Walking the floor of Natural Products Expo West for the first time is something I won’t soon forget. This year marked its 45th event — nearly 80,000 people, over 3,100 exhibitors, 500,000 square feet of innovation packed into the Anaheim Convention Center. Samples everywhere you look. Conversations spilling into hallways. Ideas springing to life. Partnerships and collaborations being created.
I went for three reasons: to represent Sego Lily Skincare and introduce our products to a wider audience, find companies that are actively sourcing regenerative proteins, and to do some honest-to-goodness recon on where the food supply chain — particularly around regenerative proteins — is actually headed.
What I found confirmed much of what we at WSE have believed and have been working toward for years. But it also raised a question I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I got home: if regenerative protein is having its moment in the spotlight, why are so many of the biggest brands sourcing it from the other side of the world?
The Signal We’ve All Been Waiting For
Let me start with what was impossible to miss: Regenerative Organic Certification — ROC — is no longer a niche whisper among true believers. It was everywhere. On dairy packages, olive oils, crackers, coffee, chocolate, and snack bars. Brands like Alexandre Family Farm, pushing 100% grass-fed A2 organic dairy, Forecast Coffee Company leading with regenerative sourcing, and BeanVIVO previewing new regenerative organic bean products — the category has arrived.
Alongside ROC, “farmer-centric branding” emerged as its own distinct theme. Brands are no longer just slapping a certification logo on packaging — they’re telling the whole story: who grew it, how the land was managed, what practices were used, all through a QR code on the labels. In fact, one company was touting that consumers will be able to click on individual ingredients and see exactly where they were sourced, even as each package of the same product could have been sourced differently, which is truly amazing.
As consumers continue to demand healthier options for their health and the environment, regenerative claims are increasingly becoming a point of differentiation and trust. The conversation in the speaker sessions has shifted from “what is regenerative?” to “how do we scale it?” That’s a meaningful evolution.
And there was real meat on the bone – pon intended – when it came to animal products specifically. The beef tallow comeback — brands like Hola Mija, Beefy’s Own, Legacy Roots, and even Steak ‘n Shake debuting beef tallow fries and tots for retail — is part of a much broader re-embrace of animal fats and whole-animal thinking. Bone broth protein is having its moment, too, showing up in products like HOL Protein Bars made with chicken bone broth. Chomps grass-fed meat sticks continued to hold strong as a category leader, while blended meat-and-mushroom products gained traction as a flavorful, cost-efficient bridge for protein innovation.
Whole-animal utilization was identified as a defining trend: reducing waste, promoting sustainability, and maximizing the use of every usable component in meat production. Protein from animals is no longer just a commodity category. It’s a values category. This isn’t a fringe conversation anymore. It’s mainstream.
Claims Aren’t Enough Anymore. Consumers Want Proof.
One of the most powerful things I heard came from a fellow attendee walking the floor, and it stopped me in my tracks: “Consumers deserve clarity about how their food is made — not just what nutrients or ingredients appear on a label.”
That’s it. That’s the whole thing, right there.
The data backs it up. Supply chain transparency and traceability are no longer just marketing tools — they’re becoming operational priorities. One organic ingredient supplier at the show put it plainly: transparency is moving from marketing narrative to operational necessity. Brands that can’t back up their claims with actual data and sourcing stories are going to find themselves on the wrong side of a very fast-moving consumer shift.
The backlash against ultra-processed foods is also accelerating this. As GLP-1 medications reshape how tens of millions of Americans think about food — with 25 million projected users by 2030 — the demand for nutrient-dense, minimally processed, traceable food is only going to grow. This isn’t a passing trend. And grocery stores are feeling the pain as these users are significantly reducing their spending on expensive, convenience food.
Here’s the honest truth: we’ve been watching this coming for over seven years. Our work on the Land Health Dashboard (LHD), our ecosystem services research, and our supply chain development — all of it has been pointing toward this exact moment. The market is finally catching up to what WSE has been building toward. Outcomes matter. Not just claims. Outcomes.
The Regenerative Beef Disconnect
Now here’s where things got interesting — and honestly, a little maddening.
As I walked the floor looking at the regenerative meat and snack category, I started noticing something: multiple national brands selling regenerative beef sticks — products carrying all the right messaging about soil health, sustainable ranching, and clean ingredients — are sourcing their beef from New Zealand and Australia.
Let that sink in for a moment.
These are brands telling American consumers a story about regenerative agriculture, about reconnecting food with its origins — and the beef is traveling roughly 8,000 miles to get here. I don’t say this to shame anyone. There are real reasons this happens: the supply chain infrastructure in New Zealand and Australia is more mature, the certification pathways have been in place longer, and sourcing internationally can be more consistent at scale. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right answer. And it doesn’t mean it has to stay this way.
The irony is sharp: at an event where “farmer-centric branding” is a headline trend and attendees are calling for deeper transparency about food origins, the regenerative beef sitting on those snack shelves has no American rancher story to tell. That’s the gap WSE exists to close.
