understanding sweeteners

People count on KIND to create delicious snacks that use as little sugar as possible while still tasting great. In fact, our best-selling bar contains 5 grams of sugar. When it comes to sugar, our philosophy is to use as little as possible without compromising taste.

Over the years, we’ve taken significant steps to ensure our snacks stay true to this promise. We’ve also sought to educate consumers about the sugar in our snacks and others:

• In 2015, we were able to lower the amount of added sugar in 7 of our bars, making reductions between 14 to 56 percent depending on the product. We accomplished this by finding ways to lower added sugar without compromising taste, such as swapping sweetened fruit with unsweetened fruit.

• In 2016, we became the first national snack brand to disclose the added sugar content for each of our products. This came two years in advance of a deadline set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for food companies to break out the added sugar content on nutrition labels.

• While we work hard to limit its usage in our recipes, sugar can provide both taste and functional purposes. We posted detailed information about the sugars we use in our snacks on our website along with an explanation as to why we use them.

• Did you know there are more than 100 different names and types of sweeteners and sugar sources used on food labels? Although awareness surrounding consuming sweeteners has increased, these different names can make it difficult to decipher how much sugar you’re actually eating. In 2019, to support consumers seeking to consume less sugar, we created Sweeteners Uncovered – an online database that illustrates the different sweeteners and sugar names found in top-selling snacks.