Snack Chat

A Peek Behind the Scenes at Our Second-Generation 100% Compostable Bag!

As you may have read here on Snack Chat last week, we're excited that our second-generation (much quieter) 100% compostable SunChips bag is hitting stores now and can be found on shelves nationwide over the next month. To help you understand more about this next-generation bag and how we were able to make it quieter, yet still 100% compostable, check out the video below. In it, Brad Rodgers, manager of sustainable packaging at PepsiCo, takes you behind the scenes in our packaging lab where he demonstrates the new bag and describes how his team created it.

- Kristin

PepsiCo Celebrates Black History by Investing in Future Generations

Black History Month means so much to me, and I’ve clearly been impacted by the sacrifices of those before me. I feel like my own life has been made up of black history moments. For example, I’m the first African-American public relations professional at Frito-Lay! In fact, PepsiCo and Frito-Lay have been making history for decades. Did you know PepsiCo was the first Fortune 500 corporation to have a black vice president among its ranks? When Harvey C. Russell was promoted back in 1962, his appointment changed the face of corporate America forever. 

In this spirit, MOSAIC, the global PepsiCo employee resource group for Afro-centric talent, is celebrating Black History Month with several different events across the country. Each event builds on the theme established during this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration at PepsiCo, “Dare to Do the Impossible.”

MOSAIC’s declaration of this theme is a pledge to help close the education gap. In doing so, each of the Black History Month events is designed to celebrate the past by investing in future generations. 

Frito-Lay and PepsiCo associates kicked off the month with PepsiCo Day at Hampton University, a historically black university in Hampton, Va. We hosted a PepsiCo career information session, which more than 500 students attended, and some high-potential candidates even were able to interview for permanent positions with PepsiCo. Hampton alum and PepsiCo Beverages Company Senior Vice President Derek Lewis served as a keynote speaker for the event. 

In Dallas, Texas, Frito-Lay and PepsiCo associates recently hosted a community wellness fair for teachers, parents and students at A. Maceo Smith High School and its feeder middle and elementary schools. Frito-Lay’s MOSAIC group has a more than 20-year history of mentorship and partnership with A. Maceo Smith students. More than 150 people attended the fair, where associates hosted sessions on physical fitness with Zumba and Yoga classes, healthy eating seminars with information on healthier cooking techniques to help combat high blood pressure and diabetes, and a self esteem and career planning session to help students visualize and map out their future goals. At the end of the night, associates had made several personal connections with the students, and many look forward to forging mentoring relationships in the near future. 

Many other events are planned for the rest of the month. In Atlanta, MOSAIC members will volunteer to serve at the Andrew & Walter Young Family YMCA. PepsiCo Headquarters in Purchase, N.Y., will host Dr. Ronald F. Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. Finally, associates in Plano, Texas, will meet and hear true stories from members of Tuskeegee Airmen, Inc., a nonprofit organization recognizing African-Americans who participated in air crew, ground crew and operations support training in the Army Air Corps during WWII. 

This month of celebration and outreach has truly blessed many people. Because of the black Americans who paved the way, Frito-Lay and PepsiCo associates like me can boldly blaze new trails for us, our communities and our future leaders of tomorrow.

- Deanna

Introducing a Quieter 100 Percent Compostable SunChips Bag!

I'm excited to share that we're now officially rolling out a next-generation 100 percent compostable SunChips bag that's significantly quieter than the first-generation compostable bag we debuted last year. While the packaging graphics will look the same, you'll be able to hear the difference when you open your next bag of SunChips Original. 

After SunChips lovers shared feedback on the original compostable bag, Frito-Lay Research & Development teams explored a wide range of potential enhancements to reduce the noise. "It was interesting -- we got a lot of extremely positive feedback ... but on the same hand we heard one overwhelming complaint," Brad Rodgers, sustainable packaging manager, PepsiCo Advanced Research, told The Associated Press this week. Brad then explained that engineers looked at dozens of possible options and found that using a more rubber-like adhesive in the bag composition absorbed some of the sound. 

SunChips' compostable bag is made up of three layers -- an outer layer with the SunChips logo and picture on it, an inner layer that surrounds the chips inside the bag and an adhesive layer in the middle that holds the outer and inner layers together. By using a different adhesive that still meets performance requirements, our research teams were able to eliminate a significant amount of the stiffness in the original compostable bag, which is what caused the crinkly noise.

Like the original compostable bag, this new SunChips bag is made from a renewable, plant-based material called PLA, or polylactic acid, and is 100 percent compostable. In fact, the bag will break down in approximately 14 weeks if the compost temperature is maintained above ~130 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about as long as it takes to compost an orange peel under the same conditions. You'll see the compostable bag on specially marked packages of SunChips Original, which are rolling out to stores now and will be available nationwide this spring.

We encourage you to continue providing your feedback on the compostable bag by sharing comments here on Snack Chat or on the SunChips Facebook page.

- Kristin

Meet 'Survey Junkie' Stacy: Our Frito-Lay Fan of the Week!

