| The Editor's Take: Turning Over More Stones The NBJ Awards are always a highlight of our year, giving us a chance to reflect on the past year and celebrate brands and industry leaders that are innovating and making a difference in the world. That world has changed since the last round of awards and we knew this year’s selection process could not look the same as ever before. As the leading data and insights platform in the natural products industry, for too long NBJ has maintained the status quo of our NBJ Awards selection process, often bemoaning the lack of diversity in the industry, but doing nothing to reward it where it did show up. For this year’s Awards, however, diversity found us. During the selection process, the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on populations of color—and the way that intersects with the nutrition business—were tremendously evident. As such, for the first time we chose winners in two categories based on what they did for nutritional equity. To begin, we are excited to announced that Naturade is receiving the Mission and Philanthropy Award for its focus on making quality nutrition more available to communities of color. Driven by his family’s experiences with diabetes and pre-diabetes, Naturade’s CMO and co-owner, Kareem Cook, has helped re-invigorate this 100-year-old brand to retarget the message for communities often left out of the nutrition discussion. For our second nutritional equity-focused award, concierge physician Ken Redcross, M.D, and Brian Terry of Nordic Naturals are both receiving the Education Award for their work on the Health Equity and Advocacy Project and Get On My Level Campaign, respectively. Both projects are aimed at raising awareness of vitamin D deficiencies in dark-skinned populations, noting that up to 82% of the Black population suffers from vitamin D deficiency, a correctable state, driven in part by skin color, that can prelude not just COVID, but heart disease and asthma, too. This is a large-scale problem that Redcross and Terry are tackling through a combination of educational outreach and access to testing and supplements. These awards, then, align with our ongoing efforts to give voice to more diverse leaders, brands, founders, experts and innovators. We are excited to add this focus on nutritional equity into the breadth of topics covered by the NBJ Awards, and know that this is just one of many necessary steps to continue to improve justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the natural products industry.
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| | Bill Giebler An award-winning writer and seasoned natural products industry veteran—with decades of experience in food and supplement retail, lifestyle mail order and textiles product development—NBJ's Content & Insights Director Bill Giebler reports on dietary supplements, food and agricultural trends and opportunities across New Hope properties. |
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| The Awards issue is FREE - Get it now! |
| | NBJ's annual Awards Issue recognizes achievement and innovation in the health and nutrition industry across eight categories, including supply chain transparency, efforts on behalf of the industry, sustainability and more. Following a year marked by adaptation and change, find out which leaders and brands topped the charts in these categories, and how they did it! Get the 2021 Awards Issue now. |
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