Plant Based World Expo 2025 took place on Dec. 2–3, 2025, at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, bringing together professionals from across the global plant-based food and beverage industry.
📍 A B2B platform focused on business and sourcing
As a business-to-business (B2B) trade show, Plant Based World Expo is designed for retail buyers, foodservice operators, distributors, manufacturers, and industry leaders, rather than general consumers. The show serves as an important sourcing and networking hub for companies looking to enter or expand within the U.S. market.
🛒 Show floor highlights
The exhibition floor featured a broad range of plant-based products, including meat and dairy alternatives, snacks, beverages, functional foods, and ingredient solutions. Many brands used the 2025 edition to debut new products aimed at mainstream retail and foodservice channels.
🎤 Education and industry conversations
Plant Based World Expo 2025 also offered a conference program focused on market trends, consumer behavior, product innovation, and sustainability. Sessions addressed both opportunities and challenges facing plant-based brands as the category continues to mature.
🤝 Connecting brands with buyers
Through initiatives such as the Hosted Buyer Program, the expo facilitated targeted, pre-scheduled meetings between exhibitors and qualified buyers, helping accelerate business development and distribution opportunities.
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🌍 Why Plant Based World Expo 2025 matters
As plant-based products move beyond niche audiences, Plant Based World Expo 2025 reflected the industry’s growing emphasis on taste, scalability, and commercial viability, highlighting how plant-based foods are becoming an integral part of the broader food system.
🔍 2025 industry trends: From ideals to execution
In 2025, the plant-based industry showed a clear shift from concept-driven innovation to market-driven execution. Discussions throughout Plant Based World Expo highlighted a growing emphasis on taste parity, clean labels, functional benefits, and price competitiveness, as brands respond to more discerning consumers and tighter retail standards. Rather than positioning plant-based products solely around ethics or sustainability, many exhibitors focused on mainstream appeal, everyday usability, and scalable distribution, signaling a more mature and commercially focused phase for the category.
Featured Exhibitors
Maïzly
Maïzly is a food and beverage company focused on corn-based, plant-based milk alternatives and related products. Its flagship product is a non-GMO cornmilk that serves as a dairy-free beverage with functionality and use similar to cow’s milk. The company also makes flavored variants, custard, and even infant formula.
📌 Company Basics
- Industry: Food and beverage manufacturing, plant-based products.
- Founded: 2019, by co-founders Tim Leclercq (CEO) and Marcel van der Merwe (COO).
- Headquarters: Indianapolis, USA (with operations/contacts also in the UK, South Africa and other regions).
- Employees: Small team (around 11–50 people).
🥛 What Makes the Product Unique
- Corn-based milk alternative: Uses soluble non-GMO corn fiber as the core ingredient to create a creamy, dairy-like texture and taste.
- Dietary profile: Vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, non-GMO, allergen-friendly and free from nuts, seed oils, and common allergens.
- Nutrition: Often higher in fiber (e.g., ~8g per serving), fortified with vitamins A, D, E and calcium, with less sugar than cow’s milk.
- Functionality: Designed to froth, blend, cook, and bake like dairy, and can be used in coffee, tea, cereals, smoothies, and recipes.
🌍 Sustainability & Innovation
Maïzly emphasizes sustainability by focusing on:
- Crops like corn that require less land and water than almonds or dairy, helping reduce environmental impacts.
- Producing closer to markets to reduce food miles.
- Developing products that fit evolving consumer preferences for plant-based, eco-friendly foods.
🏆 Recognition & Growth
- Maïzly has been recognized for innovation, winning awards like the 2025 GAMA CPG Innovation Award (SME) and being a finalist at global innovation programs.
- It has expanded beyond shelf-stable products into refrigerated milk across New York retail, with broader U.S. distribution underway.
- The company also obtained infant formula approval in Zambia, allowing affordable lactose-free formula options.
📈 Market & Positioning
Rather than competing directly with oat or almond milk, Maïzly positions itself as a next-generation plant-based milk with unique nutrition and sustainability profiles. Reviews highlight its neutral taste, functional performance, and utility for consumers with dietary restrictions.
Natural Heaven
Natural Heaven is a health-focused food company best known for its innovative range of ready-to-eat meals and meal alternatives made from hearts of palm, a vegetable harvested from the inner core of certain palm trees that’s low-carb, gluten-free, and rich in fiber.
🌱 What the company does
- Products: Natural Heaven produces a variety of convenient food items, including pasta alternatives (spaghetti, angel hair, lasagna), rice substitutes, creamy mash, and prepared meals — all primarily made from hearts of palm.
- Their meals are ready in about a minute and designed as healthier swaps for traditional carbs, with minimal ingredients and cleaner nutrition profiles.
