Last week, Best in Nature attended The Nutrition Business Journal Summit, better known as the NBJ Summit. This selective conference invites select executives from the dietary-supplement, functional-food and broader nutrition industry. This year featured 400 attendees from the top 100 brands in the US and beyond. We attended the summit to stay up-to-date on popular ingredients and how the regulatory framework around supplements is evolving.
Expert Speakers
A unique benefit to an event of this caliber is the lineup of speakers.
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Abigail Buckwalter
Abigail is the former Nestle Health Sciences CEO, now CEO of Ocean Spray. She shared her authentic approach to life and leadership. The highlight of her lecture was a perspective on 3 aspects of SELF: self discipline, self awareness, and self care.
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Dr. Darshan Shah
Dr Shah is the CEO and founder of Next Health. He discussed how to use tech, personalization and AI to improve patient care. He elaborated that doctors such as himself are taught to diagnose instead of how to guide people towards better health.
Now AI might help correct this by giving doctors the ability to highly personalize recommendations about diet, exercise and supplementation to all of their patients.
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William Hood
Mr. Hood is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of William Hood & Company. His lecture covered merger and acquisition activity in the supplement and food space.
One of our primary takeaways from Mr. Hood is that for younger adults, alcohol is out and supplements are in. Additionally, young adults value proof of quality and clinical studies even more than previous generations.
Technology’s Impact on Supplements & Food
Artificial Intelligence continues to dominate the headlines and the food and supplement space is no exception.
Personalized Nutrition: Various startups are compiling your health data and using the power of AI to create a more comprehensive picture of your overall health & fitness. This information might also provide pathways to improvement by simplifying what providers need to know about your journey and pairing that with nutritional adjustments that can enhance your health.
Product Development:
Artificial Intelligence can be used to accelerate the pace of product development. Some can let you write down the outcome or what health needs you would like to address. Then, their engine will generate multiple formula concepts within minutes; a task that would normally take months of research and development.
Social Media:
TikTok and social selling are changing the way people find out about and buy products. Their ecosystem is increasingly THE place where people FIND OUT about supplements and BUY them through the TikTok SHOP.
Then, Amazon is doing the reverse. It started as a shop but now they’re adding more social features like live streaming so people can find out and ask questions about products in real time.
Ingredients: What’s New in Supplements & Food
People are looking to supplements, herbs and botanicals to live better. Increasingly, everyone is learning the power of small, simple steps to living healthier.
At Best in Nature, we are constantly looking through the latest research and people’s health needs to develop new products. We want to hear from you about the health solutions you are interested in. If there’s a supplement that you would like to see Best in Nature offer, send us a message.
FDA & State Regulations
Top voices in the dietary supplements industry discussed the state of supplement and food regulation.
Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the FDA has the singular authority to regulate supplements and food. However, a few states have begun creating their own regulatory frameworks that carry the risk of a patchwork system in which consumers have fewer choices and companies struggle to comply.
House Resolution 7366 has been proposed in the US House of Representatives to reinforce and unify regulatory authority, federally under the FDA.
NBJ Summit 2026 was an-information packed event. And we are glad to have been able to attend and gain expert insights on new discoveries, trending ingredients and the evolving regulatory landscape.