Cannabidiol (CBD) may be the most impactful trend to shake the natural products industry in a very long time, but there’s still many regulatory wrinkles to be ironed out. I’m hopeful that FDA can work with industry to blaze a fresh, legal path to market so that consumers can access the products they are very clearly demanding, and businesses up and down the supply chain can play on a level field. 
 
While CBD may be the shining all-star that’s attracting most of the attention, the nutraceuticals industry has some stellar role players on the squad too. Overall, dietary supplement innovation continues to accelerate thanks to modern technological advancements that can help improve product performance and ensure quality.
 
If you’re looking to formulate with hard-to-work-with ingredients like probiotics and curcumin, there are tools available to overcome those challenges. If you want to adopt and employ next generation testing methods that validate what’s in your product or formulation, experts from NSF International offer great perspective on that as well. 
 
At the same time, consumers are voting their values with every product purchase, and they want a better food system than what they’ve been fed to this point. The nutraceutical and natural product industries can be a positive, problem-solving force. Partnerships that empower farmers, efforts to ramp up regenerative agriculture practices, pulling the curtain back from opaque supply chains, are all moves in the right direction. 
 
At the same time, significant challenges persist. For example, how can companies make the “packaged” part of “consumer packaged goods” more sustainable? How can industry and regulators root out bad actors and expose cheap contract manufacturers for what they really are? How do brands validate what’s on the label is actually inside the bottle? 
 
Collaboration across disciplines and industries, even with competitors, can help build a better community and assist consumers committed to improving their health. Full steam ahead ...