Snack Chat

PepsiCo Employees Help Improve Access to Clean Water in Ghana

The Wall Street Journal this week highlighted several large corporations, including PepsiCo, that are "doing good to do well" by sending small teams of employees to developing countries around the world. As part of our inaugural PepsiCorps program, eight international PepsiCo employees late last year traveled to Ghana for a month to help improve access to clean water and raise consciousness about hygiene and sanitation.

The eight PepsiCorps team members represented six countries and six functions across PepsiCo. One team member, Deepali Palta (pictured at right), is based in Plano, Texas, as part of the PepsiCo Advanced Research department. I recently had the chance to sit down with Deepali to discuss her trip to Ghana and the work she did there helping engage community members from the country's Ketu South District in support of PepsiCo's water sustainability goals. In a brief audio podcast posted below, Deepali explains how she and her fellow team members completed several projects, including teaching school children and exposing them to different cultures, and what she takes away from her time in Ghana.

Listen to the podcast, and read more from the PepsiCorps' team on PepsiCo's Living the Promise blog.

Deepali Palta Podcast

- Michael

Hey America, What Are You Recycling Today?

In case you didn't know, today is the 13th annual America Recycles Day, part of the Keep America Beautiful program and the only nationally recognized day dedicated to educating and encouraging Americans to recycle. It fits that this "holiday" would stand out to me for two reasons: I'm an avid recycler at home (despite my fiancé's eye rolls as I pull apart packaging to separate plastic from recyclable material), and at Frito-Lay, we've prioritized "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" as a key strategy to support our commitment to environmental sustainability -- and we've been doing so for more than a decade!

You may have read here on Snack Chat about our accomplishments to reduce, reuse and recycle at Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, our parent company. We've blogged about how our frontline teams reuse the shipping cartons used to transport our snacks to retail outlets at least five times before the cardboard is recycled -- saving 120,000 tons of paperboard a year. At our more than 30 U.S. manufacturing plants, we've created "GreenTeams," groups of employees responsible for resource conservation and recycling programs at their site -- and boy are they passionate about the environment and making big strides to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Our biggest milestone to-date occurred just last month, when we unveiled our first "Near Net Zero" facility at our Casa Grande, Ariz., plant, where we set out on a mission to transform one of our existing manufacturing facilities into one that could run primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste (hence the term, “Near Net Zero”). Check out a quick video highlighting the achievements at our Casa Grande site.

As Americans celebrate America Recycles Day this year by attending one of the many events hosted around the country -- or just by walking a few extra feet to the recycling bin at lunch -- I'm sitting here at Frito-Lay headquarters, proud to work for a company that celebrates recycling year-round.

What are you doing to reduce, reuse and recycle?

- Kristin

Great Video Highlighting Our 'Near Net-Zero' Plant in Casa Grande, Ariz.

Last month, we shared an exciting milestone with you -- the unveiling of our "near net-zero"manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Ariz. Near net zero means we're employing a variety of innovative technologies to transform the facility into one that runs primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste. And, boy is it cool to see in person.

So, today, I wanted to share with you a brief video from the event which showcases some of these technologies and helps bring to life our near net-zero plant. Enjoy!

- Kristin

Our "Near Net Zero" Plant Celebration in Casa Grande, Ariz.

Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Casa Grande, Ariz., and help the local Frito-Lay team prepare for and host the celebration event marking the first "near net zero" manufacturing facility for Frito-Lay -- a true milestone in the food manufacturing industry as a whole. "Near net zero" is a term we use to describe the work our Sustainability and Casa Grande teams have done to transform the facility into one that runs primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste. (Pictured: Casa Grande Manufacturing Plant Director Jason Gray (left), Frito-Lay North America President Tom Greco (middle) and PepsiCo Americas Beverages CEO Al Carey (right) commemorate the debut of the "Near Net Zero" facility by pressing the Frito-Lay logo into cement.)

The celebration event was a huge success -- many city, county and state officals attended, as did the Frito-Lay leadership team, vendor partners and several media outlets. After an opening presentation and overview of the "near net zero" work accomplished at the site, members of the Casa Grande team toured guests through the key sustainability technologies: The Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR, a water purification system), the solar fields and the biomass boiler (which converts agricultural waste into energy to help generate steam for the plant). We even had a couple of our all-electric route trucks and the latest in our fleet sustainability innovation, our CNG truck (powered by compressed natural gas), on display as well -- it's also pictured above.

Pictured above: The team at the Frito-Lay Casa Grande, Ariz., site installed two single axis tracking PV systems, with more than 18,000 solar panels, on 36 acres of the facility's agriculture property.

