Celebrate the NEXTY Awards winners for Expo East 2023

Twice a year, in concurrence with Natural Products Expos East and West, New Hope Network recognizes the best new products with coveted NEXTY Awards. This time, CPG brands nominated 400 products across 20 categories, and New Hope's experienced editors sampled and reviewed each one.

Brands may submit multiple products to multiple categories, which adds a challenging, layer to the judging process as the team determines which new product shines brightest. The New Hope team chooses finalists for each category—69 for this competition—then invites industry experts to join the second round of judging and help select the winners. The two-tiered judging process ensures that each nomination is thoroughly reviewed and upholds the NEXTY Awards' standards: These winning products best exemplify "the threes I's," innovation, inspiration and integrity.

This year's panel of guest judges ranged from retailers to journalists, and their knowledge and expertise cover much of the natural products industry, which helps determine a secret fourth I: each product's potential impact.

New category debuts

This year, in addition to the 19 existing NEXTY categories, New Hope debuted a special category in conjunction with the launch of the Innovation Experience at Expo East: Best New Innovation Experience. This category challenged brands to share what innovations they’re adopting—food technology, artificial intelligence, nutrition science, alternative business and ownership models or something completely different—to steward the food industry toward a healthier, more regenerative and more equitable future. Judges looked for a product or brand that exemplifies this way of doing business and using innovation as a force for good.

The winners

In addition to the 20 category winners, New Hope's editors recognized three products and one brand Editors' Choice Awards. These winners stood out for their creativity and sustainability efforts.

As it has since 2020, New Hope Network welcomed nominations from all CPG brands in the natural products industry, not just Expo exhibitors. This policy gives the NEXTY Awards competition a greater reach and allows more early-stage and emerging brands to nominate products. While many of these brands are exhibiting at Expo East this week, all 24 award-winning products are featured in this gallery.

Congratulations to this year's NEXTY Awards winners, and thank you to all nominees that made this the most thrilling Expo East NEXTY Awards competition yet!

Click through to see the winners.