As one of the nation's largest almond buyers, sourcing millions of pounds of almonds each year, KIND says it recognizes the role it can play in helping advance more sustainable almond production. Through the KIND Almond Acres Initiative, the company tested regenerative agriculture practices and innovative technologies in California, home to approximately 80% of the world's almond production, to better understand what works on the ground and at scale.

From the outset, the initiative was designed to generate the data and insights needed to identify the most effective combination of practices and technologies for improving soil health, resource efficiency and on-farm resilience. Now, the learnings from the pilot are helping inform KIND's path forward while contributing insights that can support broader adoption of regenerative agriculture across the industry.

While transitioning to regenerative agriculture requires significant farm management changes and investments, KIND scaled the KIND Almond Acres Initiative after one year of testing and learning. In year two, KIND and ofi doubled the initiative to nearly 1,000 acres by expanding from Madera, California, to 500 additional acres in Bakersfield, California, to test how regenerative practices perform across different growing conditions and climates. The initiative functioned as a "living, learning lab" and allowed continuous evaluation to see which practices could deliver the greatest benefits for almond production.

Following three years of data collection through the KIND Almond Acres Initiative, including data provided by ofi's Carbon Trust certified Digital Footprint Calculator, part of its AtSource sustainable sourcing solution, KIND says the pilot's results demonstrate that combining regenerative agriculture with new technologies can drive critical outcomes.

In addition to achieving 50% sourcing of almond volume from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture practices on a mass-balance basis, key results in the pilot that have led to this achievement include:

• Increased water use efficiency: The pilot drove a 19.5% efficiency gain in water management.
• Reduced reliance on costly inputs: Reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizer by 33%, demonstrating that regenerative soil management is a direct driver of operational efficiency.
• Reduced overall carbon intensity: After the three-year pilot, the acres saw a decrease in overall carbon intensity of 28%.
• Improved soil health: Improvements in soil health metrics like increased soil organic carbon and decreased compaction were demonstrated across all pilot plots.

"We are incredibly proud to hit the halfway mark in our almond sourcing pledge,” says KIND Noth America CEO Daniel Calderoni. The KIND Almond Acres Initiative has proven that regenerative agriculture is a scalable, operational engine. By sharing our outcomes and learnings, we are aiming to move the needle in encouraging the industry to build a more sustainable supply chain – one that's better for the planet and for business."

With the results from the pilot and having achieved the halfway mark in the pledge to exclusively source almonds from farms leveraging regenerative agriculture, KIND says it is ready to enter the next phase of future-proofing its supply chain. The results validate sustainable practices such as cover crops, compost and subsurface irrigation that KIND is now working to expand across its top almond suppliers.

"KIND is moving quickly from a test environment to large-scale implementation," says Zac Ellis, senior director of agronomy, ofi, North America. "In almond orchards, a variety of regenerative practices such as cover crops, lower-carbon fertilizers, compost and biochar can directly enhance ingredient quality and resilience. We are proud to partner with KIND to help demonstrate a model that can be replicated and scaled across the broader industry."

During this pilot, KIND invested in partnerships with the University of California Merced, the University of California Davis, the California Water Action Collaborative (CWAC) and Mad Agriculture.