Last February, I wrote in this space about the clean beauty trend shifting from a focus on ingredients to a focus on sustainability. Clean beauty continues to shape many of the biggest developments in the cosmetics space, but questions about efficacy have arisen for a number of “clean” products, and, by extension, the entire trend. […]

Later this week, many in the food and beverage ecosystem will gather in Anaheim, California for the annual Natural Products Expo West trade show. From humble beginnings in the 1980s when 3,000 people attended the first show, Expo West has grown to an expected 67,000 attendees this year with over 3,500 companies exhibiting.  The scale […]

I recall a college economics class when I first heard the term “NIMBY”.  It was a clever way to sum up certain negative feelings – Not In My Back Yard – as in do not build that nuclear power plant in my town. Recently, the terms reshoring and nearshoring are grabbing headlines.  One clever writer […]

Last week, millions of American couples celebrated Valentine’s Day – and with them, so too did a large number of businesses whose products and services help make the holiday happen.  Data on how much consumers spent isn’t publicly available yet, but the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) projections leading up to Valentine’s Day was for spending […]

It’s not often that you hear about a retail business that everyone thinks is about to file for protection under the US Bankruptcy code, but at the 11th hour sells $225 million in stock, allowing the company to operate outside of bankruptcy, at least for the time being.  Surprising most of us, that is exactly […]