Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky teams up to create authentic Mexican

Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky is joining forces with two former executives from the snack brand to launch a Mexican food company based on the food they ate growing up.

Somos, which means “we are” in Spanish, is accepting wholesale orders from grocery stores and retailers now, with the expectation that its range of rice, beans, salsas, chips and plant-based entrees will reach shelves by January. The company’s e-commerce site starts selling its chips and salsas Tuesday.

Lubetzky joined forces with Kind’s former chief marketing officer, Miguel Leal, and former head of product innovation, Rodrigo Zuloaga, to create Somos. Leal, who serves as the CEO of Somos, previously worked for such food companies as Cholula, Danone, Diamond Foods and PepsiCo’s Frito Lay. All three men were born and raised in Mexico.

Somos’ lineup doesn’t include any meat, gluten or genetically modified ingredients, taking a page from Kind’s playbook. Lubetzky founded the snack company in 2004, touting its bars as healthier than those of the competition. Last year, Snickers maker Mars bought Kind North America in a deal that reportedly valued it at roughly $5 billion. Lubetzky retained a stake in the company and still serves as its executive chairman.

“We’re always surprised at the lack of authenticity in Mexican food,” Leal said. “Most of the food that exists in [consumer packaged goods] is Cal-Mex or Tex-Mex, not the food that we grew up with. We just thought that there was a big opportunity to bring ingredients, techniques, real Mexican food made in Mexico, cooked the Mexican, way into the market.”

Lubetzky said he and Leal used to joke about the differences between the food of their childhood in Mexico and what has defined as Mexican food in the United States.

“Here, in America, in Mexican food, they put this yellow shredded cheese,” he said. “In Mexico, it’s fresh white cheese.”

In Lubetzky’s view, the U.S. restaurant scene is “15, 20 years ahead” of what’s available on the grocery store shelves, which he said are stuck in the 1970s. According to food service research firm CHD Expert, around 65,000 restaurants — or 7% of all U.S. restaurants — are dedicated to Mexican cuisine, as of 2020.   

U.S. consumers started eating Mexican food in earnest during the 19th century as railroads carried tourists to the Southwest, according to Jeffrey Pilcher, professor of food history at the University of Toronto. By the 20th century, Chicago meatpackers had begun making chili and selling it in cans, slowly stripping the food of its Mexican identity and making it a U.S. staple. Restaurateurs like Taco Bell founder Glen Bell later made tacos their focus, paving the way for food brands like Old El Paso to start selling its Tex-Mex food in supermarkets nationwide.

Somos is positioning itself as a brand that doesn’t sell Americanized Mexican food but instead uses traditional cooking techniques to draw in consumers and create better-tasting options. Leal said that the company is fire roasting…