Snack Chat

Frito-Lay Registered Dietitian Offers Tips For Heart-healthy Eating

Today on Snack Chat, Danielle Dalheim (pictured below with her husband), a Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Scientist with Frito-Lay, shares information about her role at Frito-Lay and offers tips for heart-healthy eating as we celebrate Heart Health Month throughout February.  Our commitment to supporting heart health takes many forms -- education, ingredients, innovation. Using hearth-healthy oils to make our snacks is just one example of this commitment.  Danielle joined Frito-Lay in 2007, after graduating from the University of Oklahoma, and plays an important role in the work we’re doing to enhance our products by using healthier ingredients and bringing better-for-you snacks to consumers.

As a dietitian at Frito-Lay, I get the unique opportunity to work in several different nutrition-related areas, from nutrition labeling to advertising to product development to health professional outreach and employee education.

Last Friday, hundreds of Frito-Lay’s female employees wore red in support of Heart Health Month and the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Go Red for Women campaign. It really made me proud to work for a company that takes the well-being of both its consumers and its employees to heart (no pun intended). People tend to think of heart disease as a condition that affects men, but what many people don’t know is that heart disease is also the No.1 killer of women.  So, whether you are male or female, as we celebrate Heart Heath Month, I’d like to offer a few dietary tips that could help you to reduce your risk for heart disease:

1. Eat whole grains: Several epidemiological studies show that people who consume whole grains regularly are less likely to develop heart disease. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend eating three servings of whole grains daily. A 1-ounce serving of SunChips provides 18 grams of heart-healthy whole grains. So for lunch, have a sandwich made with two slices of whole wheat bread and a side of SunChips, and you’ll get your recommended amount of whole grains for the day!

2. Consume heart-healthy oils:  You should try to limit your intake of “bad fats” -- saturated fat and trans fat -- and increase the amount of the “good fats” -- monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.  Bad fats increase total and LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) in your body while good fats have been shown to reduce a person’s risk for heart disease. The FDA considers vegetable oils such as sunflower, corn, olive and soybean oil to be heart healthy because they are low in saturated fat and high in mono- and polyunsaturated fat. Frito-Lay only uses these types of heart-healthy oils to cook our chips.

3. Get your fiber: There are two types of fiber that occur in our diet – soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber is associated with a decreased risk of developing heart disease, and is found in foods such as oats, beans, nuts and certain fruits.  Quaker Oatmeal provides 2 grams of soluble fiber per serving and can be a great addition to a heart healthy diet.

4. Reach for nuts: Recent science suggests that people who eat nuts have a lower occurrence of heart disease. The FDA recommends consuming 1.5 ounce of nuts daily. You should choose the nuts that are lowest in saturated fat -- almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. 

5. Manage your weight:  Maintaining a healthy weight is essential to heart health; people who are overweight or obese are more likely to develop heart disease. Calorie balance is the key to weight management, and controlling portions can really help you to meet your daily calorie target. Frito-Lay has a variety of single-serve offerings designed to help consumers manage their portion sizes.  The Singles line offers six pre-portioned 1-ounce bags of your favorite snacks -- Lay’s, SunChips, Cheetos, Fritos and Doritos. You can also find SunChips, Cheetos and Doritos snacks in convenient 100-calorie portion packaging, which helps take the guesswork out of portion control.

If you’re looking for more information on how to live a heart healthy lifestyle, visit www.americanheart.org.

- Danielle

Frito-Lay and Wal-Mart Launch "Be Snack Ready" Web site

Raising four children, my wife, Janis, and I had to be both cost-conscious and time-efficient food shoppers.  Apparently we were also a bit of hoarders. 

About three years ago, our now-grown daughter, Kristen, was rummaging through our spices and discovered that many of them were seriously dated -- including one rusty Allspice can from 1966.  This prompted an embarrassing purge of our cupboards and refrigerator as we uncovered many items that should have been consumed or tossed out years ago. 

Today, we're much more mindful of code dates yet maintain our life-long goal of saving time and money when we shop for food.  So, to get some shopping tips and help us with this goal, we turned to a new Web site that Frito-Lay and Wal-Mart just launched, Be Snack Ready.   

"Moms told us that they want value and a convenient place on the Web where they can find information   about events happening at Wal-Mart, recipes, new Frito-Lay snacks and fun snack ideas,” Marissa Solis (pictured right), Senior Brand Manager on Frito-Lay’s Wal-Mart Shopper Marketing team, told me.  “Ultimately, they want to better preplan activities for their families and friends." She and Laurie Ballard (pictured left), Associate Marketing Manager on Frito-Lay’s Wal-Mart Shopper Marketing team, worked with Wal-Mart to create Be Snack Ready.

When you hit the Be Snack Ready homepage, you’ll find the "Tip of the Day,” and five tabs to dive into for more shopping tips and tools: 

1.  "Recipes & More" features recipes from Stephen Kalil, Frito-Lay's Executive Research Chef in our Culinary Innovation Center.  He’ll add new recipes every month, and consumers can rate the recipes so you can see which recipes become favorites among the site’s visitors.

