NEW YORK —  KIND Healthy Snacks (KIND) on Monday unveiled a new call to its community – be kind to yourself which aims to remind people that kindness starts with you. The platform speaks to the importance of self-care and demonstrates choices people can make when life inevitably gets in the way of healthy.

“Our longstanding belief at KIND is to craft snacks made with a nutrient-dense first ingredient, like whole nuts, whole grains or whole fruits. Through this new platform, we want to spark a dialogue and remind people to look at what ingredients are most prominent in their snacks,” says Mike Barkley, president and chief operating officer at KIND.

The campaign highlights the daily grind and compromises people often make when life makes it challenging to make healthy choices – whether it’s on a plane, on the way to soccer or bouncing from meeting to meeting. The first wave of creative showcases KIND’s first ingredient superiority. KIND’s top-selling bar, Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt, leads with nutrient-dense, almonds and contains 5 grams of sugar, which is 75% less sugar than the top competitors’ product, which uses a form of sugar as its first ingredient.

This is not the first time KIND has put a spotlight on the ingredients in packaged foods.

• In 2015 KIND filed a Citizen Petition asking the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to update its 20-year-old regulation of how “healthy” could be used on food labels. In response, the FDA kicked off a review of the definition thanks, in part, to KIND’s action;
• In 2016 KIND became the first national snack brand to disclose added sugar content across its portfolio;
• In March 2019 KIND urged the FDA to revise its nutrient content claim regulation to focus more on the overall quality of a food versus the quantity of a singular nutrient;
• In April 2019 KIND hosted an educational pop-up calling attention to the 100+ sweeteners hiding in popular snacks and encouraged the food industry to more clearly disclose sweeteners and sources of sugar.

“Underpinning the creative is the idea that kindness starts with each of us,” says Barkley. “The idea is simple: if you’re not kind to yourself, it’s hard to be kind to others.”

Since 2004, KIND has sought to make the world a little kinder, one snack and act at a time. Together, KIND and The KIND Foundation have invested and committed more than $34.5 million and 50,490 volunteer hours to charitable causes. The KIND Foundation’s signature initiative, Empatico, has connected more than 27,000 students in 141 countries. To learn more about KIND’s mission, click here.

be kind to yourself will run on national TV and across digital channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, kindsnacks.com and Amazon. It will also be promoted via email and field marketing as well as public relations.