NEW YORK — Kind Snacks, a subsidiary of Mars, Inc., has taken strides on a series of sustainability sourcing milestones built around sourcing 100% of its almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture practices on a mass-balance basis by 2030.

The first of these milestones is a partnership with Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment (Wolfe’s Neck Center), a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating change in food systems through regenerative farming, research and collaborations. The partnership will bring Kind into the Regenerative Services Match Program and will unlock more than $300,000 in funding for regenerative practice adoption and resource deployment within Kind’s almond supply network, making it the largest almond-focused partnership for Wolfe’s Neck Center, Kind said. The company also said some of the funding comes from the US Department of Agriculture Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities Program.

Kind also said the partnership will give the company a “line of sight” to ensure more than 30% of the almond supply chain is leveraging regenerative practices on a mass-balance by 2025, which would be the first step in a commitment toward sourcing 100% of almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture on a mass-balance basis by 2030. The partnership will implement financial incentives to reduce the risk of Kind growers adopting regenerative agriculture practices, including cover cropping and soil amendments, to reduce the environmental impacts of farming as well as providing growers with technical assistance such as measurement, reporting and multi-purpose verification tools.

“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,” said 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.”

Another milestone achieved by Kind is the near doubling of acreage as part of the Kind Almond Acres Initiative, a regenerative agriculture pilot project dedicated to testing a combination of five regenerative practices in California that was first launched in 2023 with Kind supplier Olam Food Ingredients (OFI). Kind said it has nearly doubled the pilot acreage to close to 1,000 acres and is working with OFI to add a pilot farm outside Bakersfield, Calif., which will be used to test same five regenerative practices but in a region that received half as much water in 2024 as the original pilot farm in Madera County.

Kind also will work with new and existing partners in the public and private sectors, such as LandScan AI and Regrow Ag. The company will work with LandScan AI to “better enable more real-time amendments to the regenerative agriculture pilot for greater sustainability impacts” and will work with Regrow AI to “discover how to best measure and model on-farm carbon outputs for the broader almond industry.”

“I’m energized by the significant strides we’ve made in our first year of research,” said 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.”

Kind makes a wide range of almond products, including snacks bars, granola clusters and frozen treats.