NBJ Honors an Industry for Overcoming Challenge with Integrity and Service
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STRATEGIC INFORMATION FOR THE NUTRITION INDUSTRY May 2021 nutritionbusinessjournal.com | $199 Essential business NBJ honors an industry for overcoming challenge with integrity and service By Bill Giebler hroughout each year, NBJ re- heightened manufacturing safety protocols ports on and talks to emerging and ingredient supply challenges. and established leaders in dietary Well before NIH’s Anthony Fauci, NBJ Award winners supplements, food and beverage, iden- M.D., recommended taking vitamins C » Large Company Leadership & T Growth Puris tifying challenges, opportunities, trends and D, consumers old and new had already and threats across the industry. We hear flocked to vitamin aisles—and Amazon— » Medium Company Leadership & about the intersections of diet and health for those vitamins, plus multis, elderber- Growth Your Super and broader cultural happenings, whether ry, zinc and more. NBJ surveys over the » Small Company Leadership & political or social. We hear about issues of last twelve months show that as much as Growth Apothékary trust and opportunities for transparency, 54% of shoppers increased supplement us- about how brands are guiding consum- age due to COVID-19—and many from » Management Achievement The entire supplement industry ers and how consumers and suppliers are “none” to “some.” guiding brands. But not all populations were treated » Efforts on Behalf of Industry Now At the top of the year, we take these equally, by COVID-19 or by access to in- Health Group understandings, overlaid with the values formation and nutrition. So, as the virus af- » Science and Innovation Brightseed NBJ and New Hope Network promote fected populations of color disproportion- » Supply Chain Transparency as critical to industry success, and look ately, race and equity came into play, not Cepham back over the prior year. Beginning with just in headlines sparked by the murder of Mission and Philanthropy general nominations and moving out to George Floyd but by the pandemic, too. As » Naturade those recognized by our staff and adviso- we look back on 2020, then, we’re looking ry board, we determine the winners of the at a year deeply influenced by a pandem- » Stewardship and Sustainability NBJ Awards. ic and deeply rattled by still-lacking racial HowGood Thus, each year the awards are heavi- equality in most strata of our lives. » Education Brian Terry and Ken ly influenced by industry headlines, as we These are the headlines that have in- Redcross, M.D. honor companies that made those head- formed the 2020 NBJ Awards. lines with integrity or responded to them This March, we had twice as many nom- with aplomb. But rarely—probably never— inees as in prior years, which led to vibrant We’re honoring the work of both Bri- have the awards been so heavily influenced discussions with our advisory board and, an Terry of Nordic Naturals and Ken by general headlines as they were in 2020. ultimately, to the following 10 awardees. Redcross, M.D., with a shared Educa- Those intersections—of health and global For starters, we’re honoring the entire tion Award for their parallel efforts to happenings—were profound in 2020, and industry with the Management Achieve- increase awareness of the importance the industry was hit with particularly large ment Award for the work so many com- of vitamin D for populations of color— challenges, including, for many companies, panies did to keep employees working and during COVID and beyond. the challenge of meeting record sales with safe during a record year. We’re also honoring nearly-centenar- CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 NBJ 2021 Awards Issue Strategic Information for the Nutrition Industry Bill Giebler, Content & Insights Director TABLE OF CONTENTS Rick Polito, Editor in Chief 01 10 18 Claire Morton Reynolds, Industry Analyst Essential business NBJ Award: Efforts on NBJ Award: Supply Katie Dove, Design Team Manager NBJ honors an entire industry Behalf of Industry Chain Transparency David Allen, Designer By Bill Giebler NOW Health Group pushes Cepham breaking down the silos Cindy Van Schouwen, Amazon to take up the gate- By Marc Brush Business Development keeper role quality retailers play Carlotta Mast, Senior Vice President 04 By Melaina Juntti NBJ Award: 21 and Market Leader Leadership and Growth NBJ Award: Mission NBJ Editorial Advisory Board Three companies built on 13 & Philanthropy Tom Aarts health and integrity NBJ Award: Science Naturade brings nutrition to com- NBJ Co-founder & EAB Chairman By Melaina Juntti and Innovation munities in need By Marc Brush Steve Allen Using AI to explore the pow- Partner, Digitalis Ventures er of plant compounds 08 By Peter Rejcek 24 Anthony Almada NBJ Award: NBJ Award: President, IMAGINutrition Management Stewardship and Mark Blumenthal Achievement 15 Sustainability Founder, American Botanical Council Supplement brands highlight NBJ Award: Education HowGood aligns an entire industry Bob Burke worker safety during challenging Ken Redcross