NEW YORK (AP) — Frito-Lay hopes to quiet complaints about its noisy SunChips bags by switching out the biodegradable bags for the old packaging on most flavors.
The company is switching back to original packaging, which is made of a type of plastic, for five of the six varieties of the chips. It will keep the biodegradable and recyclable bags, made from Ingeo, a corn-based plastic manufactured on Cargill’s Blair, Neb., campus by NatureWorks LLC, for its sixth variety, its original plain flavor. That’s its second best-selling, after Harvest Cheddar.
The snack maker said the switch started in the middle of September and should be complete by middle to late October.
Nature Works doesn’t actually make the bags. Rather it sells tiny Ingeo pellets to companies and packaging firms that turn the biodegradeable plastic into drink cups and films on frozen meal containers. Omaha-based ConAgra Foods Inc., for example, uses Ingeo in some of its shrink films and labels.
NatureWorks isn’t making any changes to its Ingeo production because of Frito-Lay’s decision, even though the company is one of NatureWorks’ best-known clients, said Steve Bray, director of manufacturing and process improvement for Nature Works.
The bags were launched in April 2009 with a big marketing effort to play up their compostability because they’re made from plants and not plastic.
But that which makes them compostable also makes them loud. The bags have a different molecular structure from the original packaging, so people complained about the noise. Groups on Facebook abound with names such as “I wanted SunChips but my roommate was sleeping...” and “Nothing is louder than a SunChips bag.”
Spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the company received complaints about the noise from the bags, although it also received thanks from customers who liked being able to recycle them.
So the decision was made to remove the bulk of the biodegradable line.
“We need to listen to our consumers,” she said. “We clearly heard their feedback.”
Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., is developing its next generation of biodegradable bags and will use what it learned with the SunChips effort, she said.
World-Herald staff writer Ross Boettcher contributed to this report.
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