Everyone I met at the event was impressed by the progress Frito-Lay has made to support environmental sustainability overall -- a key imperative of PepsiCo's (our parent company) Performance with Purpose vision -- especially with the significant milestones they saw firsthand at the Casa Grande "near net zero" facility. Below is a selection of photos from the event, and you can hear more about the day of celebration from our Casa Grande site's manufacturing plant director, Jason Gray. Enjoy!

- Kristin

 

Jason Gray Podcast

Congrats to Our Casa Grande, Ariz., Site - Near Net Zero Becomes a Reality!

Today we’re turning over the reins of Snack Chat to guest blogger Al Halvorsen, Frito-Lay’s senior director of environmental sustainability, to share some exciting news about Frito-Lay’s commitment to sustainability and our progress at our manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Ariz. Take it away, Al.  - Kristin

Today, I’m in Casa Grande, Ariz., - halfway between Phoenix and Tucson - to celebrate the success of our most ambitious environmental sustainability project to date; our Casa Grande facility is now one of the “greenest” and efficient manufacturing facilities in America.

A few years ago, Frito-Lay set out on a mission to transform one of our existing manufacturing facilities into one that could run primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste. We called this effort “Near Net Zero.” We chose the Casa Grande facility because of its location, where sunlight is plentiful and water conservation is important, and its size – big enough to be effective, yet small enough to be manageable. Frito-Lay invested in and implemented a combination of technologies to enable Casa Grande to significantly reduce the use of key resources, thus reducing the site’s overall environmental footprint. (The Near Net Zero team is pictured above; I'm second from the left.) 

In 2010, the facility here at Casa Grande became the first snack food manufacturing facility to be certified LEED 2.0 Existing Building Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council. Using innovative technologies, our Casa Grande facility achieved significant reductions and is generating two-thirds of all energy used from renewable sources.  Specifically, we are working toward:

• 50% reduction of greenhouse gases
• 80% reduction in natural gas usage
• 75% of water used in the plant is recycled

These reduction goals are truly impressive, and the Near Net Zero team from Frito-Lay headquarters and the Casa Grande site worked very hard to achieve them. To help you understand what an accomplishment this, I’d like to share a few additional facts about our Casa Grande plant:

• The plant was built in 1984 and employs more than 350 associates, who produce nearly 100 million pounds of snacks a year. We make many of our fans’ favorites in Casa Grande, including
  Lay’s and Ruffles potato chips, Doritos and Tostitos tortilla chips, Crunchy Cheetos snacks, Fritos corn chips and SunChips multigrain snacks.
• In July 2010, the Near Net Zero team installed a water recovery/reuse facility at the Casa Grande site, which combines Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) and Lo-Pressure Reverse Osmosis (LPRO) technologies, to recycle up to 75% of all the water used in the facility. (LPRO pictured at right.)
• The plant sends less than 1% of its waste to the landfill thanks to the recycling efforts of all the plant employees and by using food waste for cattle feed.
• Five solar photovoltaic systems, covering 36 acres of the property, produce around 10 million kilowatts of electrical power each year, which is equal to the amount of power needed to run approximately 850 U.S. households each year.
• A biomass boiler uses wood and agricultural waste as energy sources, and produces all of the steam needs for the plant. As a result, we’ve reduced the need for natural gas at our Casa Grande site by 80%.

Casa Grande isn’t our first site to employ technologies to help reduce our use of natural resources. Before “Near Net Zero,” we made sustainability strides at other Frito-Lay facilities, including in Modesto, Calif., where we added solar photovoltaic panels that help reduce our reliance on outside electric power and by installing a field of solar collectors to produce renewable thermal energy. We’ve also begun rolling out all electric route delivery trucks in metropolitan markets across the country, which emit 75% less greenhouse gases than diesel trucks. 

Since 1999, we’ve created a great track record of reducing our energy and water use in our plants. The Casa Grande Near Net Zero facility is the culmination of those efforts. Moving forward, Frito-Lay will apply learnings from our Near Net Zero plant in Casa Grande, where it makes financial and environmental sense, challenging each of our more than 30 plants in North America to continue contributing to the reduction of the company’s overall environmental footprint. (Sterling engine solar equipment at Casa Grande, pictured above.)

This Casa Grande Near Net Zero Project has been a great collaborative effort between the plant and the headquarters engineering teams, and it highlights the deep commitment Frito-Lay and PepsiCo have made to reducing our impact on the environment. These milestones are especially meaningful to me too, as I started my career with Frito-Lay here at the Casa Grande plant in 1988. 

I hope you can see, at Frito-Lay, we are committed to sustainable growth by investing in a healthier future for our people and our planet, and we’re excited to share our latest milestones at Casa Grande with our fans!

- Al Halvorsen

We also had a chance to chat with Sam Tajahmadi, Senior Principal Engineer & Project Manager for the Near Net Zero project. Hear what he had to say about the project below.

Sam Tajahmadi Podcast