KIND Snacks is announcing a series of sustainable sourcing milestones, one year after releasing its commitment to source 100% of its almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture practices on a mass-balance basis by 2030. 

KIND Snacks is partnering with Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment to join its Regenerative Services Match Program. Wolfe's Neck Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating change in food systems through regenerative farming, innovative research and collaborations. This partnership – currently Wolfe's Neck Center's largest partnership focused on almonds – will unlock more than $300,000 in funding for regenerative practice adoption and resource deployment within KIND's almond supply network. This funding, made possible in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Program, represents a key milestone in bringing regenerative practices that support soil health to specialty crops, like almonds, and supporting growers in practice adoption and monitoring.

Through this partnership with Wolfe's Neck Center, KIND will have line of sight to ensure over 30% of its almond supply chain is leveraging regenerative practices on a mass-balance basis by 2025 as a first step toward the commitment to source 100% of almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture on a mass-balance basis by 2030. This partnership will also reduce the risk for KIND's growers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices, including cover cropping and soil amendments, to reduce the environmental impacts of farming by providing financial incentives and technical assistance. Support to growers also includes assistance with measurement, reporting, and verification tools that are multi-purpose and used by growers across the industry.

"At Wolfe's Neck Center, we believe that it has never been more important to change the way we produce food to improve the health of the planet,” says Dave Herring, executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Center. “Our shift to a more regenerative food system relies on strong, cross-sector partnerships. We are thrilled to partner with KIND and support their goals for scaling regenerative practices for almonds. Their commitment to supporting growers and sustainable farming truly exemplifies how collaborative efforts can drive meaningful change in our food systems. It's through partnerships like these that we can all accelerate change to create a more sustainable and resilient agricultural future.”

KIND and ofi double acreage of the KIND Almond Acres Initiative 

The partnership between KIND and Wolfe's Neck Center was secured in part due to the work of the KIND Almond Acres Initiative, a regenerative agriculture pilot project in collaboration with one of KIND's suppliers, ofi (Olam Food Ingredients), that launched in 2023. With the KIND Almond Acres Initiative, KIND and ofi are testing a combination of five regenerative practices and modern technologies over three years on 500-plus acres of land in California. 

In Year 2 of the pilot, KIND is nearly doubling the acreage of the KIND Almond Acres Initiative to close to 1,000 acres, working with ofi to add a pilot farm outside of Bakersfield, Calif. The second pilot farm will test the same five stacked practices, but in a region that received half as much water in 2024 as the original pilot farm in Madera County. This expansion will allow for critical testing of the impact of regenerative practices in more water-stressed areas. Initial results from the first year of the KIND Almond Acres Initiative have been positive and were critical to inform the expansion of the acreage and the partnership with Wolfe's Neck Center to further support almond suppliers looking to implement regenerative practices.

"I'm energized by the significant strides we've made in our first year of research," says Caitlin Birkholz, sustainability impact manager for regenerative agriculture at KIND. "Transparency and collaboration across multiple partners are essential to advancing regenerative agriculture. By openly sharing knowledge and working together, we can drive meaningful progress and build a more sustainable future for the industry." 

Year 2 of the KIND Almond Acres Initiative involves continued collaboration with new and existing partners in the public and private sectors, including:

• LandScan AI, to better enable more real-time amendments to the regenerative agriculture pilot for greater sustainability impacts.
• Regrow Ag to discover how to best measure and model on-farm carbon outputs for the broader almond industry.
• Supporting regional partners with research and investment through the California Water Action Collaborative and KIND's longstanding partnership with the Williams Lab at UC Davis. KIND Snacks is also continuing to invest in the next generation of sustainable change agents through its scholarship with UC Merced.