Snack Chat

An Inside Look at How We Make Chips at the Frito-Lay Modesto Plant

Hi chip lovers,

Have you ever wondered what it’s really like inside a Frito-Lay manufacturing plant? Or, are you curious to see how our chips are made?

Then take a peek at this video where I join Al Halvorsen, Director of Environmental Sustainability at Frito-Lay, to get a behind-the-scenes look at how we make two of our most popular snacks -- Lay’s potato chips and SunChips multigrain snacks.

Our facility in Modesto, Calif., is one of eight manufacturing plants in the U.S. where we make SunChips. Given the name, it’s only fitting that in Modesto, we make them using -- what else -- the sun!  To harness the power of the sun, we built a 4-acre solar concentrator field and installed photovoltaic panels on the roof of the plant.

Find out more about how we make Lay’s and SunChips, and learn about some of the other resource-saving practices in place at Modesto, by watching this all-new video -- made just for fans like you.

Enjoy the show!

Cathy Dial
Director of Consumer Affairs at Frito-Lay

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

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

An Inside Look at Frito-Lay’s Fleet Featuring the New Electric Delivery Trucks

Hello, Snack Chat readers – it's Cathy Dial, back again today to share another great video with you. 

These days, sustainability is an important part of life for most of us. As Director of Consumer Affairs, my team and I often times get questions from people about what we’re doing at Frito-Lay to reduce our environmental footprint.  

We know that while we make the best snacks on earth, we also need to protect the earth and its resources. So at Frito-Lay, we’ve been taking steps to reduce our impact on the environment for years. We’re committed to making our snacks in a sustainable way, and to do so, we’re working on four key initiatives:

- Conserving energy using renewable energy such as solar power and biofuels or recycling heat and steam from our plants

- Saving water by recycling the water we use to make our chips at our plants 

- Minimizing waste by reducing the amount of material used in our packaging, reusing our shipping cartons and recycling glass, plastic, paper and more

- Reducing emissions through technology innovations at our manufacturing plants and across our fleet operations systems 

Today, the video I’m sharing with you focuses on how we’re reducing emissions with our fleet of delivery trucks. As Kristin mentioned in a post a few months ago, we recently launched the first of our all-electric delivery trucks, and in this video, I meet with Frito-Lay’s Director of Fleet, Mike O’Connell, to give you an insider’s look at these trucks -- as well as the other things we’re doing to make our fleet more fuel efficient. 

This video is the third segment in our series taking fans like you behind-the-scenes at Frito-Lay to answer some of the most popular questions about Frito-Lay and how our chips are made. 

I hope you enjoy this video and feel even better about eating your favorite snacks from Frito-Lay!

- Cathy

Frito-Lay Participates in Governors' Global Climate Summit 3

Frito-Lay this week was fortunate to be part of the Governors’ Global Climate Summit 3 at the University of California – Davis, which brought together experts and leaders from around the world to collaborate and share best practices and innovations in environmental solutions. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several other governors hosted the event, in partnership with the United Nations. With more than 1,500 attendees from more than 80 states, provinces and countries, it was one of the largest gatherings of leaders from around the world focused on climate solutions.

Our president and CEO, Al Carey, was part of a panel of experts who talked about the importance of business and government partnerships in making environmental progress. He noted that Frito-Lay's governmental partnerships helped make projects such as the co-generation system at our Killingly, Conn., site, the solar field at our Modesto, Calif. site and our new all-electric route trucks possible. 

To learn more, check out this brief video of an interview Al conducted at the event with Hub Culture.

- Katherine