Each week, we’re featuring a new Frito-Lay Fan of the Week –- a great way to highlight and reward our most passionate fans! If you would like to be part of our fan program, sign up here, and you just might be featured as a Fan of the Week in the future!

Congratulations to our latest Fan of the Week, Stacy Oleskiewicz (pictured, in avatar form, below)! Stacy is a Massachusetts native who can’t quite choose which Frito-Lay snack is her favorite -– Nacho Cheese Doritos or Funyuns. She absolutely loves them both!

Stacy has fond memories of snacking on Frito-Lay products and even remembers when her parents began packing them in her lunches as a kid. After the snack-sized bags started appearing in her lunchbox, she never traded lunches with her classmates again!  

These days, she enjoys incorporating Frito-Lay snacks into some of her favorite recipes. Stacy makes a delicious macaroni salad that she pairs with Lay’s Classic potato chips. She either dips her chips to scoop up the salad, or breaks them up and mixes it all together. Either way, she says the recipe is simply delicious with the added crunch -- and it’s just not the same with any brand other than Lay’s! She also loves serving her homemade summertime taco salad with Tostitos tortilla chips.  

When Stacy hosts a party or function, she always serves at least one Frito-Lay product. Her chips of choice are typically Lay’s Classic potato chips and Doritos Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch, since she finds these are usually crowd favorites.  

In her efforts to snack smarter, Stacy chooses snacks that are baked, are reduced in fat and contain less salt, which is why Frito-Lay is one of her favorite brands. We offer snacks that meet each of these criteria! On top of exercising regularly and eating as healthy as possibly, Stacy makes sure to only eat one serving of a snack and treats it as an indulgence. This way, she never feels guilty about enjoying her favorite chips when she gets a craving.  

Stacy tells us it’s easy to be a Frito-Lay fan because of our wide variety of snacks -- we have something for everyone’s tastes. Additionally, she’s impressed with our work to support the environment and to innovate for healthier snacking. 

Thanks, Stacy, for being a Frito-Lay fan and lifelong chip lover! Learn more about Stacy on her blog and Twitter page at: Blog: Survey Junkie; Twitter Handle: @SurveyJunky

Check back next week to meet our next Fan of the Week, right here on Snack Chat!

- Kristin 

Frito-Lay Associates Go Above-and-Beyond to Keep Our Business on Track During Winter Storms

I’ve often heard our CEO, Al Carey, say that Frito-Lay employees perform best in the face of adversity, and this winter’s powerful snow storms showed just how true that is. 

It’s hard to think of a business that wasn’t impacted by this winter’s unprecedented snowfall. But for Frito-Lay, the unique nature of our business makes weather-related challenges especially complicated. Forecasts of snowstorms send consumers concerned about becoming snowbound to their local grocery stores in droves to stock up on food, which of course, increases demand for our snacks. And because we’re a direct-store delivery business – meaning our sales associates deliver our snacks directly to retailers’ shelves -- impending storms require our sales team to make extra store visits to ensure the snack aisles are fully stocked. Once the storms hit, our associates’ commitment to customer service means they do everything they can to keep their store visits on schedule, even if it means confronting snow-filled roads, unplowed store parking lots and power outages. 

On top of all this, the worst of this year’s weather hit at the busiest time of year for Frito-Lay – right before the Super Bowl, when many Americans are stocking up on snacks for game day parties. 

We all knew it would take above-and-beyond efforts to keep our business on track during the storms, but the lengths that some Frito-Lay associates went to were truly Herculean: 

• Route sales rep Ginger Monroe (pictured right), based in Okmulgee, Okla., found her delivery truck buried in snow. She managed to dig it out from 4-foot snow drifts, only to discover that the diesel fuel had jelled in the sub-zero temperatures, leaving the truck inoperable. Undeterred, Ginger rented a U-Haul trailer, hooked it to her husband’s four-by-four vehicle and transferred the snacks she needed to deliver from her truck to the trailer. She and her husband then drove to the stores on her route, where she stocked the shelves with Frito-Lay snacks as if it was just another day on the job.
• In the face of a blizzard with 25-mile-per-hour winds, Tharyn Hill (pictured below), a route sales rep in Muskogee, Okla., made his way to the stores on his route by driving his John Deere tractor.
• Stan Fahey, with our Bronx team in New York, showed up at work at 3 a.m, following one of the snowstorms, to clear snow and ice from the delivery trucks at his site to help ensure his fellow sales associates could drive safely and keep their business on track.
• David Lamb, a route sales rep based in Marshall, Mo, knew that an overnight storm would leave him homebound. Yet he is so committed to his customers that he parked his delivery truck in the parking lot of one of the stores he services, walked to a nearby hotel to spend the night, and then walked through a foot of snow and 2 inches of ice the next morning to return to his truck and stock the store with Frito-Lay snacks.  

There are dozens more stories like this from across Frito-Lay. Company leaders have honored all these employees, and we’re also recognizing them in our employee e-newsletter and on a special display at our headquarters building. My guess, though, is that these employees would tell you they were just doing their jobs. 

- Katherine