Frito Lay to use ‘solar power’ as their 2008 marketing strategy

Posted on 16. Nov, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry in Technology

In a dog-eat-dog world of international business, how can a brand successfully blow their competitors right out of the water without going near a R250 million TV budget?

That’s right – they make their product appeal to the growing tribe of treehuggers who will do anything to get their hands onto anything that doesn’t result in the death of a polar bear cub.

Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way their potato chip
factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the
environmentally benign chip.

Its goal is to take the Casa
Grande plant off the power grid, or nearly so, and run it almost
entirely on renewable fuels and recycled water.

Over the next several years, Frito-Lay plans to install high-tech
filters that would recycle most of the water used to rinse and wash
potatoes, as well as the corn used to make Doritos and other snacks,
and then burn the leftover sludge to create methane gas to run the
plant’s boiler.

The company will also build at least 50 acres
of solar concentrators behind the plant to generate solar power. A
biomass generator, which will probably burn agricultural waste, is also
planned to provide additional renewable fuel.

Will it work? Will Frito Lay sell more chips?
Well, if the packet bio-degrade within 30 minutes of you finishing your chips, they may have the ultimate snack product for the environmental age.

More: In eco-friendly factory, low-guilt potato chips – IHT

3 Responses to “Frito Lay to use ‘solar power’ as their 2008 marketing strategy”

Aaron Grossman

17. Nov, 2007

What a great way to differentiate your company and appeal to today’s environmentally-oriented society. Chip companies have tried making their products better for consumers (baked chips aren’t all that great). Why not make their production better for the environment? I live in Eugene, Ore., and while I’m not one of those “treehuggers” you mention, I think I have gained a pretty good handle on them in my four years at the University of Oregon. For many people in this community, choosing between analogous chip offerings just got a whole lot easier. It would be interesting to evaluate the correlation between Frito Lay sales and other environmental considerations in places like Eugene.
Will

26. Nov, 2007

Don’t they use palm oil in Lays? Not too many palm trees left to hug then.
Myspace Layouts

16. Nov, 2009

This is great. Everyone should step up and use solar power.