2. "Snack Fun" provides a monthly calendar filled with snacking ideas, a fun game and a snacking “quick poll” that you can answer and use to immediately see how your answer compares to other consumers. 

3. "Snack Ready Alert" gives information on new Frito-Lay snacks available at Wal-Mart.

4."Snack Scoop" directs you to more information -– nutritional details, flavors, and more -- about your favorite Frito-Lay products.

5. "Seasons and Occasions" tells you what's happening at Wal-Mart for key shopping occasions, like back-to-school; in-store events, such as DVD releases; and holiday events, like summer gatherings and Halloween.

I found Be Snack Ready full of useful information, and I hope my brief explanation of the site gives you a jump start in navigating it yourself.  I wonder if Chef Kalil will ever post a recipe that calls for Allspice.  If he does, Janis and I will have to buy a new can, since we never did replace the one that expired in 1966!

Submit your Super Bowl Photos to Stacy's Facebook Page for a Chance to Win Prizes

This week, the Stacy's Pita Chips brand (which became part of Frito-Lay in 2006) launched a new promotion on its Facebook page. I'm pretty sure nearly everyone reading this blog is on Facebook by now.  Nielsen recently reported that there are now more than 300 million global consumers who use social networks -- an 82 percent increase from last year!

For the most part, I enjoy using Facebook to read my friends’ comments and keep up with people I don't see regularly -- though I would really like it if all personal updates and brand postings were interesting and thought provoking. 

So, I really like that the Stacy’s team is being innovative with Facebook, launching a program called "The Art of Game Day Sweepstakes.” For the chance to win a $1,000 prize package, simply upload to the Stacy’s Facebook page a photo showing how you elevated your Super Bowl gathering this year by featuring Stacy's Pita Chips. Easy, huh?

Promotion details are on Stacy's Friends page, where you can read comments from other fans and watch the two TV ads that start airing this week – Stacy’s first-ever TV ads.  (Posted below: One of the Stacy’s ads.) 

You can also go to Stacy's Web site and find some delicious dip recipes to serve up on Super Bowl Sunday -- and to include in your fan photo.  

"With more than 100,000 fans on Facebook, we have some fun activities planned for our fans this year, like the Super Bowl promotion," Kirstie O'Bryant (pictured right), Marketing Assistant Manager on the Stacy's team and manager of the brand’s Facebook page, told me.  "We’re also using more conventional media like TV and print to tell even more consumers about our Facebook page and online promotions.  For example, last week we ran an ad in People dedicated to the Super Bowl promotion.”

My wife, Janis, and I are big fans of Stacy's Pita Chips and will be serving them again this year at our Super Bowl party.  As we get together with our friends to watch the game tonight, we’ll also keep an eye out for the Stacy’s commercials.

Tostitos Kicks-off 2010 with More Product News

As I watched the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl last week -– including Tostitos’ special support of our troops during the halftime show -– it’s hard for me to believe that at one time, Frito-Lay almost discontinued Tostitos.

In the 1980s, Tostitos sales were struggling when our Texas Region Sales team noticed a consumer trend toward larger, white corn tortilla chips and suggested Frito-Lay consider launching such a snack.  Initially, there was little support at Headquarters for the idea because consumer testing wasn’t favorable. But the Texas Sales team was persuasive, and Tostitos Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips was born.  It was an instant success and really reignited Tostitos growth.

Today, Tostitos is one of Frito-Lay’s largest brands -- and about to grow even bigger thanks to a new generation of Tostitos chips Frito-Lay created with today's consumers in mind.

In December, Tostitos launched Dipping Strips, a heartier, rectangular-shaped chip that works well when you're enjoying a thicker dip.  Tostitos brand director Janelle Hottinger (pictured below with her husband and daughter) told me that Tostitos Dipping Strips is off to a strong start because its shape and consistency give dip lovers a functional snacking benefit.

Then, this month, the brand introduces Tostitos Blue Corn Restaurant Style   Tortilla Chips, a snack made from 100 percent blue corn grown in Nebraska and Illinois.  Tostitos prides itself on being a naturally-made product and uses a traditional stone-ground process to help preserve the authentic taste and flavor of the corn. 

In addition to those two new snacks, all of Tostitos leading products now contain 8 grams of whole-grain corn per serving -- including Scoops, Restaurant Style, Crispy Rounds and Bite Size -- with the same great corn taste as before.  By increasing the whole grain in each serving, the fiber count doubles from 1 gram to 2 grams per serving (7 percent of recommended daily value) as well.  "Consumers tell us that whole grain is important to them, but they do not want to sacrifice taste," Janelle told me.  “The initial consumer feedback we’ve received is consistent with our own findings: The great taste of Tostitos hasn't changed by increasing the amount of whole grains in each serving.” 

