Kerry Hughes’ Spots the Best Botanicals at Natural Products Expo West

Ethnobotanist Kerry Hughes reports on interesting uses of botanicals in foods and beverages showcased at the Natural Products Expo West.

By David Feder , RDN, Executive Editor–Technical, Kerry Hughes

Prepared Foods' Executive Editor–Technical David Feder interviews ethnobotanist and regular contributor to Prepared Foods Kerry Hughes. She discusses the trending foods, beverages, and ingredients using botanicals that caught her attention at the 2024 Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California. Among specific better-for-you and botanical ingredients Hughes notes are: aloe, ashwagandha, cranberry, elderberry, ginseng, milk thistle, mushrooms, saw palmetto, and tomato lycopene. According to Hughes, ginseng was one of the top botanicals as far as growth since 2020.

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One overall trend she noted was “condition specific” uses of botanicals, as confirmed in the American Herbal Products Association breakfast meeting at the expo. Another trend was a marked increase in adaptogens—that is, functional ingredients that focus on helping to mitigate stress, anxiety, fatigue and help enhance overall wellbeing. Included in this trend was the abundance of functional beverage noted at the show, especially those carrying mood and lifestyle types of claims. Also, no- and low-alcohol beverages were especially profuse.

Botanicals applied for their flavors and their nutraceutical values were in play, tart cherry juice being one prime example. The fruit is well-noted for its contribution to relaxation and sleep. Bitters, too, were presented at the expo but, more so, the use of bitter herbs in formulations. Such astringent botanicals have become more acceptable to Western palates as global flavors increasingly are inculcated into the region. Due to bitter herbs’ strong health association, product developers are more interested in including them in their formulations.

Finally, with the three-year pandemic lockdown over, inner beauty ingredients are trending again. There were a number of collagen-containing products and supplements, but notably products promoting vitamins and minerals that help affect the way you look, such as vitamins A C, and E—vitamins and minerals that not only have antioxidant capacity but, like vitamin C, to help build collagen.

World cuisine and ethnic flavors made a strong showing among the food products at the Natural Products Expo. Items such as Asian pot stickers, Indian food, and lots of vegetarian and plant -based options were featured. Such ethnic cuisines often are the intersections of medicine and cuisine—where cultures have been engaged in traditional and plant-based medicines for centuries, if not millennia. We’ll likely see many more such products in the near future.

Want more insights from Natural Products Expo West 2024? Watch or listen to David Feder's review of the ingredients, foods, and beverages that caught his eye.

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David Feder, RDN, has been a food, nutrition and health journalist for 26 years. In spite of an academic background that began with psychology and biblical archaeology, David cut his teeth as a celebrated chef in Texas during the 1970s and 1980s, helping pioneer haute-health & fusion cuisines in high-end restaurants and hotels. In the 1990s he became a registered dietitian while completing research and coursework toward a Ph.D. in nutrition biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. Along the way he taught food science and nutrition while practicing as a nutrition counselor.

Kerry Hughes, MS, principal for EthnoPharm, is an ethnobotanist, herbalist, and author with a 20-year record of success in natural product development. EthnoPharm specializes in global natural product development and education, innovative product formulation, and nexus-of-market opportunity identification. Hughes is driven by a "tenacious fascination with the potential health-enhancing role plants can play." With a focus on ethnobotanical discovery and strategic innovation, Hughes and EthnoPharm continue to expand the boundaries of new natural product development, catalyze applied phyto-product breakthroughs, and bring to market new, efficacious, and profitable products that not only heal people but help protect the threatened global biodiversity.