Daniel Lubetzky

From San Antonio Express News on the business of peace:

Yvan Cournoyer, business development manager for H-E-B, said the South Texas grocer had known of Kind bars for some time and began selling them in select stores in 2002. “The bar became more prominent in the energy bar segment,” Cournoyer said. “Last year, it was one of the best sellers for the H-E-B stores that had it. So at the beginning of 2008, we made a strategic decision to bring it to the vast majority.”

…

“So in a few short years, it went from being this obscure product to mainstream,” Cournoyer said. “It’s a very sought after energy bar that tastes great and is very healthy for you. At the same time, there’s a great story behind the Kind company.”

In the business of peace

Adolfo Pesquera

San Antonio Express-News

The nonprofit organization OneVoice Movement would be the project dearest to Daniel Lubetzky’s heart, but his Kind Fruit + Nut bars and products like it grease the wheels of his philanthropy.

One of the city’s most international citizens, Lubetzky splits his time among San Antonio, New York, Tel Aviv and wherever else he senses opportunity.

The Jewish entrepreneur and Trinity University alumnus made a swing through San Antonio last week to check on Kind bars’ progress in H-E-B stores, to visit his mother and brother and to scout some sites to possibly build a factory here.

He is considering expanding production of his Kind health bars, currently made exclusively near Sydney, Australia.

The son of a Holocaust survivor, Lubetzky, 39, has been described as a social entrepreneur, a term he claims didn’t exist when he started his company, New York-based PeaceWorks Group.

Lubetzky’s business model is inherently risky and works like this: He develops and brings a product to market, but in a way that requires traditional enemies to collaborate. His first successful venture was Meditalia, a line of tapenades and pestos. The ownership is Jewish, but supplies come from Palestinians, Egyptians and Turks.

There was some trial and error, however. His first venture involved getting Israelis and Bedouins to make mud soap using the restorative minerals of the Dead Sea.

It flopped.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Lubetzky said. “I didn’t know how to market that stuff. I was so focused on the social mission. The product must come first; the mission stands behind it.”

The making of Kind bars does not involve getting enemies to work together, but as with all of Lubetzky’s ventures, 5 percent of profits transfer from PeaceWorks Holdings LLC, the food and condiments entity, to PeaceWorks Foundation for the missions of its subsidiary organizations, mainly OneVoice.

Kind bars are to date Lubetzky’s biggest commercial success. Sold in nine countries, the United States is its hottest market. It’s the fastest-growing health bar for the past three years, according to SPINS, a natural food products industry analyst.

Yvan Cournoyer, business development manager for H-E-B, said the South Texas grocer had known of Kind bars for some time and began selling them in select stores in 2002.

“The bar became more prominent in the energy bar segment,” Cournoyer said. “Last year, it was one of the best sellers for the H-E-B stores that had it. So at the beginning of 2008, we made a strategic decision to bring it to the vast majority.”

Kind bars went into 125 H-E-B stores in July. Within the chain, that puts it in the same league as PowerBar and Clif Bar, among the highest profile energy bars in the industry.

Lubetzky forecasts selling nearly 20 million bars worldwide this year and 30 million in 2009.

“So in a few short years, it went from being this obscure product to mainstream,” Cournoyer said. “It’s a very sought after energy bar that tastes great and is very healthy for you. At the same time, there’s a great story behind the Kind company.”

Including socially responsible missions with commercial products is trendy now, but Lubetzky still finds himself relatively alone in one of the most conflicted regions.

An immigrant from Mexico City, Lubetzky had at a young age a strong desire to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. His family moved to San Antonio when he was 15. While at Trinity University, he wrote his thesis on the potential influence of economics to resolve Arab-Israeli disputes.

At Stanford Law School, he drafted a proposal for legislative action to provide incentives to get Israelis and Arabs to trade with each other. He shopped it in Congress to anyone who would listen.

“That went nowhere,” Lubetzky said, but he made a friend in Stuart E. Eizenstat, former President Clinton’s ambassador to the European Union.

Eizenstat later shepherded through the creation of a duty-free zone in Jordan to encourage Jordanian-Israeli joint ventures. Eizenstat is also one of 60 prominent people on the OneVoice advisory board. Others include Jewish and Islamic religious leaders, political negotiators and celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman.

OneVoice strives to strengthen the voice of moderates on both sides, looking for ways to stand up to the extremists that have dominated the debate. The organization has more than 600,000 signatories to its manifesto, roughly half from each side.

Through it all, Lubetzky confronts criticism that his goals are unrealistic.

“The majority of Israelis and Palestinians don’t think peace is possible, but at the same time the majorities wish peace would come about. More than 70 percent on each side support a two-state solution, but neither thinks it can happen because they think the other side is the problem.

“So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Lubetzky said. “To make something happen, you have to believe in it and you have to act on your belief.”

The brand name Kind is an expression of Lubetzky’s core belief in defying the haters. He has begun to hire Random Acts of Kindness ambassadors. Now operating in New York, these ambassadors, wearing Kind logo T-shirts, eventually will roam cities where Kind bars have strong penetration and be on the lookout for people who show kindness to others.

So don’t be surprised if someday, as you’re helping an older woman cross the street, Lubetzky said, someone gently grabs your shoulder and offers you a Kind bar.

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