Kind bars appear on shelves in new curbside recyclable paper wrappers
Healthy snacking brand, Kind Snacks, is forging ahead with its effort to ditch plastic and embrace a kinder, Earth-friendly approach to its wrappers.
On Thursday, the brand (a subsidiary of Mars Inc.) launched one of its single Kind bar varieties — dark chocolate nuts & sea salt — encased not in its familiar plastic wrapper with a clear plastic window teasing the nut-filled bar inside — but in a new easy-to-peel sturdy paper wrapper.
Don’t worry. You can still get a “peek” of the product hiding inside because the paper wrapper shows an image of it.
The specific paper-wrapped bars, with new packaging developed after a year of R&D testing, are available exclusively at 160 Whole Foods stores across the Northeast, southern California and Texas markets from May through October as part of a pilot program.
The brand told Bagable.com that the change to paper wrappers isn’t permanent but a move toward sustainable, environmentally-friendly packaging.
“We’re starting small to gather valuable insights both on how consumers interact with the new packaging as well as key technical learnings, like shelf-life and transportation,” Lindsay Philpott, senior manager, sustainability communication at Kind, told Bagable.com.
“The results of this pilot will help us determine the best way to scale towards our goal of ensuring 100% of our packaging is designed for recyclability by 2030,” she said.
[New Kind bars in paper wrappers/Video credit: Kind Snacks]
This isn’t the brand’s first push into seeking out eco-friendly packaging.
“Our first pilot launched in 2023 as an e-commerce exclusive for our dark chocolate peanut butter bar cartons,” said Philpott. “While that initial wrapper was also paper-based, it wasn’t yet widely curbside recyclable. We’re proud to share that this latest pilot material has achieved curbside recyclability - a major milestone in our packaging journey.”
Consumer feedback to the first pilot program showed that 93% of shoppers intended to buy the bars after using it and that there weren’t any usability or functionality issues with the paper wrapper, the brand said.
With each new pilot program, Philpott said Kind Snacks’ goal is to make advancements in areas of sustainable sourcing, rethinking packaging and lowering emissions. “We’ll use what we learn here to keep exploring how to scale paper wrappers (and other alternatives),” she said.
For this round, Kind Snacks partnered with packaging supplier Printpack to develop the paper wrapper.
Still, trying to make the switch from plastic to paper is challenging and “complex,” she added. Paper, for instance, is currently more expensive than plastic and it takes more time, research and investment to keep pioneering with paper packaging innovations, Philpott explained.
“[But] with each iteration, we’re starting to help solve some of the issues that make a paper wrapper complex and better understand the consumer experience,” said Philpott.