I went to Supply Side West last week and of course, loved it.
I used to go there all the time for Isagenix, but now I went there for Better Meat Co.
I got my money’s worth in terms of connections and leads, along with meeting with some old friends, but I found the conference to not be entirely useful in my arena.
However, if you are in the nutraceutical space, this is a gold mine of opportunity. You can source supplements, protein powders, and find copackers all in this one show. If you are a novice entrepreneur in this space, going to this show will be the best investment in your business.
What is a Nutraceutical?
(In some web browsers, nutraceutical is flagged as a misspelling of pharmaceutical)
To understand why Supply Side is useful in the health and wellness department, let’s dissect what a nutraceutical is.
It’s like a food and a pharmaceutical all in one. It’s products that can be considered supplements and protein shakes. They are essentially value-added health products sold at a premium price. When you consume a product that is a nutraceutical, you precieve these products to be good for you, depending ont he function.
Product lines that claim to sell you a product that can give you a certain amount of minerals or Omega 3s fall into this camp. Botanicals, powdered oils, and protein powders to some extent also fill the ringer on this category.
Regulation is a bit weird in this area, because you have to back your claims up with a lot of science (which most of the ingredients at the show have already) and you can’t mix foods with supplements. It’s a complex procedure. Just read the rules before adding Ashwagandha to your granola bars.
Semi-Cutting-Edge Resources
You can get the newest things in Supply Side West because all of the players are all in one space. This is a good and bad thing. The biggest issue is that because so many competitors are in the show, the floodgates open, and it dilutes the chances of the material you’re looking for, to be cutting edge.
However, keep in mind that the hit rate for an ingredient to get to market is surprisingly low. Even though these nutraceutical companies are getting a lot of leads from the conferences, the chance that their raw material will actually be commercialized is surprisingly slim.
Therefore, if you are a smaller company, you can move much faster than your competitors when it comes to finding a cool ingredient and rushing it to market.
In fact, if you were just a beginner in the food industry, all you really have to do is have a lot of money and contact 3 specific companies. All which are in the show.
- A cool ingredient such as B-Glucan, or Chaga mushrooms
- A flavor house which already has concepts of a successful product. Whether it’s a vegan cookie or coffee, or protein shake
- A contract manufacturer who can make this product
These alone can allow you to create a product that can be commercialized in about 4 months if you know what you’re doing.
Overall, it’s Networking
The biggest value of any conference is strengthening your network. What is always cool is when a few people stop by and say “hey, you’re the guy with the podcast”. For example, here’s the picture I did with Zach Schoffield, long time listener of My Food Job Rocks who actually won the Amazon Echo from our yearly survey.
What’s also really cool is that I can meet people with whom I’ve only talked to online, and connecting face to face is an experience that can’t be beaten no matter how we communicate digitally. One example is Frank Troung from Cosucra.
(I take terrible selfies by the way)
I ate dinner with my Isagenix coworkers and I do really miss the place over there. Everyone says they still talk about me and my obsession with free food.
It took time and a lot of care to build the network I have, but for the long game, it’s important to have it. The value of a conference increases so much once you have a powerful network. The chicken and the egg situation is that it costs money to go to a conference and sometimes you can’t. Showing up, and taking valuable time to meet with someone shows that you care, and over time, that is so valuable.
