Natural/organic-foods industry sees healthy future

In the early 1970s, a small group of idealists purchased a five-acre plot of land south of Longmont and started a commune with an alfalfa field, a handful of goats and two beehives, selling honey out of the back of a van in Boulder Canyon to make money.

The venture planted a seed that grew into Madhava Honey Ltd., doing business as Madhava Natural Sweeteners, one of the oldest natural-food companies in Colorado. Madhava still creates a buzz today, 37 year later, in the natural and organic products industry that’s blossomed along the Front Range and draws attention from across the…