Sandy Almendarez, VP of content at Informa Markets, oversees the SupplySide brands and events for the health and nutrition industry. She’s also a well-known speaker and presenter on the conference circuit in the media-on-media space. [We previously chatted with Sandy in March of last year, on the topic of conference and media content.] Most recently, she was part of a panel how content producers can effectively collaborate with the business side at the ASBPEvolve conference in May. She’s also a friend of Fox Associates, so we thought it would be great to catch up on what she’s doing with the SupplySide brands, including the newly launched professional education module, SupplySide Fresh. Here’s our conversation.
Fox Tales: Tell us about SupplySide Fresh. What was the impetus, how is it going now?
Sandy Almendarez: Since the return of events after the pandemic, we noticed large amounts of SupplySide event attendees indicating they were new in the industry; it hovered around 40% for several shows back-to-back. The SupplySide team saw an opportunity to help address the needs of newcomers and the companies that employ them.
SupplySide Fresh, launched in August 2024, is a learning management program that onboards newcomers to the health and nutrition industry. Like many industries, the supplement and functional foods industry is full of acronyms, legal nuances, many media brands, and industry movers and shakers. We partnered with industry veterans who recorded dozens of videos full of insights and practical skills. The program offers a selection of educational modules covering a wide range of topics, including regulatory compliance, clinical research, technology trends and strategic partnerships.
Sandy Almendarez.
In addition to education, SupplySide Fresh enables networking, collaboration and knowledge sharing among the participants. This community aspect is on full display at all SupplySide events, with numerous networking opportunities, educational presentations and one-on-one conversations supporting SupplySide Fresh.
In the year since we’ve launched, we’ve made a pivot that is helping to unlock the value of the program and lead to more sustainable growth. When we launched, we were targeting individual learners, but we’ve pivoted the marketing (but not the education) to focus on hiring managers and HR leaders. We sell a corporate pack that offers a bundled price so that we can get more learners in the program more quickly and embed our program into company cultures.
We’re helping reduce the pain that many business leaders face in trying to educate their new hires on the specifics of a complex industry. And by addressing the needs of newcomers in the industry, SupplySide Fresh is building loyalty to Informa that will last throughout their careers, building on the ROI of the registration fee.
Fox Tales: How does it relate to your parent brand?
Almendarez: SupplySide is a B2B brand nestled in Informa’s North American Health & Nutrition business. (Yes, Informa is big and complicated.) SupplySide focuses on product development, formulation and sourcing of natural consumer packaged goods. I like to say we cover everything you would find in a Whole Foods Market except for the produce. SupplySide’s house of brands includes the media brands SupplySide Supplement Journal (covering dietary supplements) and SupplySide Food & Beverage Journal, plus two annual events, SupplySide Connect New Jersey and SupplySide Global, and SupplySide Fresh. Informa’s North American Health & Nutrition business includes the large and well-known event Natural Products Expo West as well as the well-respected Nutrition Business Journal and other brands.
Informa, as you may know, is a leading exhibition organizer with additional businesses in publishing, media and academic research.
Fox Tales: How big a part of your portfolio do the events represent?
Almendarez: SupplySide Global is SupplySide’s biggest offering in terms of revenue and audience draw, although all our brands are profit centers. SupplySide Global, with more than 20,000 participants, is consistently in the top shows within Informa, with margins that are the best in the business. SupplySide Connect New Jersey is our more intimate show, held in Secaucus, New Jersey. Its 2,600 participants is the perfect size for a drive-in event in the heart of the U.S. dietary supplement industry (aka, New Jersey).
Fox Tales: The topic of your session in May at the ASBPE conference is an important one for journalists. Navigating the business side. How does an editor do that successfully?
Almendarez: I love talking about this! I think B2B content is entering a new era where we’ve learned we need to step up our games in terms of delivering true value. And what is so very cool is that what is good for the audience is good for the bottom line, making classically trained journalists like me happy. In the past, publishers have submitted to the desires of advertisers to produce content that wasn’t as meaningful to their audience (read: they were publishing straight-up advertisements passing as content).
But B2B is getting more sophisticated and learning that to make money, we need to be audience-first in all the content we produce. All content must be good, in other words. This includes sponsored content and other content that brings in revenue. Content teams must earn audience trust by first and foremost producing valuable content, and second, by being embedded in the industry they serve. Content teams should attend industry events, join trade association calls even if they are off the record, and be active on social platforms important to their industry. I could talk on and on about this (and in fact, I did at ASBPEvolve), but the bottom line is that monetization comes naturally from trusted content and collaborative teams, listening to your audience and learning from experiments.
Fox Tales: Tell us about your underlying market: Supplements and nutrition. How is it doing, what are the trends?
Almendarez: This is an exciting industry to be in, and it has been for the 16 years I’ve been around. Major trends won’t surprise anyone who has been in a grocery store recently: Weight management, women’s health, nonalcoholic beverages, mushrooms and magnesium. The industry has been energized by U.S. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “make America healthy again” promotions, and has been hampered by threatened (and actual) tariffs on ingredients. The brouhaha on natural colors is also a big discussion point as major brands reformulate products, causing supply chain concerns and strains. Also, I will say because I have the platform, unlike what many consumer brands say, dietary supplements are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (check out the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994).