By Brian Henry

KIND unveiled a pop-up display in New York City on Wednesday to showcase the different sugars and artificial sweeteners hidden in top-selling snacks and challenged its competitors to be more transparent about their ingredients.

“When we started studying this we realized there were a lot of ways in which food manufacturers fill their products with sweeteners that consumers don’t detect,” Daniel Lubetzky, founder and CEO of KIND, told Cheddar in an interview Wednesday. “We decided to expose them.”

The pop-up follows a petition KIND filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging regulators to address the issue of misleading nutrition labels.

“We found out that there is over a 100 types of sugar sweeteners and sugar types and sugar sources. We were floored because I have been in this space for 25 years and I was shocked about all these names that I didn’t know,” Lubetzky said.

Lubetzky added that improved labeling is especially important for parents preparing food for their children.

“Parents might be giving their kids fruit snacks and think they’re fruit and there’s no fruit in them and they’re just sugar, like 97 percent sugar,” he said.

Lubetsky stressed that sweet snacks are fine in moderation, he just wants companies to be honest about their ingredients.

“I don’t mind once in a while partaking in a sweet or even something that has little sugar alcohol or artificial sweetener, I’m not an extremist. What we think is problematic is when people are being deceived and misled," he said.

The installation will be open to the public at 579 Broadway in Manhattan from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM EST April 10th and April 11th. The initiative and national index will also be available online.

For full interview click here.