Most people like their chips crunchy, but one of the nation's largest food and beverage conglomerates wants the bags they come in to dissolve softly and safely into the earth and ether. On Wednesday, the head of PepsiCo Foods North America, Steven Williams, popped up during the virtual CNBC "Sustainable Returns" event to talk about one of his company's ambitious goals for its $21 billion snack and convenience food business: to have all of its packaging be compostable, or otherwise recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable, by 2030. Williams said that PepsiCo is employing "a lot of packaging tactics" to reach that goal. "These things are hard, they're not easy, but what I would tell you is we're fully committed to it," he noted.
Earlier this month, the Dallas Morning News and Packaging World reported on the new sustainability-focused Greenhouse Learning Center recently launched in Plano, Texas, by Frito-Lay and Quaker, both owned by PepsiCo and behind such popular brands as Doritos, Cheetos, Lay's, and Quaker Oats. The facility, which opened in April at Frito-Lay's R&D headquarters, will "field test, measure, and analyze compostable packaging," per CNBC. Frito-Lay, which has already introduced packaging for other products made out of 85% renewable plant materials, wants to focus now on packaging that's biodegradable and able to be composted at home, instead of at the commercial level at industrial sites.
Bloomberg notes that environmentally unfriendly snack bags "are just one piece of a much bigger problem," as many nations don't have composting and recycling facilities that function well, if they exist at all. Although it's not the only company making inroads in this arena—for instance, Kettle Foods, which makes Kettle Brand chips, is coming out with a "Made From Stone" bag this spring constructed out of calcium carbonate—PepsiCo wants to be at the forefront. "We really want to drive the entire industry forward," David Allen, chief sustainability officer for PepsiCo Foods North America, tells the Morning News. "We must work together to inspire positive change for the planet and people." (More PepsiCo stories.)
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