Nosh Staff

Category enhancement and reinvention often comes into view through product innovations scheduled to be seen at Expo West. Here’s a look at the latest products that companies plan to use to redefine the breakfast category.

Expo West is known as the viewing ground for rebranding and refreshing existing products and product formats. NOSH will continue to provide a look at those brands who planned to use the show to reveal their new branding or an updated look and feel.

Despite the show being postponed, BevNET and NOSH will continue to bring to the industry the brand initiatives — new products, line extensions, branding changes, and company launches — that are going to flow through this Expo season.

Ben Van Leeuwen, co-founder & CEO of super-premium brand Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, spoke about how the brand has bucked the trend toward healthy eating, promoting brand pillars through packaging and the synergistic relationship between its stores and wholesale business.

Courtney Gillespie is the president and COO of Life’s Grape, an upstart brand that features a unique grape variety, Selma Pete, as the star ingredient of its vine-dried fruit snacks. The company aims to bring millennials into the category by refreshing the classic raisin with quality grapes, unique processing and fun packaging.

We spoke with Marco Canora and Andrew Garner, the founder and CEO, respectively, of pioneering bone broth company Brodo about communicating its value proposition to consumers, how Canora attempts to use his influence as an award-winning chef as to support better-for-you brands and why he believes the steepest part of the learning curve in CPG is also its most frustrating.

Four events over six days. Last December was packed with business discussions and networking across the beverage, food, beer and cannabis industries. Now it’s time to revisit those insights and dive deeper. The complete agenda of presentations from BevNET Live, NOSH Live, Brewbound Live and Cannabis Forum are now available to watch online, including main stage and educational presentations, Livestream Studio interviews and breakout session discussions.

Anouck Gotlib, CEO of European-inspired snack brand Belgian Boys, spoke about how her background in fashion influenced the brand’s identity, the key to successful relationships with retail buyers, how Costco has become a critical partner for incubating new products, best practices for effective merchandising and how the company landed a deal with JetBlue.

Philip Teverow is the co-founder and CEO of Yolélé Foods, a mission-based brand that’s bringing African ingredients and food culture to an international audience, while providing a source of income for smallholder farmers in Africa. The company’s first ingredient platform is fonio, an ancient grain that’s gluten-free, low glycemic and cooks in five minutes.

As senior director at design and innovation firm IDEO, Meija Jacobs understands how brands work visually. But the journey toward building a brand, she said, begins with comprehending human needs — and by using the “superpower” of empathy to build products that matter. During a presentation at NOSH Live Winter 2019 in Santa Monica, Jacobs explained how IDEO uses design thinking to create “supercharged” brands.