Objectives

Today, current farming practices are depleting soil nutrients. According to the Sustainable Markets Initiative, 40% of global farmland needs to be managed with regenerative practices by 2030 to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Currently, only 15% is managed with regenerative practices, and regenerative agriculture in almonds is nascent.

As a top global almond buyer, it’s KIND’s responsibility to lead the industry towards a kinder way to grow almonds. In April 2023, KIND launched The KIND Almond Acres Initiative (KAAI), a three-year pilot project testing a combination of regenerative agriculture practices and modern technologies on 500 acres in California. In tandem with KAAI, KIND announced its goal to source 100% of its almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture practices on a mass balance basis by 2030. The learnings from the pilot will help KIND set further environmental targets while informing how they’ll reach its goal by 2030.

To further invest in regenerative agriculture and help consumers understand its importance, KAAI expands across the almond supply chain by:

• Inviting consumers to learn about the initiative – KIND pioneered digitally and PR-led activations to reach consumers.
• Supporting the next generation of sustainable change agents – KIND awarded eight scholarships to students in sustainable agriculture programs at UC Merced (a Historically Spanish Institution).
• Sustaining the health of farming - KIND became a member of the California Water Action Collaborative (CWAC), a huge first step in collaborating with the broader industry while helping to build water resilience in California.

Strategy and Execution

In crafting KAAI, KIND demonstrated creativity in how the program was designed, but also how it collaborated across sectors to future-proof food production – a true first for the snack brand and among its CPG peers.

Taking a two-pronged approach, KIND first established the credibility of the pilot by partnering with authorities in the field to reach industry experts.

• Implementing KAAI was KIND’s partner, olam food ingredients (ofi), a global leader in food and beverage ingredients, which owns the project acres in Madera, CA and will be testing the five regenerative practices themselves: whole orchard recycling, cover crops, compost and biochar, off-ground harvesting, and subsurface irrigation.
• Along with joining CWAC, KIND also tapped researchers at UC Davis to understand how pollinators and regenerative agriculture can be intertwined to impact the almond industry.

KIND also leveraged internal sustainability subject matter experts and the CEO for interviews to reach top global publications for interviews including Forbes and Newsweek.

To reach the second audience, KIND developed a robust digital and media strategy involving AR, VR, social and in-store experiences, KIND met consumers in-real time in ways that were interactive, digitally savvy and educational. Additionally, KIND chose a variety of digital platforms to meet consumers across generations, specifically Gen Z and millennials. Details of each feature are as follows:

• Snapchat: KIND partnered with Snapchat to create the FIRST-EVER AR lens dedicated to regenerative agriculture in almonds at the platform where users could virtually visit the almond acres. This lens was also available to scan on KIND product shippers at select Hy-vee, Thrive Market, and ShopRite locations across the country for consumers to learn about the project while shopping the aisles for their favorite product.
• Landing page: A KAAI landing page was created for consumers to learn more about the project in-depth yet also make it digestible through also being able to virtually visit the acres through a VR experience.
• YouTube: KIND created a 30 sec and 1:30 sec educational video at the almond acres featuring ofi’s senior agronomist, Zac Ellis, to explain what the initiative is and to break down the technical practices implemented at the almond acres in a way where all consumers could understand.
• Press Trip: KIND brought two leading sustainability publications, Triple Pundit and GreenBiz, to ofi’s acres for a first-hand look at KAAI, which led to two meaningful feature stories the week of the launch.
• Social Influencers: KIND also identified influencers, Noir Plant Club, a couple whose mission is to educate, connect and inspire the black and brown plant community, and Bowser Bee, a local California beekeeper, to the almond acres. Content produced during the press trip resulted in 16 million views across TikTok and Instagram.
• Multi-audience media approach: KIND targeted media verticals from agriculture and sustainability, local California and Hispanic media, to business and marketing to garner coverage across all facets of KAAI in both niche & mainstream outlets, reaching a wideset of consumers.

Results

KAAI established KIND as an industry leader and showcased the importance of regenerative agriculture in almond farming to stakeholders by breaking through new media verticals all while having the brand mission of being kinder to the community and the planet at the heart of the project.

• While consumers tried out the AR lens on Snapchat, there were over 50,000 organic brand searches during the first month of launch and 267,000 swipe-ups to kindsnacks.com. Compared to Snapchat’s CPG category benchmark, this was over 50% higher than the average swipe rate.
• The KAAI landing page on kindsnacks.com featuring the VR experience was the second most visited page during the week of launch and over 90% of site traffic came from mobile devices, including 81% coming directly from Snapchat.
• The educational video shared on KIND’s YouTube channel garnered 1.3 million views over the course of four weeks and achieved a video completion rate (VCR) of 41% versus a 20-30% benchmark. The video also achieved a click-through rate (CTR) of .15% versus a .05 - .07% category average.
• Over 65 earned media and social placements, including 40 feature articles and 436 million earned media impressions.
• 100% of earned media coverage included positive sentiment and 72% of stories pulled through top key messages including KIND’s almond sourcing commitment and KIND’s digital and external sustainability partnerships.
• KIND also created an email campaign for its kindsnacks.com subscribers, and the average open rate for KAAI emails from April – June was 59.17%, which is 19% above industry average.

Media