Thank you to all who attended and participated in the 2024 Guelph Organic Conference, celebrating all things organic! This year's conference brought together the best of the organic industry, including farmers, retailers, and certifiers. The conference hosted more than 1,800 enthusiastic attendees over four days.

The Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA) held its annual 2024 Organic Leadership Awards on April 2, 2024. The evening gala celebrated the 15th anniversary of Canada regulating organic products, and honouring innovators and visionaries of the organic industry.

Retailers were encouraged to participate and share their experiences in an “idea exchange” during a retailer roundtable at CHFA NOW Vancouver 2024.

Purity Life Health Products is excited to be celebrating 40 years of enriching lives as Canada’s largest natural health product distributor. The team at Purity Life is committed to fostering innovation, leading industry trends, and remaining a reliable partner in assisting the growth of their vendor, broker, and retailer partners.

NOW Health Group has announced its 2024 consumer and trade campaign. This campaign will include online, print, video, social, email, and in-store retail activations, and will run the second quarter of 2024. The campaign discusses the 19,000 product tests that NOW conducts per month.

Earlier, Puresource announced that it has been selected to manage the distribution, sales, and marketing of the Bio-Strath brand in Canada. As part of the agreement, Puresource will be the exclusive Canadian distributor for Bio-Strath.  

In a bid to sow the seeds of environmental consciousness among Canadian children and their families, the Plant a Seed & See What Grows Foundation has initiated a seed preservation program to promote seed biodiversity and ecological seed production, and to keep seeds in the public domain.

Health Canada is introducing new front-of-pack labelling changes that will come into effect in January 2025.

 Gather your clubs and fellow teammates for a day of friendly competition and networking amid the stunning greens of Lionhead Golf Club.

In February, CHFA's Industry Night Out in Calgary brought together nearly 100 retailers, health practitioners, manufacturers, and businesses operating in the natural, organic and wellness (NOW) space.

Melanie Vacquier has been appointed key account manager, supporting health food stores across Canada. And Nicholas Bright has joined Bioforce Canada as key account manager for grocery, drug, and mass accounts.

Betsy Puff has joined the Plant a Seed & See What Grows Foundation in the role of education program coordinator.

Recently, I was in Langley, BC, to visit a couple of great health food stores. The mini road trip was a little extra special because I was accompanied by my Alive Publishing Group (APG) colleagues: Laura Newton, editor; Tracy Peternell, group content director and editor-in-chief; and Ellen Wheeler, vice president of sales.

The Canada Organic logo on your favourite foods did not appear until June 2009. Until then, producers and farmers did not have a federal standard to indicate how organic their products were. There were no harmonized national guidelines along the organic supply chain, no national criteria for audits, and limited access to international markets.