Janelle is very excited about all of the Tostitos news this year, and she’s moved, as I was, at how we've been able to support our troops by partnering with the USO to host the Tostitos “Salute the Troops” Bowl. Since the game’s highlights played during the Fiesta Bowl halftime show, her team has received many letters from soldiers thanking Tostitos and Frito-Lay for sponsoring the game.  Plus, Tostitos donated $200,000 to the USO to help the organization continue its important work.

You can learn more about the “Salute the Troops” Bowl held in Iraq by reading Aurora Gonzalez's heartfelt journal here on Snack Chat.  And, you can find Tostitos Dipping Strips, Tostitos Blue Corn and the Tostitos products with 8 grams of whole grain per serving on Super Bowl displays in supermarkets now.

2009: Frito-Lay Year in Review

2009 was an exciting year for me personally, as I retired from Frito-Lay, entered the blogosphere, and welcomed two new grandsons into the family. It’s also been a big year for Frito-Lay, and I've enjoyed tracking our news, events and product launches on Snack Chat.  I'm amazed at and proud of all we’ve accomplished, so I thought I'd wrap up the year with a look back at, in my opinion, some of Frito-Lay’s highlights. 

New Products and Promotions

"What's new?" is the question I’m asked most frequently and is the topic that gets the most comments from readers here.  Some of my favorite product news from 2009 . . .

• Doritos Late Night and Baked! Lay's Southwestern Ranch: These are two of Frito-Lay's most popular new flavors.  Each reflects how today's consumers are increasingly looking for products made just for them -– Doritos Late Night targets the Millennial generation, while Baked! Lay's appeals especially to adult women.
• Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa: This was, by far, the “new” product that received the most praise from consumers this year.  We discontinued it a few years ago, but reintroduced it following a flood of letters and calls from our consumers.
• Promotions: This year, our promotions ranged from sharing inspiring stories collected in the True North Stories of the Month program to creating exciting in-store programs for Labor Day, Halloween and football season to engaging consumers in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest.  The Lay's Across America campaign, which featured the efforts of our more than 40,000 employees and the American farmers who grow the potatoes that become Lay’s potato chips, let consumers track where their Lay’s potato chips were made –- usually pretty close to home!

Environmental Sustainability

I am very proud of the strides Frito-Lay made as we continued to be a corporate leader in environmental sustainability. My favorites include:

• Progress at our Casa Grande, Ariz., Plant: I blogged about the great work our employees at our Casa Grande plant are doing to bring together many of Frito-Lay’s sustainability efforts, minimizing our footprint on the planet by reducing energy consumption, water usage and landfill waste.
• Fuel Conservation Initiatives: I also blogged about how Frito-Lay is working to improve the fuel efficiency of our sizable fleet by adopting new fuel-efficient Sprinter trucks, testing Smith electric vehicles and enhancing maintenance routines for our existing fleet. 
• Progress on the SunChips Compostable Bag: Possibly the biggest environmental breakthrough this year was the progress on our SunChips packaging. This year was just the first step in our goal to bring a fully compostable bag to market next year. Today, one-third of the large SunChips bag is compostable, and our goal is for it to be fully compostable by Earth Day 2010.

Employer of Choice 

Frito-Lay strives to attract the most talented people because we know they will lead us to continued success.  I blogged about some of the top programs designed to ensure that we attract, retain and support our employees. A quick recap . . .

• Diversity & Inclusion: Over the last decade, Frito-Lay elevated its diversity and inclusion efforts, ensuring they are a top priority. You can see our progress in action when you look at the various employee resource groups in place at Frito-Lay/PepsiCo.  This year, I blogged about a couple of the groups, including Adelante (our Hispanic/Latino network) and RISE (our Native American network).
• Servant Leadership: Like Frito-Lay President and Chairman Al Carey, I believe that the future for business lies in adopting servant leadership. In a servant leadership-minded culture, it’s the role of the manager to support his/her employees giving them the resources they need to do their jobs and removing obstacles that get in their way.
• Women Trailblazers: Probably some of my most candid blog posts this year featured women leaders at Frito-Lay and their views on the evolving role of women in business over the last decade, the importance of mentors and the challenges they face -– and have overcome -- balancing their professional and family lives. 

I've also had fun this year sharing tales from my vacations (including one to Italy, where this photo of me and my wife, Janis, at Mt. Vesuvius was taken), offering fun snack recipes for the holidays and providing personal insights as I transitioned into retirement after working at Frito-Lay for 30 years.  Plus, I've welcomed a few guest bloggers who offered fresh perspectives on topics important to us -- most notably Diane from “Fit to the Finish,” who shared her amazing weight-loss journey and healthy eating advice.

When I started writing on Snack Chat last January, my goal was to tell Frito-Lay’s story authenticly and informally, and give you a “peek under the tent” of the happenings at Frito-Lay.  I hope I've accomplished that, and I look forward to blogging with you more in 2010.

Happy New Year!