Food Industry Reaction To Tariffs At Expo West Convention

Hello from Southern California! During my panel on climate-smart farming at Expo West a few days ago, Bryce Lundberg, the third-generation co-owner of rice company Lundberg Family Farms, made a clever play on words about something many in the food industry are worrying about, describing the brewing trade war as “tariff-ying.”

A chuckle goes a long way, especially in tenuous times. And as I get ready for the last day of the exhibition at the Anaheim Convention Center, I’m going to keep that spirit with me. I’m 33,000 steps in, why stop now?

I’m still on the prowl for some new surprises and delights. If you see me on the floor later today (I’ll be the one looking dragged down with bags full of samples), bring me your food and say hi. It might just blow my mind.

I’ll be sharing my full Expo West takeaways in next week’s edition—along with all of my favorite bites, some big news coming out of the show, emerging brands to watch and much more. Enjoy the weekend!

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

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FIELD NOTES

Alternative sour creams and dips like Tzatziki and onion dip were big on the floor of Expo West this year, with new products from brands like Cocojune and Fabalish. Here’s the about-to-launch vegan sour cream from Elmhurst, plated with some roasted potatoes.

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Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.