with unlimited cocktails made from their orange tea soda and Square One organic vodka.
Who doesn't love Shady Maple Farms' stroopwaffles???
Tofurky was my other favorite booth to grab lunch at. They were contantly cooking up pizzas, had TLTs (tempeh, lettuce and tomato with Vegenaise) around lunch time, and were sampling their new pepperoni slices all weekend.
So that's it. Three days of all the hottest new vegan products and I miss the hell out of this event already. I love you Expo West, see you next year.
Reader Comments (7)
I am so jealous of the variety of mock-meat you have in the States. We don't have mock seafood products at all and I don't think I've seen Tofurky either, only the Cheatin' deli style slices. We most certainly don't have Gardein or Daiya. The whole expo looks absolutely amazing. Thanks for the great write up x
Thanks so much for the wrap up of Expowest! There were so many items that I didn't get to see, and it was good to get the name of brands that I forgot but looooooved (Coconut Bliss & Ojio).
Also had heard of the vegan seafood, but no one knew the brand.
What did you think of the vegan queso and vegeusa?
I didn't get to vegeusa, I don't think. I got a jar of vegan queso from the media lounge but didn't find it nearly as impressive as Nacho Mom's. Glad you liked the post, such a fun event!
Be sure to stop by the Tofutown booth next year - all vegan and mostly organic products, like Whipped Topping, vegan cream cheese, and great meat alternatives!
Jon, I did stop by the Tofutown booth, I mentioned all the wonderful products at that booth in my Day 1 post that was not nearly as thorough as this one. Check it out!
http://www.veganvagrant.com/news/2011/3/12/natural-products-expo-wrap-up-day-1.html
I clicked on your blog via a Facebook ad (so...it worked!) and this post had me just...drooling. I'm not vegan, just vegetarian, but all of this is stuff I WOULD SO EAT. When I lived in Boston I used to go to a vegetarian food fest that had things like this. Now, in Atlanta, I have yet to find anything like it... Anyway, your blog is wonderful and I'm glad I clicked over. :)
Thanks for the kind words Marla! I hear there's a vegan soul food place in Atlanta that's supposed to be really good.