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9 February 2019 SNACKING NEWS KeHE Announces New CAREtrade Partners KeHE CAREtrade has announced its newest partners, and several snack brands are among them. The KeHE CAREtrade ® initiative, founded in 2017, identifies and promotes brands that advance a higher purpose than commercial suc- cess and is aligned with KeHE's ded- ication to serve. These brands cre- ate good food, they're passionate about being good to people and the environment, and have a service- minded vision for the future. Bhakti means "devotion through social action," and the company is devoted to giving back on a global scale. Guided by its philanthropic platform of GITA (give, inspire, and take action), Bhakti's social mission is to make an impact in the world and be a voice for those who need it most. Just as cardamom is steeped into all of Bhakti's iced chai tea products, charitable works are deeply infused into the way it does business. This Bar Saves Lives is on a mission to end childhood malnutrition worldwide through a simple giving model – sell the best snacks to give the best life- saving nutrition. Each bar sold gives food aid to a child in need in a one-for-one model, equaling over 10 million life-saving food packets to date. This Bar Saves Lives' bars also have unique flavor profiles like PB & J and Wild Blueberry & Pistachio that are non-GMO Project verified, gluten-free, and kosher. NuttZo uses the sales from its seed and nut-based butters and bars to power the work of its real mission, Project Left Be- hind. The non-profit focuses on providing education and living essentials to orphans around the world. Since its inception, NuttZo has donated more than $100,000 to Project Left Behind to provide food, medical needs, supplies and tuition to more than 200 kids in children's homes across Peru, Nepal, and India. The Soulfull Project was born of a pas- sion to locally serve those in need. With each purchase of its hot cereals, the Soul- full Project donates a serving to a local food bank in the region of purchase. It hopes to deliver nourishing, wholesome food to all Americans and to build health- ier communities among the underserved. The Soulfull Project's cereals come in bags, multipacks, and single-serve cups that are vegan and Non-GMO Project ver- ified. It is also a Certified B Corporation. World Centric has donated more than $3 million dollars from the sales of its 100 percent compostable tableware, including cups, plates, silverware, and more, since 2009. It aims to raise awareness of large- scale humanitarian and environmental is- sues by donating, at a minimum, 25 percent of its profits to grassroots social and environmental organizations annually, to serve the planet and its people. It hopes to provide assistance and to help create change. This new group of brands joins the KeHE CAREtrade partners for 2018: Dig- nity Coconuts, Tony's Chocolonely, Mavuno Harvest, Tanka, and The Real Co., which will continue in the program and will serve as mentors to the new mem- ber organizations. The 2017 inaugural KeHE CAREtrade partners were Divine Chocolate, Growers Alliance Coffee, Kuli Kuli, Sunshine Nut Company, and Women's Bean Project. Those companies have now graduate from the program. KeHE Distributors, LLC (KeHE) pro- vides natural and organic, specialty and fresh products to natural food stores, chain grocery stores, independent grocery stores, and other specialty product retailers throughout North America. KeHE is an employee-owned company with more than 5,500 employees in the U.S. and Canada. For more about KeHE, visit www.kehe.com. n any chemicals at all. It's a really great-tast- ing, really high-energy product that also helps restore the prairie and the people," he says. The idea had other merits, he says: "To bring back those buffalo, to put them back on the land – to make them part of our cul- ture again," he says. The Sioux connection to the buffalo is deeply spiritual; the Lakota consider the buffalo a sister na- tion, Tilsen says. Prepared with prototype samples, in 2007, "we went to a large community pow-wow to do a quiet launch," Tilsen says. "We took it to a Black Hills pow- wow, passed out samples, and the local press loved it." In a combination of nightmare and dream-come-true, Tilsen says dryly, "Ten days later, we were in the New York Times. We definitely weren't prepared for that." Imitation as Problematic Flattery Today, meat snacks from jerky to meat sticks are among the fastest growing seg- ments of the snack industry. Driven by consumer demand for high-protein snacks, the segment is now a $2.8 billion category with predictions by Nielsen for a 4.2 per- cent annual growth through 2022. Nielsen says the average annual household spends $25.82 a year on meat snacks alone. But growth in the meat snacks segment has meant Tanka has had to face new com- petitors. "The multi-national corporations have given us the compliment of plagiarism," says Tilsen, meaning that they've seen Tanka's success and want to emulate it themselves. "We're affected by the intense competition, but we're really heartened by the huge amount of support the brand has. It's a really vi- able product that many people love." Tanka Brand products – which include bars, sticks and bites – are available in 4,000 to 5,000 stores nationally, Tilsen says. One-ounce bars have 7 grams of protein and have a suggested retail price of $2.99. One-ounce sticks, offering 6 grams of pro- tein, have a suggested retail price of $1.99. Bites, which come in a 3-ounce resealable bag, are made from the same formula as the bars but are cut into smaller pieces and have a suggested retail price of $6.99. Tanka Brands also makes a Warrior Bar, a 2-ounce bar, with a suggested retail price of $5.99. All are made with bison, wild rice, dried berries and natural flavorings such as chile peppers or orange peel. The competition has proven difficult, pushing Tanka Brand into a renewed growth mode. "We're in the process of closing new financing," Tilsen says. "We're fairly small in terms of our team." Portion of Proceeds Benefits a Non-Profit While producers are paid for their product, 10 percent of Tanka Brand's profits go to the Tanka Fund, a national campaign to re- turn buffalo to the land, diets and economies of the American Indian people, according to the company's website, www.tankafund.org. One of the fund's ob- jectives is to assist those who live on the reservation in starting in bison production themselves by helping them buy stock and arrange for grazing land. "Land access is one of the biggest chal- lenges," says Tilsen. "We work with other tribes to return buffalo to millions of acres of land. On the rez, you have to lease or buy checkerboarded land. Each person's case is a very intensive project, but it does provide people without resources or ac- cess to land a chance to grow into the in- dustry." Consumers respond to Tanka Brand's story, he says. "For the consumer, one of the reasons we say we are growing is that we're focused on the truth. Consumers aren't interested in the marketing story; they want reality. Our reality is that the Lakota people have been with the buffalo throughout history." That, in itself, brings dignity and pride, he says. "We get to tell that story by offer- ing people this incredible product, so we're pretty proud of it." n Bison Snacks Continued from Page 1 co-Founder of Native American Natural Foods, are social entrepreneurs, with "a lot of projects" under their belts, he says. When bison producers approached the pair in 2006 for help in finding ways to add value to their product, Tilsen and Hunter were ready to help. "There was a glut of buffalo trim on the market at the time, so we did a big study to figure out what is the best for the reservation," Tilsen says. Trim is the meat left after prime cuts are removed from the bison carcass. Tilsen and Hunter's thoughts turned to wasna – the Lakota word for the highly nutritious blend of dried fruit, dried meat and fat that sustained warriors on long hunts and other travels. Some tribes called the same mixture pemmican, the Cree word for "all mixed up." The idea of pre- serving meat with fat and fruit is almost universal, Tilsen says. "Every culture in the world has a word for this. People try- ing to survive from feast to famine would mix the richest fat with meat to preserve it for the future. We removed the fat be- cause people don't need those extra calo- ries today," he says. "So, we started to work with the com- munity to develop a healthy snack. We wanted to move our producers from the bottom of the economic chain to the top," he says. The company has always used clean-ingredient practices. "We don't use

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