"pepsico" news and stories

PepsiCo has announced that it is developing a new biodegradable bag for its potato chips, and hopefully this time you won't need to put in earplugs before reaching for your favorite salty snack.

The company's most recent efforts to make its packaging more eco-friendly came to a dismal end just last week when PepsiCo's chip maker in the U.S., Frito-Lay, announced that it was ditching biodegradable bags for most varieties of its SunChips and switching back to conventional plastic-based bags.

The move came after a growing chorus of consumer complaints about the bags being ridiculously loud, inspiring Facebook pages with titles like "I wanted SunChips but my roommate was sleeping..." One Air Force pilot measured the crackly crunch of the bags at 95 decibels, or about as loud as a motorcycle.

But PepsiCo hasn't given up on trying to perfect the compostable chip bag, according to BusinessGreen.com. The president of the company's UK division recently said that they're now looking into making biodegradable bags from potato peelings (which seems logical for a potato chip company). He expects that the new bags might be used for some of the company's smaller chip brands (marketed under the name Walkers in Britain) within the next 18 months.

Everything you love about potato chips comes down to the combination of three basic flavors: potatoes, oil and salt. But as health concerns about sodium continue to rise, food manufacturers are scrambling to figure out how to reduce it -- without sacrificing taste.

Research and development executives at PepsiCo, the company that owns Frito-Lay, think they have the answer. And it's a solution only a chemist could love: They're going to change the basic shape of salt.

A quick high-school science class recap: Salt molecules are basic cubes, which means it takes each crystal awhile to break down in your mouth when you're chomping on chips.

Corn-syrup bashing has become one of the primary food-related preoccupations of the current era. First, a Princeton University study reported that lab rats gained more weight if fed a diet of corn syrup rather than plain old white sugar. Then obesity experts traced the rise of childhood and adult fatness at least party to humongous, "Big Gulp" servings of soda pop -- which contain large quantities of corn syrup.

Despite remonstrances on the part of agri-food giants like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Corn Products International that their corn syrup remains wholesome and good for you, the public perception of corn syrup has increasingly become one of suspicion and even fear.

This just in from the Department of Duh: Cap'N Crunch Crunch Berries are not a fruit.

Last month, a judge in California dismissed a claim brought by a woman who believed PepsiCo, the parent company of Cap'N Crunch manufacturer Quaker Oaks, had misled "reasonable consumers" with its colorful Crunch Berries.

"Plaintiff contends that the colorful Crunchberries, combined with use of the word 'berry' in the Product name, convey the message that Cap'n Crunch is not all sugar and starch, but contains redeeming fruit," the opinion says.

Find out what Judge Morrison C. England Jr. thought after the jump.

PepsiCo, feeling the (ever warmer) winds of change ruffle its hair, has decided to be proactive in measuring its own carbon emissions. Its test case is orange juice - how much does a glass of Tropicana contribute to global warming?

The company hired experts to measure emissions in every part of the orange juice-making process: Fertilizing the field, transporting orange cartons, running the factory. Turns out, growing is the single biggest source of emissions, as the nitrogen fertilizer used on citrus groves needs a lot of natural gas to make, and turns into a greenhouse gas when spread on the fields.

The final number? About 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted for each half-gallon carton of orange juice.

While that statistic is fairly meaningless without any context, the fact that PepsiCo is calculating its carbon emissions means that other corporations are likely to follow in its footsteps. And as emissions numbers become more widely known, consumers will be able to choose to buy products from companies that make a concentrated effort to reduce their footprints.

Check out the original New York Times article for a slideshow on tracking the carbon footprint of the orange.

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