As you may recall the eco-friendly efforts of Frito-Lay with their Sun Chips brand packaging caused quite a buzz when the compostable packaging was removed from many flavours due to the bags being too noisy according to customers! I’d written about that previously on this post, but now a new story from the UK brings snack food packaging back into the spotlight for sustainable packaging ideas in an exciting way. ‘Walkers’ make the most popular potato chips (crisps) in the UK market and the manufacturers promise a new bag will be introduced in the future that not only will be made from potato skins but they guarantee it will also be much quieter than the effort from Sun Chips. Hopefully that will silence the critics.  Interestingly, Walkers are owned by Frito-Lay who in turn are owned by PepsiCo – the food and drinks giant who are investing a huge amount to further their sustainable practices.

Walker's look to make packaging from potatoes

They’ve announced that the new bags are hoping to reach the market in 2012 following extensive testing, reports from the Carbon Trust show that the average bag of Walkers crisps creates about 80 g of carbon dioxide with approximately a third of that due to the packaging. PepsiCo are linking this to part of their overall initiative to reduce carbon footprint that they manufacture by improving water consumption, reducing waste, recycling in greater quantity and ramping up changing their farming methods where possible. Due to the international passion for snack foods and compostable packaging looks more and more likely to become a growing staple within the industry, PepsiCo with Walkers are looking to develop the packaging using the offshoots and waste from the actual manufacturing of the chips. The plan is for unused potato skins and roots from the crops to be combined into a hybrid that will actually contain the chips themselves. It would result in complete use of the crops being grown, significant waste reduction and a bag that can be composted easily and efficiently. While the Sun Chips saga made headlines for the strangest reason due to the noise made by the bags, customer feedback also showed that many consumers loved the idea of the packaging and were sad to see it go. With the continued advances in technologies there is a great likelihood that packaging will become more and more biodegradable, the thought of filling a recycling bin as well as a compost bin might not appeal to everyone but it provides options for many that will be more environmentally friendly. I must mention that Walkers make the most amazing crisps, and offer a range of flavours that borders on the absurd as you can tell by the image on today’s story.

The chips are down in the race for the most eco-friendly packaging, I’m excited to see who will win – hopefully everyone.