Climate Change Will Be Our Focus at Expo West

We’re just 2 weeks away from our annual journey to Expo West, the signature event for the natural foods industry, and I wanted to share 3 events we’re collaborating on; our focus this year is around climate change.

The first panel is “Packaging Imperatives: where we are and where we need to go” in the ‘stewardship’ track. On Friday, March 11 at 12:30 p.m. I will join Cynthia Barstow, James Tonkin and Jeanne Cloutier of Alter Eco on stage to discuss how natural foods brands are uniting in search of compostable packaging.

The second panel is “Time to Lead on Climate” and I love that it is in the ‘making the impossible possible’ track. On Saturday, March 12 at 3 p.m., I will join Chris Mann, Bill McGibbon and Nancy Hirshberg of the “Just Label It” campaign on stage to launch a climate-friendly foods movement.

Jessica Rolph  (Happy Family founding partner) and I started talking last fall about our growing concern around climate change and our thoughts to inspire top leadership toward connecting with the crisis. We thought the natural products industry should engage to do more, so we’re bringing the foremost leaders in the natural foods industry together and will share more details during this second panel. I will hint the key influencers working on this with us in phase 1 include UNFI, Target, NCGA, Guayaki, New Hope and SFTA.

We are also hosting our fourth annual breakfast presentation on Saturday, March 12 at 8 a.m.; our event is already “sold out” in terms of our location’s capacity.

I hope to see you in Anaheim next month!