At Boulder Brands we’ve been engaged in a conversation that is helping guide our brand and product positioning. This conversation focuses on the fact that companies have a choice: They can strategically choose to engage in a “race to the top” or a “race to the bottom” with their products and formulations.

As part of a race-to-the-bottom approach, companies employ cost-optimizing shortcuts that enable financial gain. When this happens, however, our consumers and the food system we fight for ultimately suffer. Fortunately, our collective mission within the natural foods industry is to lead in a race-to-the-top direction. We are upgrading consumer food choices by cleaning up ingredient decks, pursuing more humane animal practices, improving agriculture with sustainable farming techniques, and more. As our products continue to gain more and more retail shelf space, we are able to reach more consumers with our healthier offerings and create positive effects within the food supply chain.

As we approach Natural Products Expo East, there’s an additional race to the top we can champion—and that involves leaving a positive wake in the poor neighborhoods surrounding the Baltimore Convention Center, where Expo East will be held, by supporting healthy food access with Real Food Farm.

Real Food Farm grows pesticide-free produce in the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, in what is known formally as a “food desert.” It is all fine and good that natural products are gaining ACV nationally every year, but for those who don’t have grocery stores near where they live and raise their children, the options for healthier eating are few. Food stamps are redeemed for junk food at corner convenience stores, moms don’t cook homemade meals for the family, children lack the nutrition necessary to grow a healthy mind and body that can assist them in rising up out of poverty through education.  

Real Food Farm is working to address these problems, and you can join Boulder Brands, New Hope Natural Media and Presence Marketing in supporting this important work by buying a Real Food Farms sustainable water bottle for $20 at Expo East. Every dollar of your purchase will go to Real Food Farm, and Boulder Brands and New Hope have each pledged $2,500 in matching donation dollars for a total of $5,000 in matching donations.

Please join us in our collective race to the top and help us help Real Food Farm’s improve healthy food access to those in Baltimore who need it most. 

The Real Food Farm water bottles will be sold in the Boulder Brands booth (booth # 1623) and the New Hope booth (booth # 62) throughout the Expo. They will also be sold during the conference education session, "Food Access and the Role of the Natural Foods Industry," to be held 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18 in room 316 of the Baltimore Convention Center; and during the Boulder Brands Better Breakfast, to be held 7:30 a.m.-9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 19, on the Level 300 Outside Terrace of the convention center.