The reason for the US trip with Jam (our Master Glacier) was twofold: one part was a US tasting trip, and the other was to visit the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim.

Having spent the better part of 3 years developing our plant-based base, and getting it to a point where we felt it was truly ready for the market, we wanted to know how it would stand alongside the other plant-based frozen desserts out there, what better place to go, then to California. As we were in the middle of getting our production facility to run smoothly, we didn’t have much time to spend abroad, we were there for four days and three nights, arriving in the afternoon of Tuesday, the day before the start of Expo West, and leaving late Friday night on the red-eye flight back east.

Natural Products Expo West, an amazing show for natural food.

For those who haven’t heard of Natural Product Expo West takes place every year in March at the beautiful Anaheim Convention Center (next door to the original Disneyland), it is the biggest expo in the US (and probably the world) dedicated to natural products. There are three major sections to the show; natural food products, natural beauty and body products, and natural health supplements. Even though we had heard from friends how big of a show this was, I think it surpassed even the good level of exceptions we had for it.

Getting our badges to head into the Natural Products Expo West

There was a long line for exchanging our badges to go in, and after we made it in (after a good 30-40 minutes of lining up), the largeness of the show began to sit in, we walked to the end of the hallway to start at the natural food products section, walking in we feel the excitement in the air, with brands handing out (in many cases) full-sized samples for you to try and take away, we knew we had to limit the amount of samples we could take, and the samples we could try. We found many innovative companies making natural food coloring and natural flavors, as well as some natural ingredients suppliers from all over the world, and also got to try many new products that are about to hit shelves.

Tasting tapas at the Impossible booth at the Expo West.

One of the highlights was visiting both Impossible and Beyond Meat (located on two opposite sides of the exhibition hall) booths and trying their new products served up in chef-designed tapas, which was both a treat and delight (and turned out to be our lunch for the day). I think Jam and I were both surprised by the level of excitement for natural products in the US (or California), when I got back I would share with friends that one of the side benefits of going to the show, is that it makes you feel there is a lot of excitement and potential in the marketplace for natural products, boasting your confidence to work in this area.

Life is good when tasting ice cream is considered work.

During the trip we also visited numerous ice cream shops as well as bought various frozen desserts from grocery stores, to see how everyone’s plant-based frozen desserts tasted. I know you will think that I am biased with I say this, which is fine, but if you ask me, most plant-based frozen desserts out there (without naming any names) don’t even come close to the texture and feel of what we are used to with dairy-base ice cream, and in my opinion unless you were a vegan or lactose intolerant or have special reasons why you can’t have dairy, you just would not eat, period, because it doesn’t come close at all to the level you would expect. Of all the ones we tried on this trip (even though we couldn’t possibly try everything, we tried a good majority, visiting three to four ice cream shops every day we were there, and buying what we could find in the four supermarket chains we visited), there was one brand that I feel can match ours, where the texture and mouthfeel is there, and the flavor also pretty good, however, Jam felt that even though the mouthfeel was better than the other ones, our flavor delivery was still more rewarding overall.

Jam analyzing the frozen dessert, it’s fun to watch him work.

Jam’s remark I think presented another thing we learned together on this trip, the difference in taste preference between American style ice cream versus what we are used to back home, I think it also helped to Jam to understand what our other main r&d partners Mai (who is an American who grew up in California) had been trying to describe for him, that in American, the flavor delivery is more immediate, and intense, with a very savory mouthfeel, where as I think for us, its nice to have a good start, but it can’t be too strong that it is the only thing people taste, rather I think we like to have a start-middle-finish with also attention paid to the aftertaste, paying attention to how the flavors develop once it enters your mouth, this was the other insight we had gained for the trip, can’t say which once is different, and perhaps one day if we ever introduce our frozen delights stateside, we would need to take into consideration the preference there, at least from what we observed on this trip.

Even though it was a short and jam-pack (pun intended) trip, I think both of us learned a lot, we got to see how our plant-based compared with others out there (which gave us more confidence) and understood more the difference between the palate of two regions as just described, learned about new ingredients and products at the Natural Products Expo West. It was also very nice to see the interest Californians have in natural foods and be encouraged by that. This also made us feel connected to other people who are thinking about making our food system a more sustainable and healthier one. Jam and I also had some time to reflect on the challenges we had overcome and the accomplishments we had made, and be excited about what’s to come this year, as we work on mass-producing and introducing our plant-based line to the world.