Kind’s Latest Launch Goes Way Beyond Snack Bars

Snack brand Kind is known for doing one thing really well: making bars. While it also makes granola, it’s most beloved for its variety of snack bars, including protein bars, breakfast bars, mini “fun size” ones, and more. Which is why it’s big news that today the brand is expanding to an entirely new product category: frozen smoothie bowls ($3.99 each).

Available online and shipping to grocery stores nationwide today, the brand’s new frozen smoothie bowl line is 100 percent vegan and made with many of the same ingredients you find in the bars: nuts, seeds, and fruit. The smoothies have three layers: an almond milk smoothie base, nut butter, and then a granola topping. Each of the three flavors (mango, pineapple, and passionfruit; almond and triple berry acai; and almond and chocolate banana) offer between seven and eight grams of protein and no artificial sweeteners.

“While we’re best-known for our snack bars, we’re continuing to prioritize innovation that cuts across different day-parts and categories,” Kind Frozen brand manager John Olsen says. “While the frozen breakfast category is new for us, we continue to uphold our brand promise—to create innovative, premium foods that are both healthy and tasty.”

Olsen says both taste and nutrition were equally important to the brand when bringing this new idea to life. “You shouldn’t have to compromise between [them],” he says plainly. He explains that whenever Kind sets out to make a new product, it’s always centered around a nutrient-dense ingredient like nuts, grains, or fruit. And genetically engineered ingredients, sugar alcohols, or artificial sweeteners aren’t even considered options to include. With these parameters in place, he says it took the team about a year to get the frozen smoothie bowls to be exactly what they wanted in terms of both nutrition and taste.

But he says the hardest part of creating the line wasn’t in the manufacturing, more in trying to predict what our breakfast and snacking lives will look like throughout 2021 and beyond. “It’s challenging to continue to predict how eating habits and patterns will shift during this new ‘normal,'” Olsen says.

The pandemic has certainly changed our collective eating habits, with many more people cooking and eating all three meals (plus snacks) at home while they navigate a new WFH life. But regardless of whether the more people will start to go back into work later this year or stick to “business as usual,” pandemic-style, here’s something that won’t change: the need for breakfasts and snacks that are nutrient-rich enough and easy to make. And these new breakfast bowls definitely have those bases covered.

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