I’m sorry that I didn’t post yesterday.  I had a very busy weekend so I took the day off from blogging.

I know that I gave you 3 of the upcoming food trends that you’re bound to see everywhere in my post here but do you want to know what will be the biggest trend will be in natural products and organic foods?

Socially responsible companies.

Image: Tom Raftery

Call it the Tom’s Shoes or the Ben & Jerry’s effect, giving back to the community or helping those in need was part of the mission statement and operations of many companies at ExpoWest.  Many of these socially responsible companies are being founded by young entrepreneurs and this is definitely a trend that I admire and I’m certain many can and will get behind when making choices about products to purchase.

A few of the stellar companies that I discovered included:

Impact Foods (IF), an all natural granola company run by two young Texans: Ben, who looks like a young Chris O’Donnell and Blaine who has the same name as a character in one of my favorite John Hughes movies – Hint: Andrew McCarthy wore a bad wig playing him in the final scene of the JH movie).  

These two certainly won my heart because of their company’s aim to end world hunger with a focus on children – Buy One Bag, Feed One Child.  Impact Foods works with World Food Program USA to provide hunger relief throughout 73 countries around the world.  

There are 3 flavors of Impact Foods granola: Maple Oat, Vanilla Almond and Blueberry Honey and you can buy their products here.

Soapbox Soaps, another company whose belief is that soap=hope.  This group of young entrepreneurs have created 8 types of handmade, 100% natural soaps to help save the lives of children.

For every bar of soap purchased, Soapbox Soaps, gives a bar of soap to a child in need in the USA and in countries around the world.   Their website needs is not as intuitive as I’d like but the company’s message is wonderful.  The 8 choices of soaps are available for purchase here.

• You Da Balm, born in Brooklyn (got to give the shout out!), have 3 choices of lip balm (Coconut, Grapefruit or Tea Tree) available at these stores.
• YDB’s website is lacking but a brochure highlights a partnership with the Chill Foundation (of Burton Snowboards) that uses snowboarding expeditions to give at-risk youth a chance to build confidence, self-esteem and positive role models.

Three other companies were also standouts in the social responsibility: Kutoa (Buy a Bar, Feed a Child), Love With Food (For Every Box Sent, We Donate A Meal To A Hungry Child) and Papa Ben’s Kitchen (founded by a Holocaust survivor committed to serving and donating to the Holocaust Rememberance Foundation,  Zachor).

Giving back is something that makes all of us feel good.  I’ve done 2 of my 26 Random Acts of Kindness for 2013 and the feeling after giving is unbelievable.  The fact that giving back was the biggest trend I saw at ExpoWest, it gives me some hope for the future corporate world at large.

I did come across one other NYC based socially responsible company of note (that gives a portion of all sales to a children’s cancer charity).  I was so impressed by the founder of the company that I plan to feature this dynamo in a separate post, so stay tuned!  She’s not only a fighter but she’s super sweet (pun intended).