Ready to up your snack game? Healthy organic snacks are here to fix your hunger—and the planet’s environmental crisis.
Fast food and junk food account for up to 50% of all litter in the US, along with fast food emissions estimated to make up 70% of all methane by 2050.
‘Organic’ refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed, so organic snacks mean those grown without the GMOs, chemicals, and pollutants that harm our health and the environment. It often means minimally-processed, whole food snacks with higher nutrition, less fossil fuels used, and better cared for land where they originate. Yum.
This was obviously the core consideration for the brands on this list, but we’ll be further refining it in coming months with out new Brand Rating System. This new methodology analyzes brands on 22 criteria, such as biodiversity stewardship and charitable practices, which you can learn about in full here.
We independently research all featured brands and we ask them to confirm their claims. In many cases we personally review recommended products. This post contains affiliate links which means we may earn a commission if you buy something. Learn more here.
A Sample Platter Of The Best Organic Snacks
Dish up a healthy helping of the “zero waste feel good provisions” by west~bourne. Their whole food plant based snacks come with compostable packaging and carbon-neutral shipping.
Never be without snacks when the craving strikes with Thrive Market, whose subscription model makes it super easy to tailor your deliveries directly to your dietary and ethical preferences. Plus, each subscription provides someone in need with one, too.
Index: Healthy & Organic Snack Brands
- Nature’s Path Jump to brand
- Thrive Market Jump to brand
- Patagonia Jump to brand
- Annie’s Organic Jump to brand
- Westbourne Jump to brand
Nature’s Path
Nature’s Path’s Organic Food Snacks
Price Range: $3–$130
What is the healthiest popular snack? Granola!
Become a granola yourself and follow the path of nature with Nature’s Path’s extensive line of delicious and nutritious granola and other grain-based foods.
The Pumpkin Seed + Flax Granola is our all-time favorite, or if we’re in the mood for a sweet treat, we pop one in of their Frosted Toaster Pastries, which trade high-fructose corn syrup and enriched bleached white flour for cane syrup and whole wheat flour.
Nature’s Path’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
One of the oldest organic snack companies around, Nature’s Path was family-established in Vancouver, Canada decades ago and now stands as North America’s largest certified organic snack food company with more than 150 products that include cold cereals, granola, waffles, hot oatmeal, bars, and cookies. Nature’s Path products were the very first USDA-certified organic cereals on the market.
They continue to keep organic advocacy at the forefront of their mission, converting acres of farmland to organic and now adding Regenerative Organic Certified to their gamut of sustainable sourcing efforts.
Their manufacturing facilities include three locations now certified zero waste, and the company donates to countless causes in support of youth and environmental education, hunger relief, endangered species and habitat restoration, and more.
Our personal review of Nature’s Path’s Pumpkin Flax Granola:
We’ve been eating it for years and never fail to get excited about our morning parfait because of it. Our favorite part is that these granolas are subtly sweet (not overpowering like so many others), hearty, and crunchy. No soggy and disintegrating cereal mush to see here, folks!
We love it so much, we typically buy it in their 15 pound bulk organic snack boxes. Some grocery stores stock it in their bulk section, too, so if you’re lucky enough to have one, you can eliminate the plastic bag and box by buying it there.
Thrive Market
Thrive Market’s Healthy, Organic Snacks Online
Price Range: Various + Subscription Fee
Join 1 million+ subscribers and let your pantry thrive with Thrive Market by getting your organic snacks delivered automatically.
In addition to their convenient sustainable subscription boxes of healthy dry, canned, snack, and frozen foods delivered to your home, this online subscription service also has loads of yummy in-house organic snack options ranging from organic bars.
From organic seaweed snacks and popcorn to pumpkin seeds, trail mix, or sunflower seeds, they have a little bit of everything. We recommend trying their Non-GMO Avocado Oil Salt & Vinegar Chips or Healthy Snack Sampler.
They also let you shop and filter items according to your personal values and preferences like diet type (vegan, gluten-free, etc), certifications and awards, health and ingredients, environmental and social concerns, and personal health concerns. For example, if you need organic keto snacks, simply set your profile to that diet, and you’ll only see options that fit.
To sign up, you need an email address, a credit card, and $60 annually for membership, which you’ll more than save via their discounted pricing—and if you don’t, they’ll credit you the difference.
Thrive Market’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
This Certified B Corp nails it as far as sustainability, zero GMO, carbon neutrality, and giving back goes, which is why their membership program receives rave reviews online.
Thrive sells exclusively non-GMO foods with no artificial ingredients, including products verified by The Non-GMO Project and certified organic food. More than 2,000 of their products are organic, and they keep a list of 500+ “never ingredients”, like: trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, synthetic ingredients, and acesulfame potassium.
They also support the community through their one-for-one membership matching program, offering a free membership to a low-income family, student, veteran, first responder, or teacher for every new paying membership.
They also partner with FoodCorps to provide healthier food to kids in America and FoodCycle LA to reroute surplus food to those who need it and away from landfills.
Thrive is also proudly Carbon Neutral Certified, TRUE Certified for Zero Waste, and Plastic Neutral Certified.
Patagonia
Patagonia Provisions’ Healthy Non-GMO Snacks
Price Range: $5–$130
There’s no shame in snacking, and we don’t need the salty, processed foods you find in the vending machine. Snacks can be healthy AND delicious, made from responsibly produced ingredients, free of artificial colors, artificial flavors, or GMOs.
