Boston is buzzing. Expo East started today and hotel rooms and restaurant reservations are scarcer than a $2 bill.

Yesterday there was an investor conference in town hosted by the leading investment bank in the healthy living space. One Boulder company wowed the crowd (technically a New Jersey company – but the CEO lives in Boulder and has the marketing office in town) Steve Hughes and Rick Werner presented and had them eating out of his hand with the tremendous and bold growth story that the Smart Balance and Earth Balance brands are living. In the afternoon the Blackberry’s started shaking the room and the investment managers fled back to their offices and hotels in damage-control mode reacting to the precipitous late-day drop in the market.

There was also the Healthy Foods Conference hosted by Boulder’s New Hope Natural Media. The audience included large food and beverage companies and ingredient companies looking to for new, healthier food options or ways to clean-up existing products. Very cool presentation by the guy who runs TrendHunter.com. Check them out. They have 20,0000 or so affiliates around the world making postings on bleeding edge trends.

Starbuck’s made a presentation about their new healthy food offerings. They are unbelievably late to the game — with very unimaginative offerings – but hey, better late than never. There was a nice shout-out to another Boulderite featured in their new natural protein offering — Justin’s Almond Nut Butter.

I joined Boulderites Mary Mulray (food scientist and former ingredient guru at Wild Oats) and Kim Stuart (New Hope) on the wrap-up panel to crystallize some of the key takeaways from the event. One is the power of technology in accelerating transparency in the food industry. Companies are cleaning-up their acts and ingredient labels and not a moment too soon. Authentic brands are winning. And Boulder is ground zero!

Check out this site: http://www.trendhunter.com

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