How KIND Snacks Got Its Name | A Bit of Optimism #podcast

You're fascinated by peace. I mean, the original brand name of the company was Peaceworks. Where did that come from? Where did the drive for peace come from?

When I was 9 years old, my father started talking to me about what he went through in the Holocaust. He was a concentration camp survivor, and he shared horrible things that I think impacted me more than I realized. Only in the last few years I've processed how much those conversations, like 9 years young. Yeah, my mom said, Roman, why are you telling him this stuff? He's 9 years old. And he said, you know, he needs to hear this. I was 9 years old when I needed to live through it. He just needs to hear through it. And so he was 9 years old when the war started and 12 when he was sent to a concentration camp, 15 and a half when he was liberated by American soldiers. And what's interesting about him is that in spite of the horrors of what he went through— he weighed 70 pounds and was 6 feet tall when he was liberated.

Wow.

But what's fascinating about him is that in spite of all of what he went through, he just saw the kindness in others, and he lived his life with kindness. And that— we named the company Kind after him. He passed away the year that we launched Kind, which was a very interesting, difficult year for us, for me. Ever since I was a kid, having experienced that in Mexico, I promised myself that I would do what I can to prevent what happened to my dad from happening to other human beings. And I thought that my singular mission back then was to make peace in the Middle East. I thought that's how I was gonna contribute.