KIND Healthy Snacks used the recent World Bee Day to announce it is on track to source the majority — 51% — of its almonds from bee-friendly farms by the end of the year.
The announcement follows the commitment KIND made in 2020 to be the first snack company by 2025 to source almonds from only bee-friendly farms. Almonds are KIND’s top ingredient.
“Pollinators, like bees and butterflies, are central to the plant-based ingredients that many of KIND’s products depend on. We are excited about the leadership we’ve seen from the almond grower community over the past few years to expedite the transition to bee-friendly practices,” KIND CEO Russell Stokes said in a press release. “We are eager to continue to build on this momentum as we approach our 2025 target and hopeful we can complete this transition ahead of schedule."
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To be classified as “bee-friendly farmland” for KIND, an operation must reserve 3-5% of its farmland by 2025 as pollinator habitat. U.S. almond suppliers must also eliminate the use of neonicotinoids and chlorpyrifos. The farmland can then be certified as “bee-friendly” by two of the leading third-party certifiers.
Food tolerances for chlorpyrifos were revoked by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year.
In 2020, KIND estimated there were 20,000 acres of bee-friendly almond farmland in California; the company now pegs this number at approximately 145,000 acres.
The company also supported its initiative by donating $350,000 to the UC Davis Williams Lab to support research on pollinators.
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