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Missouri State University’s Public Affairs Conference continued Thursday night with an address from the man behind Tostitos, Doritos, and Sun Chips. The president of Frito Lay talked about his company’s goals not only in making his products healthier, but also becoming a leader in sustainability. KSMU’s Benjamin Fry reports.
When Al Carey became President and CEO of Frito Lay 3 years ago, he says he wanted to change the company’s notoriety as a junk food provider and make environmental sustainability a priority.
On Thursday night, he shared with the MSU community the steps Frito Lay has taken and how he hopes to lead the way when it comes to sustainability.
“Our goal, is kind of bold, is to become the preeminent green company. Not the preeminent company in the food industry, the preeminent green company,” Carey said.
One product the company has focused its green efforts on is Sun Chips, which many think as a healthy alternative to other snack chips.
Carey says a year and a half ago, he and his colleagues wondered if sun-chips could be produced with solar power instead of electricity.
“We thought, if you could put solar panels in one of our fields, and in this case it was Modesto, California, we could heat water that goes through those through those solar concentrators, we’ll blow the steam through the plant, and we’ll use the steam to run the sun chips line instead of electricity,” Carey said.
The plan worked and Carey says today all the chips in that plant are created from solar power.
In addition, the California state government gave a Frito Lay a significant tax reduction for this innovation.
Carey says the next goal is to make Sun Chips bags "compostable," capable of decomposing into sand in just five weeks.
He says the company hopes to have this bag on the market by Earth Day next year.
“We like to think of Sun Chips as our Prius. It’s a cool brand”
Carey acknowledges that these economic times can make it tougher for companies like his to push forward with sustainability.
But he says the tough times are when you should go on the offensive to get results.
For KSMU News, I’m Benjamin Fry.
