This weekend was the annual CHFA NOW Vancouver, Canada’s premier trade show dedicated to all things natural, organic, and wellness related.
Held on April 26 & 27th from 10-5pm at Vancouver Convention Centre, West Building, the entire convention floor was set up with booths and tables for a preview of this year’s buzzworthy trends and latest innovations in food, health, and wellness.
Created for both vendors and consumers, it is a source of education on new products for retailers, who are doing business in Canada and are looking to bring in new products. You are able to see, touch, taste, and compare thousands of products. Plus recieve discounted show pricing on while making connection with brand reps and owners. It draws names in the natural health products, organics, specialty foods, health & beauty, sports nutrition and/or nutraceuticals sector, as a one-stop shopping experience.
With over 1000 different brand and vendors to discover, I found myself going in thinking I would be done in 2 hours, only to have to walk out and extend my parking for another 2 hours; on top of unloading all my secured samples. It is advisable to split your visit across two days to be able to fully engage with all there is you see and do.
I appreciated how they displayed all the products for easier identification within glass showcases, in the foyer. You were able to see everything the convention show has to offer here, to know what to look our for on the floor within 19 rows to walk through.
I stayed for 4 hours and still found myself cruising through isle and only pausing on what interests me. Common trends include match mixes, protein gummies, non-alcoholic spirits, bone broth, and bamboo bath tissue.
Naturally, I won’t be able report on it all, but the following are some of the highlights that caught my eye.
I discovered the health benefits of sea moss from Plumpp, which had the texture and faint taste of blended white wood ear fungus. Irish Sea Moss contains 15 of the 18 essential elements the human body needs, making it a superfood for gut health and immunity. Also high in vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids Sea Moss is often see in skincare.
OG Ghee is versatile superfood cooking oil made by simmering butter until it caramelizes. The result is that lactose and casein are removed, and a brown butter flavour remains. They have added flavouring to this like chai spice, caffé vanilla, and herb & garlic.
Matcha Ninja had easy mixing packets of powder in colourful flavours like dragon fruit, spirulina, and ube. The same flavours also come in cans of sparkling beverages.
All Fat used beef tallow in two ways. One to eat as a better cooking oil and two to use as a moisturing skin care. For the former, they render the tallow for 6 days instead of the typical 3 to obtain a more reliable shelf life.
For the latter it does faintly smell like beef when you put it on, but the scent does not last. The benefit is long lasting and lush moisturizing with little ingredients.
Routine Beauty had a stunning exhibit. Movie theatre ticket booths and costumed attendants passing out goodie bags of all natural, enamel building tooth paste that tastes good in either mint or cinnamon.
Water Water Water is a flavoured water product by the folks from Tofino Brewing. Water flavoured with hop flower, giving it beer notes of stone fruit and pineapple.
Smart Sweets, a fan favourite for healthy, naturally flavoured candy with only 4g of sugar. Available in all the regular gummy flavours like sours, Swedish fish, root beer, and peach rings; to name a few.
Alani is a fun brand of milk-based protein drinks in flavours like cookies and cream, fruity cereal, strawberry shortcake, and munchies with 30g of protein a bottle.
Beck’s Broth was instant coffee powder that added dehydrated bone broth powder in with their espresso grounds. This was for the added benefits of bone broth in boosting collagen, healthy digestion, immune system maintainence, and improving joint paint and stiffness.
I am already familar with Frankie’s Organic and their healthy cheese puffs that are organic, gluten-free, oven baked, and nut free. With 7 flavours 6 are plant-based, they are as delcious as they are healthy.
The Most Decadent Mac ‘N Cheese sauce was completely plant-based and you could not tell if not told. They ferment their cashews, potato, and carrot sauce in order to simulate the umami flavour of cheese. Their newest product is a truffle cheese sauce that uses real truffle.
Billio is non-dairy, fat free ice cream with the texture of cream.
Suckerpunch had their flavoured pickles in travel snack packs and a pickle flavoured electrolyte shot.
I was most amazed by Yo Egg’s plant-based egg yolks. Available as a sunny side up or poached option. This is a runny yolk made from soy protein, chick pea, and corn starch; seasoned in black salt and paprika. It oozed like and had the texture of a regular chicken egg.
There were also a few vendors selling the clean and natural health benefits of bamboo toilet paper that breaks down easier than the regular kind.
This is the first I have seen of an energy gum, that you chew to get your pick me up fix.
Poo Perfect was an eye catching booth and product. Fibre supplements made fun.
Met the local owners of Ollie & Co. candles. They have creative flavours like pinapple bun and tiger balm. They are known for collaborating with local Vancouver based food brands and creating unique scents from their signature food items like ice cream, bbq, and chilli oil.
Pan’s Mushroom Jerky was as seen on Dragon’s Den. A Malaysian recipe for dehydrating and seasoning shittake mushrooms that gives their texture a similar feel to shredded beef.
Vinker had a delcious plant-based Korean fried chicken that was saucy with gojujang. I would not be able to guess that this was not a chicken nugget.
I was able to try all of Hard Bite’s limited edition fall flavours, as one of my favourite chips for its amazing crunchy texture. Pumpkin, hickory sticks, tikki masala, and turkey stuffing.
I am already a fan of Save the Sea’s carrot lox as a plant-based substitute for smoked salmon, and got to try their just as tasty jackfruit tuna.
And I didn’t realize there was a need for Non Meat luncheon meat style soy protein, but here it is and it did remind me of Spam, but far less salty.
In short this was an amazing trade show and a say well spent learning and discovering. I definitely walked away richer than when I came. I highly recommend visiting for their last day for samples alone. For more information and tickets visit the link below.
