SunChips, Frito-Lay’s popular line of multigrain snacks, will introduce for Earth Day 2010 the first fully compostable snack chip bag made from plant-based materials. Packaging Digest describes the key design innovations behind SunChips’ new packaging:
Current snack food packaging has three layers: a printed outer layer with packaging visuals/graphics, an inner layer, which serves as a barrier to maintain the quality and integrity of the product, and a middle layer that joins the other two layers. When the packaging is 100% compostable, it will fully decompose in about 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost pile or bin. NatureWorks LLC is providing the PLA, which is trademarked under the Ingeo name.
“Packaging is clearly the most visible interaction consumers have with Frito-Lay’s brands,” said Jay Gehring, vice president, packaging R&D, Frito-Lay North America. “To make packaging that would interact differently in the environment we had to change the composition of packaging and invent key technologies. Using plant-based renewable materials, we have a promising solution that will transform packaging and significantly impact the billions of snack food bags produced annually.”
Frito-Lay will also “fund the collection and upcycling of its used packaging through a program in conjunction with TerraCycle.”
Their coming marketing campaign will also be an opportunity to see how appealing a large brand’s sustainable packaging rebranding will be to the general public. Will people dramatically flock to this product for this reason? If they do, it’s not hard to see how sustainable packaging, in terms of market appeal and positive associations, could generate all sorts of incentives for companies to rethink their full consumption cycle.
