Nutrition Business Journal and Vitamin Angels have teamed up to offer new NBJ Corporate Electronic subscribers a free ticket to the Vitamin Angels dinner at Natural Products Expo East.

Through September 21, 2007, Nutrition Business Journal is offering 1 FREE ticket to Vitamin Angel’s “Celebration of Angels VIP Dinner” at Expo East with the purchase of a $2,500 Corporate Electronic Subscription to NBJ. Call Mandi Hogan at 303.998.9225 for more information.

An NBJ Corporate Electronic Subscription provides expanded access to NBJ’s database of nutrition industry information, analysis and intelligence. The subscription is renewable on 12-month terms and includes:

• A PDF version of each NBJ issue (plus up to 5 hard copies of each issue of NBJ on request)

• The right to post the PDF version of each NBJ issue on your corporate Intranet

• NBJ issue-specific data files in Excel format, including spreadsheets of the issue data and company lists

• NBJ Weekly eNews delivered to an unlimited number of company readers

• Up to 5 users of the nutritionbusiness.com subscriber-only area, including an archive of selected data and text files associated with each issue, the NBJ Weekly eNews archive and presentation files delivered by NBJ staff and affiliates

• 10% discount on NBJ products including reports, webcasts, data charts and more

Vitamin Angels “Celebration of Angels VIP Dinner” is an exclusive event for visionary leaders in the natural products industry. The event benefits “Operation 20/20,” a campaign to end childhood blindness by the year 2020, as well as many other humanitarian aid projects that address malnutrition throughout the world. Learn more about Vitamin Angels at www.vitaminangels.org.

NBJ will host a live online review of the $85 billion nutrition industry and supplement business on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

The web seminar will be hosted by Grant Ferrier, Editor-in-Chief of NBJ and Tom Aarts, co-founder of NBJ will contribute.

The webseminar will cover all U.S. nutrition industry product categories and sales channels, with an emphasis on sales, growth and top companies.

In addition, a mid-year 2007 report will be presented on the dietary supplement category.

To register, go to the web seminar homepage.

The Trust for America’s Health just reported increasing obesity rates in the United States.

“No state is doing well. We have seen a dramatic increase throughout the country,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of The Trust for America’s Health.

Naturally, the million dollar question is, “Why is the American obesity rate growing?”

The Trust for America’s Health suggests a comprehensive plan to fight rising obesity which includes:

1. Think Big - more money from the federal government for obesity fighting programs

2. More tools for consumers to make better decisions

3. Incent employers to develop employee wellness programs

4. Increase the amount of research being done to figure out ways to keep people from becoming obese

All great suggestions, but at the end of the day, the marketing of the consumer products goods industry is just too big and powerful…and the foods they produce are so well marketed, formulated and flavored…they are just hard to resist. It doesn’t hurt that children are hooked by sugary products at a very young age, either. Remember Fruitt Loops & Frosted Flakes? I still have friends who can’t resist a bowl of Cookie Crisp every once in a while.

At the end of the day, it’s a personal decision for oneself or one’s family to live a healthy life including exercise, a healthy diet, a healthy mental state and supplementation, where necessary.

Though Marion Nestle is no big fan of the dietary supplement industry, her message of common sense when it comes to health & nutrition is undeniable. Perhaps that’s what America needs, a big does of common sense….now if we could only find a way to get that into a gelcap…

Click here for the Trust for America’s Health press release

Time Magazine Article: The Science of Appetite

Health Ratings by State

Save the date for next year’s NBJ/Newport Summit. The 2008 NBJ/Newport Summit will again be hosted at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, California on July 23-25, 2008. Walter Robb, Co-President & Co-Chief Operating Officer of Whole Foods Market will be one of the keynote speakers at the 2008 event.

The 2007 NBJ/Newport Summit, a CEO-level conference and networking retreat held July, 18 – 20 at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, California, served as a meeting place for key executives and thought-leaders in the $85 billion nutrition industry.

Attracting top executives and CEOs from around the world, the NBJ/Newport Summit included nine sessions devoted to the theme: Capturing Healthcare Dollars. In addition, two industry thought-leaders, Stewart Emery, co-author of Success Built to Last, and noted neurologist David Perlmutter, MD spoke to nearly 200 executives about how to prepare their companies for changes happening in the marketplace.

It seems a week doesn’t pass without a new AP story about China’s food safety problems. The media has really latched onto it. A Google search on “”Chinese Food Safety”" returned over 5.6 million results.

Beijing is currently deflecting blame to foreign media outlets.

Let’s be honest, fear sells better than hope….be it online ads, newspaper subscriptions or 30-second spots inbetween segments on your local & national news. Unfortunately, this is the bottom line.

When it comes to China-sourced ingredients, questioning the safety and efficacy is no new issue to the dietary supplement industry. It’s also becoming a hotter issue with organics, as Safeway’s O Organics line (containing organic products & organic ingredients sourced in China) was called into question at The Organic Summit.

The greater China product safety issue is certainly growing, and will likely renew the focus on Chinese-sourced raw ingredients for dietary supplements. Not that this hasn’t been an “”on-an-off”" issue for the last 10 years for the dietary supplement industry.

Stay tuned for NBJ’s upcoming report on the Chinese nutritional market. Call to pre-order your copy today - 303.998.9399