Recapping Expo West: The Superbowl of Snacks

The top trends, coolest activations, and my favorite brands from Expo West.

Published on

March 11, 2025

Jake Heyen

A lot of you may have no clue what Expo West is. In short, it’s a trade show focused on the natural, organic, and healthy products industry. Basically, food and beverage brands show off their products and newest innovations.

Over 3,000 brands were in attendance this year. Including supplements, healthy snacks, performance drinks, and much much more. I cover the space of health & fitness, so those are the brands I’m gonna focus on.

This was such a cool event and I wanted to do a deeper dive for y’all. So below I outline the top trends I noticed, coolest booth activations, and my overall favorite brands from the event.

Top Trends

There was a lot to unpack from this event, and a handful of common themes I saw. Some of which will have staying power, others maybe not. I want to highlight the main trends that interested me:

CLEAR PROTEIN

Brands are opting for clear, lighter protein offerings rather than traditional milky protein shakes. Coming in both ready-to-drink cans and also powders. Many of which featured fruity flavors and drink combinations we’ve not previously seen such as protein + electrolytes.

PROTEIN SNACKS

This is nothing new, but protein is being infused in everything now. Including chips, pasta, drinks, pretzels, and everything in between. Some of these are surely not gonna have staying power, but overall I am in favor of this trend. If we’re gonna be eating these things anyway, might as well inject them with some protein.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY DRINKS

It feels the wave of sugar filled, high caffeine energy drinks is moving on, at least in terms of new entrants. And what’s next is brands incorporating new energy sources and ingredients including L-Theanine, mushrooms, ketones, and more. Similar to protein snacks, they aren’t all gonna stick around and make it, but one of these verticals is gonna stick and get big. My bet is on ketone drinks.

NON ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

This trend has been building the last couple years, but there were only a few big players, such as Athletic Brewing. Well, it seems we’ve reached the point where new entrants are flooding the space. A ton of new brands ranging from beer, to RTD cocktails, to liqueurs. I talked about this trend in a past article of mine saying there’s no denying that there’s a growing demand from younger consumers for alternative drink options, but also that much of the group contributing to this can’t even buy alcohol yet, so it’ll be interesting to see how this grows as these consumers get older.

MUSHROOM INFUSION

I am not an expert in this category, but it doesn’t take an expert to notice how many brands incorporate mushrooms in their products now. All with similar positioning of a “functional superfood” that provides a clean source of energy compared to traditional products that give you jitters and anxiety. There were bars, coffees, canned drinks, tinctures, and more. Including mushrooms such as Lion’s Mane, Chaga, Reishi, and Cordyceps.

HONEY SWEETENER

This is in line with the trend of consumers wanting cleaner and simpler ingredients in their products. Many products are ditching artificial sweeteners and flavorings, and instead opting for honey to sweeten their product. And from the samples I had, I actually enjoyed it much more than the fake sweeteners. It just tasted more natural and clean. I saw this in both ice cream and coffee at the expo.

Coolest Activations

If you want a video breakdown of everything below, watch my video from last week.

MUD\WTR, Wise Bar, and Plunge teamed up for an experiential activation.

This was awesome because it was so different than your traditional "expo” setup. Usually brands just have a table, some branded backdrop, and hand out samples. But these 3 brands teamed up and went a different route. Groups of people were cold plunging and enjoying mushroom drinks and bars from MUD\WTR & Wise Bar. It gave people an escape from the chaos inside and created a moment for consumers to associate with their brand.

Goodles had a great booth featuring a conveyor belt serving samples.

While the booth was great, the real show from them was after the expo. They hosted a prom themed after party and included an absurd human claw machine people were getting on. I thought this was a really unique way to keep the fun going after the expo and again, create moments and memories for your audience.

Bloom Nutrition had an amazing setup designed like a store.

This activation was branded to perfection and all centered around the unveiling of their new prebiotic soda, Bloom Pop. The production was top notch and felt like a real store. It featured a bar serving samples, drink taps pouring supplement drinks, and fully stocked walls showing off their product. This area was constantly packed throughout the expo.

Ketone-IQ once again crushed it with their activation.

They had an interactive reflex game for people to play, which was a hit and always had a line of people waiting to play. I wanted to highlight this activation because the booth size was one of the smaller ones there, yet they still attracted a crowd and got attention for their product. Showing that you don’t need big budgets and crazy production to find success.

Recapping Expo West: The Superbowl of Snacks

Top Trends

Coolest Activations

Favorite Brands