For people outside New York, a website will display the various sweeteners, from acesulfame potassium, also known as Ace K, to yellow sugar. (Sucanat, as the site points out, is granulated sugar that can be used as a substitute for brown or white sugar.)
The latest campaign comes weeks after Kind and others sent a citizens’ petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the nutrient content claims made on the front of food packages. The government hasn’t yet given an official response.
It also comes after rival Clif Bar issued a challenge to Kind Snacks to use organic ingredients, even offering 10 tons of organic ingredients to Kind through a full-page ad in the New York Times in March.
“The work that they did was a little bit of a stunt that was purportedly trying to engage us,” says Lubetzky.
He says the companies haven’t had a discussion and that he stands by Kind’s ingredients. Kind’s leading products contain almonds as the first ingredient, “which are more expensive than brown rice syrup, whether it’s organic or not,” he says. “Sugar, whether organic or not, is sugar.”
Still, Clif Bar says its campaign prompted 18 companies to respond.
“Overall, we’re very happy that we’ve sparked a conversation around organic and love that to date, 18 companies have decided to join in the journey. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future,” the company said.
Back at Kind, Lubetzky contends he’s not out to project an anti-sugar message, rather an educated one. “I enjoy a delicious doughnut as much as the other guy,” says Lubetzky.
Kind has included added sugar content on its labels since 2016, a year after it supported a proposal to include added sugars on the industry’s nutrition facts panel. And in 2017, Kind put its sugar messaging in Times Square, with a temporary art installation suggesting kids ingest too much of the sweet stuff (and promoting its Kind Fruit Bites).
Kind, which isn’t public, doesn’t disclose sales but Lubetzky says figures suggesting annual retail sales exceed $1 billion don’t sound completely inaccurate. He remains the largest shareholder, even after Mars took a minority stake in the company in 2017.
The “Sweeteners Uncovered” idea was developed internally, with support from Allied Global Marketing on experiential, Something Massive on digital content and Sloane & Company on PR.