Pearl reviewed the vendors in attendance at the Canadian Health Food Association Eastern Tradeshow held on Sept 12-15 in Toronto. Below are our top picks from this years show:
Sproos
Sproos promotes collagen as being a key component for the maintenance of healthy skin, gut and joints. They offer a variety of supplements and snacks targeted in these areas. For example, their Sproos Up Your Gut combines collagen with active ingredients to help improve gut-health, while their Sproos Up Your Joints supplement combines collagen with joint-health ingredients like glucosamine, MSM, turmeric, and hyaluronic acid. Their collagen bars are also an innovative snack featuring 7g of collagen and a total 14g of protein to help get collagen in a convenient, healthy, and tasty way.
Purely Kids Food Co.
This company aims to take kid favourite foods and turn them into healthy, kid-friendly, ready in minutes, all-in-one meals. Their bite-sized products add healthy twists to help boost nutrition and fibre while satisfying the pallets of picky eaters. For example, their Money Macaroni hides sweet potatoes among the cheddar cheese, their Porcupine Pizza features quinoa as a crust replacement, and their Beaver Brownie is almost 40% fruits and veggies!
OatBox
We liked this brand for the way it’s looking to refreshing the classic breakfast food of oatmeal. Using organic and high quality ingredients, OatBox offers subscription kits for granola mixes, oatmeal portions, and breakfast bars with new flavours featured every month. They offer unique flavours like pear and chia, iced coffee, matcha & white chocolate, and peanut butter & jelly. They also offer a wide range of teas and coffee to offer a full breakfast solution in your subscription box.
Fatso
This all-natural peanut butter embraces its fat content and enriches it with what they call plant-based “superfats” like coconut oil, avocado oil, and MCT oil. It also features chia and flax for added nutrition, and is sweetened with tapioca fiber to act as a probiotic without adding sugar, calories, or glycemic spikes. This product appeals to consumers who are looking to incorporate more healthy fats into their diet, and especially to those following low-carb high-fat diets like keto.
Cookie Pal
This company takes a new approach to pet treats by creating high-quality human grade ingredient treats that are made for both pets and their owners. With the rise of gourmet and raw pet foods, their products take aim at consumers who wouldn’t feed their pets anything they wouldn’t eat themselves. Not only are they made with 100% human grade ingredients, but they are also made in a certified human food facility. Their products are non-GMO, organic, gluten-free, and contain no artificial ingredients, colours, additives. They are also free from: soy, corn, wheat, fillers, and by-products. On top of all of these claims, they are also made in Canada with North American ingredients and packaged in environmentally friendly biodegradable packaging.
Bee Bagz
While our last pick isn’t food itself, it narrows in on an important and growing issue of single use plastic waste. This brand targets consumers looking to ditch their plastic wrap and Ziplock bags for environmentally friendly food storage options. Bee Bagz takes the rising trend of beeswax food wrap and makes it more convenient and easy to use. Their bags come in a variety of sizes and boast a number of features such as being naturally antibacterial, easy to wash, keep food fresh longer, water-resistant and self-sealing.
