Friday Keynote: Passion, Purpose,and Partnership
The environment that we find ourselves in 2020 is without a doubt dynamic, robust and volatile in ways that many of us have not experienced in our lifetime. How we show up, what we pay attention to and how we define our purpose has never been more important. Real and perceived barriers to success in the natural and organic space continue to shift and change. Passion alone is not enough, though keeping it close to enable pulling yourself up [Read More]
TankaBar: On the Brink of Losing Everything (and its comeback, after facing large, deep-pocket competitors)
Native American Natural Foods, an innovative, Native American owned and operated company that produces the highly acclaimed TANKA Bar, recently announced the closing of a multi-million-dollar equity capital investment. This positive news stands in stark contrast to their position one year ago when Tanka was on the brink of losing everything due to larger competitors with deeper pockets squeezing them out of the market. The brand’s comeback and exciting trajectory are thanks to a diverse set of partners—including investigative food [Read More]
Hemp & CBD: From Food to Feelings; Sourcing to Selling
This workshop is designed to lead you through how to navigate the hemp & CBD products landscape, source responsibly, and communicate with integrity and confidence to your customers. Originally starting as a hemp processor,Tonia will share with you the nuances of hemp production, growing, processing, packaging and promotion best practices for both hemp seed-derived foods and CBD products, and the differences between the two. BIO: Tonia left her work in cancer survivorship programming to pursue the great health benefits of [Read More]
99% Has The Power
The Provender Conference is a wonderful event. For many of us, it represents 3 days to recharge our batteries, gain new perspectives, and be energized for the coming year. We spend 1% of our year at the conference, and it is powerful. Yet, as we drive away from Hood River on I-84 on Saturday morning, the weekend’s powerful impact begins to fade. Life creeps back in, and some of the sharpest lessons we learn start to blur into the noise [Read More]
Brewing up a Packaging Potion
Want to magically transform the power of the natural products industry into broad social and environmental impacts? This new Provender workshop-style—an interactive, feedback-focused workshop that helps shape industry-level efforts—helps you do just that. Led by SFTA, “Brewing Up a Packaging Potion” seeks to obtain feedback on and help align industry peers around SFTA’s 2020 Retailer Packaging Challenge. The Challenge has grown out of SFTA’s 2019 efforts that have convened industry players around coordinating sustainable packaging efforts. Slated for launch in [Read More]
Spice It Up!
In this fun, hands-on workshop we will explore the origins of spice blends from all over the world and how to use them in your kitchen. We’ll discuss the cost savings you can achieve from making your own blends and how making house blends can give your foodservice department and home kitchen the upper hand. Then we’ll create our own spice blends tailored specifically to personal tastes, noses and color preferences. Participants will take home their own blends to [Read More]
Retaining Your Best People
In a tight labor market, many businesses are struggling to retain staff long enough to pay back the investment made in training them. Not all turnover is negative, but losing high-potential staff really hurts productivity and morale. In a highly interactive seminar with audience involvement at every step, Mark Mulcahy and Carolee Colter will explore the connections between employee engagement and longevity, Participants will learn from each other’s experience by working in small groups based on store size and [Read More]
Organic Essential Oils, Far More than Just Pretty Aroma!: How to Harness the Power of Phytochemicals for their Positive Physiological Effects
Nourishing diet, adequate physical activity, healthy sleep levels, stress management and minimizing our toxic burden are all key facets of a healthy existence. Although, making/maintaining healthy dietary and lifestyle choices can be challenging or come with certain unpleasant circumstances. Among other potential scenarios, stressful events may play a role in sabotaging our best intentions while exercise programs may result in muscle and joint discomfort. Enter organic essential oils. Due to the array of naturally-occurring fragrant-yet-functional chemicals within, essential oils [Read More]
Raising the Bar: Dismantling Dysfunction in our Organizations
Taking inspiration from YWCA’s Racial Justice Summit and offering this curriculum to my Cooperative, thiswork shop will reference Tekum Okun’s white supremacy culture document. We will look into various habits and characteristic our culture has developed to honor certain types of work and dishonor others. We will be taking a deeper look into: Perfectionism Sense of Urgency Defensiveness Quantity over Quality Worship of the Written Word, Either/Or thinking Only One Right Way Paternalism Power Hoarding Fear of Open Conflict [Read More]
Roots and Relationships: The Story of Food, Fun, and Leading the Market Again!
Differentiating yourself from the crowd isn’t easy in this changing market. Where once you were the only one offering organic, fair trade or local/farmer-direct products, you may now be challenged to compete, often relying on margin loss to draw in customers. While this is one approach, there are other options! People are looking for connection and experience, everyone wants to belong to something— you can create an experience in your store or business that draws people in and brings [Read More]
Building Meaningful Relationships in your Community
Ever wonder if the work your doing is positively impacting your community? Does your organization donate or sponsor things blindly without any strategy in mind? If you answered yes to both these questions, this workshop is for you! Learn how to define an effective outreach and giving strategy that will best align your community outreach marketing strategies with your organization’s values and mission. BIO: [Read More]
What Do We Do with Regenerative Agriculture?
Having grown up along with the organic movement since the late ’70s, workshop presenter Dag watched the successes and failures along the way. He asks us, “Organic has been the leading movement in the mix of many other movements like biodynamic, sustainable, local, fair trade, Non-GMO, etc.. Now looking at regenerative agriculture we need to face questions about where organic fits, or if it is regenerative agriculture that fits with organic? Are the two movements compatible, complementary or conflicting? [Read More]
Systems Thinking Just-In-Time
Whether at home or at work, we all to often succumb to doing things before we need to. We take our valuable time to work on something that can wait only to find out later that the parameters have changed. We buy materials for something we plan to do in the future but plans change. We analyze the per-piece cost and buy in bulk to save money. However, when you apply systems thinking and account for branching effects (i.e., one [Read More]
Supply Chain Solidarity: How Retailers, Manufacturers, and Consumers Can Help Small-Farmers Fight Climate Change
The current climate crisis feels both urgent & intimidating. Regenerative farming techniques are getting a lot of attention for their potential to both feed the world and cool the planet. Small-scale farmers around the world are marrying traditional skills and new innovations to transform farming – and create a vision for a future that we all need. That’s the big picture. This workshop with Fair World Project offers ways for companies to get involved and make real connections between [Read More]
Story Marketing In The Digital Age
Learn how to use story arc to engage audiences and tell the story of your brand or organization. Grounded in the importance of understanding STORY and focusing on accessible technologies such as iPads and iPhones, this hands-on workshop will cover everything from composition, to music choice, to mobile editing pointers. We will show real-world examples of story marketing with impact and begin to understand the arc and flow of effective visual communication. Come ready to learn and be prepared [Read More]