The Organic & Natural Health Association’s partnership with the Williams-Franklin Foundation will open more opportunities in the natural products industry for students and graduates of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). Specifically, Organic & Natural Health committed to help raise US$50,000 for the Williams-Franklin Foundation--a nonprofit that provides scholarships, networking and mentoring opportunities to HBCU students with extreme financial need--during the next five years. While Organic & Natural Health started the partnership, this is an industry-wide initiate.

In this podcast, Karen Howard, CEO and executive director, Organic & Natural Health Association, and Brian Terry, national sales manager, Nordic Naturals, join Sandy Almendarez, senior content director, Informa Markets, to discuss the importance of this program and the beneficial ripple effects it will have to improve the natural products industry.

ToddCast Episode 5:The medicinal value of hemp CBD has been proven with FDA approval of a CBD isolate drug. Even so, the forces aligned against its widespread use remain. Sean Murphy, founder of Hemp Business Journal and now with WAFBA producing the NoCo Hemp Expo in Denver (and online) March 25-27, https://www.nocohempexpo.com/ talks with Insider senior editor Todd Runestad about:

• Murphy’s young son, Atlas, born with a terminal brain condition—and how, even in the cannabis capital of Colorado, he has been unable to legally use CBD to help.
• What the leading hemp companies are doing to stay ahead sustainably.
• The opportunities for hemp beyond medicinal—nutritional, textiles, biomaterials.

Health Equity & Advocacy Project (HEAP) just launched, its mission to educate and inspire Blacks and other melanin-challenged populations to get their vitamin D levels up to healthy. Their lives may depend on it.

The merging of #BLM with COVID has created a moment where the Black community’s health outcomes with the pandemic is worse than most—as is vitamin D blood levels, and a slew of published research over the past year has shown at least a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and worse COVID-19 outcomes. Brian Terry, national sales manager at Nordic Naturals, saw opportunity. He sat down with Insider senior editor Todd Runestad to discuss:

• That an incredible 82% of Blacks are vitamin D deficient, compard to 63% Latinx and 31% White. What can vitamin D do to help peoples’ health status?
• Why supplementation is the only realistic solution.
• Terry is a Black man in a White industry. What has his experience been—are natural products people really full of peace and love?

The 54-store U.S. chain of sports nutrition stores has committed to an omnichannel solution from NewStore to modernize its operation and inventory management while delivering information and products in the many ways customers today demand. 5 Star’s chief marketing officer Jared LeMantia discusses what prompted this move, what is involved in transitioning to this new system, and how the customer experience will change.

When sports nutrition retail chain 5 Star Nutrition chose NewStore’s omnichannel cloud solution as its pathway to future growth and success, it was the company’s first foray into nutrition. NewStore’s chief commercial officer Rick Berger explains how mobile point of sale (POS) and cloud-based order management that have been changing fashion and sporting goods retailing can also transform nutrition retailers, who can run their stores from an iPhone.

ToddCast episode II: Sports nutrition has long been a hotbed of innovation. The first tubs of whey protein powders were originally used by body builders, but the conceit has diversified into plant proteins for anyone seeking a performance edge. Listen to this interview between senior editor Todd Runestad and sports nutrition innovator extraordinaire and president of Imaginutrition, Anthony Almada, as they discuss:

• How EAS turned on the pro sports world with creatine and other power boosters. 
• Immunity supplements may be the new multivitamin, but can they also find a home in the sports nutrition aisle?
• How the latest sports ingredient, beta-alanine, increases exercise capacity—but is also an antioxidant and can enhance immunity.

BIPOC brand targets diabesity with plant-based powders. The company had been laser-focused on the Black population. With high-quality ingredients and GMP-certified production, this on-point brand was able to get a shot at the best big box retailer in the country. Watch CEO Claude Tellis and CMO Kareem Cook sit down with senior editor Todd Runestad as they discuss the challenges and sweet smell of success:

• The challenges and indignities of being a Black-owned company, which makes this deal all the sweeter.
• What success looks like now—sales figures, time horizons, new demographic markets opened, and flying over the hurdle of Costco’s No. 1 concern.
• How hoops legends Magic Johnson and Grant Hill—along with strong assists from a pair of women on the back end—have helped this company earn the spotlight.

ToddCast Vol. XXIX: Duffy MacKay has lived and breathed Washington, D.C., for a decade as senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a leading trade group serving the dietary supplements industry. Like so many other supplements veterans, he jumped ship and swam to the boisterous shores of hemp CBD land. MacKay sits down with Insider senior editor Todd Runestad to talk about the similarities between the last quarter-century of supplements and the last five of CBD, in particular as it relates to FDA regulation. Tune in as they discuss:

• How CBD companies don’t quite get that they are in the supplements business, not the marijuana business. Rules and regulations apply.
• Whether potential FDA commissioner in the Biden administration, David Kessler, has “evolved his thinking” from supplements enemy to hemp accepter if not promoter.
• Whether Congress can write laws to compel the FDA to stop its slow-dance of hemp CBD regulations. 

Marc Brush, principal at the Bend consultancy, honed his market research bona fides running Nutrition Business Journal. He’s helping shape the personalized healthcare and nutrition pursuit, is building the future of innovative immune-support products and brands, and has genius insights on the future of consumer demographics and market success. Listen in as Insider senior editor Todd Runestad sits down with Brush as they discuss:

• How to make personalization work in the market (hint: no one is there yet).
• As we enter the second year of the colds-and-flu season, has immunity supplements supplanted multivitamins as the foundation of health?
• Is influencer marketing really losing its luster? What then, then?

ToddCast Vol. XXVIII: COVID times are accelerating the health care paradigm, and the leading thinker on functional medicine and personalized nutrition is leading the charge. Immune boosting is so 20th century. Think immune rejuvenation. Think training your immune system like you would build muscle for fitness. Think of categorizing your immune function into immunity personalities. Insider senior editor Todd Runestad rethinks the future of nutrition with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., founder of the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute and president of Big Bold Health. They discuss:

• The five categories of one’s immune system personality—angry, confused, sensitive, withdrawn and balanced—and nutrients that support each one.
• Bland’s serendipitous journey of discovery of the next great superfood (and crop for carbon times), Himalayan tartary buckwheat.
• What the future of health care and functional medicine looks like in 2050.