Kind (company)

History

Daniel Lubetzky started Kind in 2004, pulling in about $1 million in revenue during its first year. Four years later, private equity firm VMG Partners came on board, giving the company the cash to ramp up its sampling program. At the time, Kind bars were in 20,000 stores, and Lubetzky had just $800 to spend on samples. By 2009, that budget had ballooned to $800,000, and free samples became a cornerstone of Kind’s marketing.

Lubetzky bought back all of VMG’s shares in 2014. Today, Kind bars are stocked in over 150,000 U.S. stores. In 2014 alone, the company moved more than 458 million bars and granola pouches, nearly double the previous year’s total. Kind now employs around 500 people.

In October 2019, it bought North Carolina-based Creative Snacks, and in February 2020, it branched into frozen bars, refrigerated nut-butter bars, and chocolate clusters. That December, Kind acquired Nature’s Bakery. Through the KIND Movement, the company works to build a community around kindness, launching Do the Kind Thing in 2009 to turn kind acts into support for causes. To date, Kind has performed, facilitated, and celebrated over 1 million kind acts.

In 2017, Mars took a minority stake in Kind, valuing the company at over $4 billion. By November 2020, Mars had upped its stake to full ownership in a $5 billion deal.

Products

Kind currently offers eight lines: Kind Fruit & Nut, Kind Plus, Kind Nuts & Spices, Kind Healthy Grains Bars, Kind Healthy Grains Clusters, Strong & Kind, Kind Breakfast, Pressed by Kind, and Kind Frozen. In 2008, Kind launched Kind Plus, a line of whole nut and fruit bars with fiber and antioxidants. In 2010, they introduced smaller 100-calorie Kind minis. In 2011, Kind Healthy Grains Clusters granola, made from a blend of five grains, was launched.

In 2012, Kind Nuts & Spices bars, made with whole nuts flavored with spices and containing 5g of sugar or less per bar, were introduced. In 2013, Kind Healthy Grains granola bars were launched. In 2014, Kind launched its first savory snack line, Strong & Kind, with 10 grams of soy-and-whey free protein. Kind Breakfast was launched in 2016.

That same year, Kind announced an extension to its nuts and spices and fruit and nut lines to include Dark Chocolate Almond & Mint. In May 2025, Kind announced changes to its packaging, releasing recyclable packaging for a single Kind bar flavor to select Whole Foods locations. In non-English speaking countries, the brand is marketed as BE-KIND.

Controversies

In 2015, the FDA called out Kind for labeling four of its snack bars with the word "healthy" and incorporating a plus in the design. According to the FDA, a snack food must contain 1 gram or less of saturated fat to be considered healthy, and a plus must indicate that a snack bar contains 10 percent more nutrients than a bar designated by the FDA as representative of the category. In response, Kind issued a statement on its website indicating it would revise the labeling of the specified four product flavors and announced a comprehensive review of its entire product line to ensure compliance with FDA regulations. In a separate communication with NPR, company representative Cohen stated that nuts—central ingredients in many of the company's snack bars—contain healthful fats that surpass the saturated fat limits permitted under the FDA's current standards.