and Brian Terry on sustainability standards Founder, Natural Products Consulting year boost awareness of vitamin D By Bill Giebler William Hood By Rick Polito deficiency for people of color William Hood & Co By Rick Polito Greg Horn CEO, Specialty Nutrition Group Adam Ismail Chief Strategy Officer, KD Pharma Group Loren Israelsen President, UNPA Larry Kolb President, TSI Health Sciences Bernie Landes President, Nutritional Products Consulting Get in on Janica Lane Managing Director, Piper Jaffray the action Michael McGuffin President, AHPA Learn how Randi Neiner Neiner Consulting Ian Newton consumer Managing Director, Ceres Consulting Kantha Shelke mindset shifts Founder, Corvus Blue Scott Steinford are driving Trust Transparency Consulting Peter Wennström this $40.5B President, Healthy Marketing Team Nutrition Business Journal® (ISSN 1548-6168) is published in 11 editions each year by New category. Hope Network, a division of Informa PLC, 5541 Central Avenue, Suite 150, Boulder, Colorado, USA 80301. © 2020 Informa PLC. All rights reserved. This publication may not be duplicated The new or reproduced without written permission. Please visit Active Lifestyle Report www.nutritionbusinessjournal.com to order a subscription. Annual digital subscription rate is $1395. Corporate rate at nutritionbusinessjournal.com is $2695 for up to five users. MAY 2021 NEWHOPE.com | 2 NBJ 2021 Market Overview Issue Strategic Information for the Nutrition Industry COVER STORY CONTINUED LETTER FROM NBJ: LOOKING TO EXAMPLES AND THEN LOOKING AT OURSELVES ian supplement brand Naturade with Maybe stepping outside the comfort zone is not supposed to feel com- the Mission and Philanthropy Award, fortable. for shattering the privileged exclusivity For this year’s Awards Issue, we chose winners in two categories based on seen across the supplement industry by what they did for nutritional equity. Naturade focuses on making quality nu- filling a substantial gap in marketing trition more available to communities of color (see page 21). Nordic Naturals’ reach and taking nutrition to BIPOC Brian Terry helped the brand build its Health Equity and Advocacy Project, and communities. Dr. Ken Redcross helped the Organic and Natural Health Association design its For Leadership and Growth, we’ve Get on My Level campaign, both efforts aimed at raising awareness of vitamin D deficiencies in dark-skinned populations (see page 15). chosen three companies of very differ- Naturade is receiving the Mission and Philanthropy Award. Terry and Red- ent sizes and ages. Those are pea-pro- cross will share the Education Award. Terry and Redcross are Black. Naturade tein supplier Puris, for its pioneering is co-owned and run by Claude Tellis and Kareem Cook, both Black men. role in plant-based protein market, and This is what diversity looks like. Sadly, it’s not what NBJ has historically herbal products startup Apothékary looked like. and whole food supplement brand This could be the uncomfortable moment when we question whether our Your Super, for marching into a awards this year are merely a reaction to the events of 2020, the year that the crowded space with quality and exem- deaths of George Floyd and other Black Americans at the hand of the police plary transparency. thrust race into the conversation for every industry and institution. Are we guilty Proving that legacy brands can be of choosing the winners we did because race and inequity are a hot topic? Is market-leading innovators, Supply there a self-righteous opportunism in these choices? We’d say, no, that the work of Naturade, Redcross and Terry is important and would not have hap- Chain Transparency Award goes to for- pened without their perspectives and passions. They earned these awards. ty-year-old ingredient supplier Cepham, But those questions aren’t the hard part. That NBJ looked past the for its longtime commitment to trans- subject of race for much of its history may be the more important matter parency that includes a recent full-scale at hand. We did not choose these winners to apologize for a monocultural adoption of blockchain technology. viewpoint or wave a flag that says, “look at us, we’re the good guys.” For Technology plays a key role, too, too long we weren’t looking hard enough for diversity. But this year, diver- for two companies providing sophisti- sity found us. Recent events forced us to take a hard look at what we cover cated tools to the product formulation and how we cover it. We hope this more diverse slate of nominees is a sign process. Brightseed takes the Science that our cultural perspective is recalibrating. and Innovation Award for its compu- We needed to try harder, and we have. Look at the last year of NBJ tational biology tool that helps to un- issues and you will see a chorus of voices that is not as white and male as the industry we cover. We’ve examined racial health disparities, and we’ve lock the potential of plant medicines, called the industry to task for not supporting entrepreneurs of color, not and HowGood grabs the Stewardship doing enough to bring diversity into its leadership ranks.