Patagonia Provisions is here to make snacking easy and nutritious with their wide range of organic snacks that are perfect for home, work, school, the trails, or wherever your hunger strikes.
Patagonia Provision’s organic treats are divided into three equally popular categories: dried fruits, nut and snack mixes (Chili Mango? Um, yes please!), and, for the non-vegans looking for high protein whole food snacks, cured meats.
For those concerned about the ethics and impact of animal-based foods, theirs meet top standards. For example, their venison links come from invasive axis deer on Maui, whose appetites threaten the entire island’s ecosystem. All meats are either wild caught or harvested, or free-range (and never fed growth hormones), while everything else is GMO-free and the result of regenerative agriculture.
Patagonia Provisions’ Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Hailing from sustainable outdoor clothing heavy-weights Patagonia, their Provisions offshoots trades gear for the best non-GMO snacks without preservatives and synthetic additives.
The brand’s supply chains make a less detrimental impact by drawing down carbon, restoring topsoil, and repairing biodiversity.
A 1% for the Planet member, PP donates all sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. “Use business to protect nature” has long been their mission at Patagonia, which has earned them consistently the top-slot as a Certified B Corp force of good.
Annie’s Organic
Annie’s Organic Clean Snacks
Price Range: $3–$65
Annie’s offers a wide range of yummy organic snacks for adults and kids alike, like crackers, snack bars, fruit snacks, frozen snacks, grahams and cookies, puffs, snack mixes, and snack packs. They’re all drool-worthy popular for snack time or school lunches.
Looking for organic snacks for toddlers who love Goldfish? Try Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies instead, with organic cheddar cheese instead of “cheese product” (because what even is that?!).
In fact, they have a healthier alternative for most big-name snacks, each one featuring things like organic wheat flour and organic expeller-pressed sunflower oil, instead of highly processed sunflower seed oil.
All products are Fair Trade certified, USDA organic certified, and Non-GMO verified, and while they do use palm oil sometimes, it’s organic certified. 90% of packaging is recyclable or compostable, and 100% carries the How2Recycle label to choose the right bin with ease.
Annie’s Organic Ethical & Sustainability Practices
More than thirty years ago, Annie Withey began Annie’s Organic with a belief that a successful business can also be socially conscious. While the brand was purchased by General Mills five years ago, Annie’s remains fierce in its collective commitment to mission: driving positive outcomes for the people, planet, and profit.
Sure, it can be eyebrow raising to see small brands with soul get absorbed into giant corporations, but given GM’s own recent sustainability progress, we’re choosing to believe Annie’s success will influence their parent for the better.
Annie’s also supports The Rodale Institute, who are leaders in promoting regenerative organic agriculture and themselves leads numerous other sustainability projects, like supporting organic conversion, advancing carbon farming, and developing more sustainable cereal box liners. In the past five years, Annie’s has contributed almost four million dollars to support these programs.
Westbourne
west~bourne’s Organic Healthy Snacks
Price Range: $14–$39
Delicious, healthy, plant-based snacks are what west~bourne’s tasty treats (like snack mixes and granola) are all about.
In terms of organic, non-GMO snacks, fans agree the savory Togarashi Crunch with its espelette pepper, dehydrated citrus peel, and ginger is the perfect snack, replacing any potato chip craving. However, after sampling some of their offerings, our taste buds crave the Spiced Goji Berry Crunch, a dried fruit, nut, and rice square snack that strikes the perfect balance of salty and cinnamon sweet.
With only coconut oil in use, there are no toxic seed oils in sight (or taste!). In addition to no nasties, it contains nutrient-rich superfoods like all-organic pecans, mulberries, and goji berries.
west~bourne’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
west~bourne is a west-born California-based organic business that is female owned and operated. They’re not just a healthy snack brand, either. They also carry an array of pantry staples (like avocado oil) and baking mixes.
Everything is vegan and ethically sourced to nurture soil health and increase biodiversity.
The brand believes that the vessel the product comes in is of equal importance, so everything is packaged in forward-thinking materials like 100% backyard compostable plant-resin pouches, carbon-friendly glass jars, and recyclable bottles with plant-based dissolvable labels. All shipping is carbon neutralized by giving back to projects like the Garcia River Project, a Redwood Forest preservation and management coalition.
Why Choose Healthy & Whole Food Snacks?
The industrial approach to food is one that is rife with pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, ionizing radiation, and GMOs… which are all linked to food insecurity, inequality, obesity, diabetes, depression and more.
Walk down any grocery store aisle nowadays, and food doesn’t really even look like food anymore.
The truth about most supermarket snack aisles is that they not only contribute to huge amounts of landfill waste and plastic pollution, but they’re also terrible for our health, with options chock-full of modified ingredients, chemically-processed seed oils, and high fructose corn syrup.
While these processed snacks can taste delicious, the impact of snack culture isn’t just the obesity epidemic, diabetes, and heart problems, but also a massive carbon footprint on the planet. That’s because the energy used to process, preserve, produce, package and ship snack foods is far greater than what it takes to produce food staples.
Global food supply as a whole contributes 26% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s why sustainable food systems—of which whole food, healthy snacks are a critical component in our snack-happy culture—are more crucial now than ever.