- Products are gluten-free, low-calorie, low-carb, and plant-based, appealing to health-conscious, keto, vegan, and gluten-free diets.
🌍 Company origin & mission
- Natural Heaven is backed by a family-owned food company from Ecuador with over 65 years of food industry experience, originally building Pronaca — one of Ecuador’s largest food producers — before launching Natural Heaven to bring hearts-of-palm foods to a global audience.
- The brand emphasizes sustainability: they use zero-waste farming, purify and return production water to rivers, and apply biodegradable materials in the process.
- Natural Heaven also supports community impact efforts, such as reducing childhood malnutrition and funding education initiatives in underserved areas.
📍 Production & availability
- All products are produced in Ecuador, where the company has developed decades of expertise in growing and processing hearts of palm.
- They are available online (their own website and Amazon) and in select U.S. grocery stores, with options for direct shipping within the U.S.
🧠 Brand positioning
Natural Heaven markets itself as a modern, sustainable alternative to traditional pasta and rice, combining convenience with healthier eating and environmental stewardship.
Muwiz
Muwiz (sometimes referred to as Muwiz Laboratório or Muwiz Indústria e Laboratório) is a Brazilian company that produces and sells natural supplements and nutritional products. It focuses on health, wellness, performance, and quality of life by offering a variety of products typically found in the dietary supplement category.
Key points about the company:
- It is based in Brazil, with a main office in Condor, Rio Grande do Sul, and a branch in Barueri, São Paulo.
- Products include vitamins, amino acids, collagens, enzymes, omegas, plant-based ingredients (like maca peruana), oils, and other supplements.
- Muwiz’s offerings are marketed as natural and plant-inspired, aimed at supporting a healthy lifestyle.
- The company promotes wellness and quality of life, not just fitness performance.
- They have an active presence on social media and have participated in events outside Brazil, such as exhibiting in New York at expos or showcases highlighting their supplements.
- You can find specific Muwiz products (like Vitamin B12 in drops) on Brazilian marketplaces, indicating retail distribution beyond just their own site.
🌿 Plantus (Brazil)
Plantus is a Brazilian biotechnology and natural-ingredients company best known in the cosmetics, personal care, pharmaceutical, and food ingredient industries.
1. What Plantus Does
Plantus develops, manufactures, and supplies plant-based ingredients, including:
- Essential oils
- Fixed (carrier) oils
- Botanical extracts
- Butters and waxes
- Active ingredients derived from plants
These ingredients are mainly used by cosmetic brands, skincare companies, perfumers, supplement formulators, and industrial buyers, rather than sold directly to consumers.
2. Core Strength: Brazilian Biodiversity
One of Plantus’s biggest assets is its focus on Brazilian native plants and biodiversity:
- Works with ingredients sourced from Amazon and other Brazilian biome
- Transforms traditional botanical knowledge into commercial, standardized raw materials
- Emphasizes traceability and sustainability, which is very attractive to international beauty brands
This positions Plantus well with brands looking for:
- “Amazonian actives”
- Natural & clean-label ingredients
- Ethical sourcing stories
3. Biotechnology & Innovation
Plantus is not just a trading company — it has a biotech orientation:
- Uses biotechnology and processing innovation (e.g., extraction methods, fermentation concepts)
- Focuses on efficacy, stability, and performance of plant compounds
- Bridges academic research + industrial application
This makes it competitive against global ingredient suppliers, not just local farms.
4. Sustainability & Certifications
Plantus is known for being very strong on certifications, which is critical for export:
Commonly referenced certifications include:
- Organic certifications (IBD / IFOAM / USDA-NOP)
- Cosmos-compatible ingredients
- Some lines aligned with Demeter / biodynamic principles
They also emphasize:
- Environmental preservation
- Responsible harvesting
- Social inclusion of local producers and communities
This is why they are popular with European and North American brands.
5. Global Market Presence
Plantus:
- Exports internationally
- Exhibits regularly at in-cosmetics Global, in-cosmetics Latin America, and similar trade shows
- Supplies B2B clients, not DTC consumers
In the ingredient world, they are considered:
a mid-size but respected specialty ingredient supplier, not a mass-volume commodity player.
6. How the Industry Sees Plantus
In the natural-ingredients ecosystem, Plantus is generally viewed as:
- 🌱 Credible (science + certifications)
- 🌍 Story-rich (Brazilian biodiversity, sustainability)
- 🧪 Formulator-friendly (ingredients designed for real product use)
- 🤝 Brand-supportive (documentation, traceability, compliance)
They are not a giant like Givaudan or DSM, but they are very well positioned in the clean beauty / natural actives niche.