What WSE Is Doing About It
This is where I want to be direct with you about what WSE is actually working on — and why Expo West 2026 reinforced our conviction that we’re on the right path.
The gap between what brands want (verified, regenerative U.S. raw material at scale) and what currently exists (fragmented supply, inconsistent data, limited certification infrastructure) is real. But it’s a gap we believe WSE is uniquely positioned to help close.
Building the data layer. Brands won’t shift their sourcing without proof. They need documented outcomes — soil health data, animal welfare records, and land management history. That’s exactly what our Land Health Dashboard is built to capture and communicate. This is what makes the story credible, not just compelling.
Connecting the ecosystem. Through our ecosystem services work, we’re helping ranchers understand the full value of what they steward — carbon sequestration, water retention, biodiversity — and translating that into market value. The goal is to make regenerative ranching economically viable and clearly differentiated in the marketplace.
Strengthening the supply chain. For brands to source domestically at scale, the infrastructure must be in place. We’re working to build and connect the pieces — from ranch to processor to shelf — so that choosing American regenerative protein becomes the easier, not harder, decision for a growing brand.
Convening the community. For the past five years, WSE has hosted the Expanding Markets Conference, and walking the Expo West floor only deepened our conviction that this event matters more now than ever. But to understand why we started it, you have to understand something about the ranching mindset — and we say this with deep respect, because it comes from a deeply real place and one I know personally.
Ranching families carry a legacy like a weight and a gift at the same time. The land, the herd, the operation — it was handed down through generations of sacrifice, and it will continue to be handed forward. That means a rancher cannot afford to make a financial mistake that costs the family ranch. So when someone comes along and says “you should convert to regenerative practices,” what a rancher hears — reasonably, understandably — is risk. Unproven risk. Risk with their ancestor’s land on the line.
We started the Expanding Markets Conference specifically to reduce some of that risk. If we could show ranchers that the markets were real — that buyers existed, that premium prices were attainable, that other ranchers had made the transition and come out stronger — then the conversation changes. It goes from “can I afford to do this?” to “can I afford not to?”
Each year, the conference brings together ranchers, buyers, certification experts, and innovators for honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a regenerative operation and get paid for it. This year we’re going deeper than ever, with sessions on producer-to-company speed dating, nutrient-density testing panels, AI tools for ranch management and marketing, live animal-finishing demonstrations, ecosystem services market updates, and ranch tours of nearby regenerative operations.
To date, confirmed speakers include Joni Kindwall-Moore, developer of the Ryzosphere; Joe Wheeling of James Ranch in Durango, Colorado; Stephan Van Vliet from Utah State University; Eric Smith of Edacious; Ryan Pintado-Vertner of Smoketown Strategy, and a strong lineup of ranchers from throughout the region. And yes—we’re offering the ultimate networking event: an “Offal Party” featuring offal food, offal music, and offal conversations. You’ll most certainly want to be there for that.
WSE didn’t start this conference because regenerative was trending. We’ve been actively pursuing markets for producers for over 20 years — long before “regenerative” was a marketing term, long before the certifications existed, long before Expo West devoted an entire hall to it. The Expanding Markets Conference is the distillation of that work: a place where ranchers who have been doing this right can finally connect with the buyers and brands who are ready to find them.
We’re not doing this alone. This is a community effort, and we’re actively building relationships with brands, retailers, processors, and partners who want to be part of what comes next.
The Bigger Picture: A $342 Billion Industry at an Inflection Point
The natural products industry hit $342 billion in sales in 2025. That’s no longer a niche market. And the direction it’s moving — toward transparency, traceability, regenerative sourcing, and whole-food nutrition — is unmistakable.
There are real headwinds, too. Tariff uncertainty rattled organic brands with international supply chains throughout 2025, and that conversation continued at the show. Small producers are still struggling with the economics of the current distribution model. And greenwashing remains rampant — plenty of brands slap “regenerative” on packaging without the practices or data to back it up. That’s precisely why the work of building verified, outcome-based systems matters so much right now.
One thing was clear as I left Anaheim: this is not a passing trend. It’s the beginning of a broader movement to reconnect food with its origins. And the brands that can tell a genuine, data-backed story about where their food comes from — with an American rancher’s face and a real piece of land behind it — are going to win.
Why We’re In This
I came home from Anaheim energized. Not because everything is figured out — it’s not by a long shot. But because the direction is clear, the consumer demand is real, and the opportunity to do something genuinely meaningful is right in front of us.
WSE exists because we believe that the land, the rancher, the animal, and the consumer are all connected — and that connection, when it’s honest and verified and told well, creates value for everyone in the chain. Expo West 2026 showed us that the broader market is finally ready to hear that story.
Now we just have to make sure the supply chain is there to back it up. That’s the work. And we’re grateful to be doing it alongside you.
