RIND Launches Next Generation of Dried-Fruit Snacks

RIND Snacks has launched a line of "Skin-on Superfruit" dried-fruit snacks, distinguished by their whole-fruit inclusion of both fruit flesh and peels, with no sugar or no sulfites added. The line's three tangy, chewy flavors include "California Kiwi" and two blends: "Tropical" (bittersweet orange, organic pineapple, kiwi) and "Orchard" (persimmon, apple, peach). All contain nothing but slices of delicious, USA-grown and dried fruit. RIND fruit snacks come in 1.5-ounce single-serve and 3-ounce re-sealable pouches designed with fresh, fun photos of the fruit inside.

RIND's offerings feed a growing consumer appetite for naturally healthier snacks. U.S. retail sales of specialty nuts, dried fruits and trail mixes reached $1.46B in 2016. The "on-the-go" snackable fruit and vegetable category that RIND participates in posted a 10% compound annual growth rate from 2012 to 2016.

But perhaps the most telling statistic about the dried fruit snack market's growth in particular comes from an analysis of Amazon.com sales. Dried fruit snacks outperformed growth of all other peer segments in the e-commerce leader's "Snacks & Sweets" category, with an increase of 75% in 2017.

RIND founder Matt Weiss's launch of a snack line focused on maximizing the nutritional potency found in high-fiber, vitamin-rich, skin-on dried fruits comes from a commitment to healthy food that's been part of his family legacy for three generations. Weiss's great-grandmother, Helen Seitner, was a health food pioneer who sold bulk natural foods from her "Stay-Well" health shop in Michigan in the 1920's. "My great-grandmother would juice whole fruits and vegetables every day," shares Weiss. "She let nothing go to waste and used every part of the produce, including the rind, long known to offer concentrated health benefits. Her example planted the seed for RIND Snacks that blossomed from that lesson decades later."

For Weiss, RIND represents his great-grandmother's visionary passion for both personal health and environmental sustainability. The key to those twin values is in his products' fruit peels. On average, fruit rinds contain three to four times the fiber of an equivalent serving of fruit flesh and also hold the greatest concentration of nutrients like antioxidant-dense Vitamin C. That nutritional boost for the body is complemented by the way use of the peel also aids the earth. Discarded and edible fruit peels are a major component of the food scraps that account for over 21% of total municipal waste in the U.S. and are part of the more than 38 million tons of food discarded every year.

At this year's Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City, the company will debut its 1.5-ounce single-serve pouches of its products for distribution through offices around the country, including the B2B snack-supply giant, SnackNation. Distribution in his hometown of NYC has come from Weiss' direct cultivation of more than two dozen specialty stores and markets that now carry RIND. These grassroots efforts will soon be supplemented by NYC distributors. RIND has also been selling so well online that its products have earned both a coveted "Amazon's Choice" designation and a "#1 New Release" rating in its category.

For RIND's founder, the thought of providing the tasty nutrition that keeps everyone from kids to millennials to great-grandmothers healthy and satisfied can't help but make him smile. "Great-grandma Helen would've loved it," he says simply. "She was always way ahead of her time."

About RIND
Launched in NYC in 2018, RIND Snacks are the epitome of a multigenerational family-focus on delicious, all-natural foods that sustain personal and planetary health. The company's line of "Skin-on Superfruit Snacks" are the chewy, tangy, whole-fruit solution that welcomes everyone to: "Keep it Real. Eat the Peel." RIND is proud to partner with a network of small California farmers that keep its products grown (not flown) in the U.S.A. Learn more at rindsnacks.com and @rindsnacks on Instagram.

To post a comment, you must register and login.