SunChips has it all

Why not serving on a bowl every once in a while?

At our recent times what we see is snack food businesses becoming 'straight', or something like that. Junk food kingdoms such as MacDonald's and Burger King are constantly adjusting their menus to provide healthier options to customers.

Nevertheless, Frito-Lay decided to adapt to the new times in other realms. It provided the world with something new for a snack food company: a compostable bag, or in other words, a degradable bag.

I'm a post marketing student, with background in design, and I was thrilled by this idea! It's ok that we may eat what we feel like, whenever healthy or not, but if we counteract the rubbish accumulation around the world, yeah, we can delay the search for another planet to live in the future (yeah, people think about that).

It started as loud as a stomp (this is not sarcasm, please note) with raving reviews, for example, one from Packworld.com, that would query if Frito-Lay wanted to be locked-in a 'compostable bag' category. A Facebook page for Frito-Lay's product, SunChips was also devised, and it's quite fun too.

Some months later, a setback in Frito-Lay's plans. Although the message of the chips package is clear,'This Bag Is LOUDER BECAUSE IT IS COMPOSTABLE', people massively opted out for a cleaner planet.

'The bag is too noisy.', customers claimed.

The bags, and the Frito-Lay products are not available everywhere in the world, for example where I am now, Australia. The fact is that a big market like US gonna go back to normal bags - although Canada keeps the new package. It would be a kick-start in a transformation of recycling habits, and the way people see packaging that goes to landfills. Everyone's attitude could change.

I think this is such a milestone that can't be ignored, and hopefully won't be for too long.

It is such an advancement, that, maybe, it is needed one step a time. As mentioned at the Green, environmental blog by the NY Times', the spokewoman for Frito-Lay declares 'Innovation is a journey'. Yes, it is, and it has proved so far.

Vuvuzelastylin'

Kids play with vuvuzela

The World Cup is almost at the end, but I think there is no problem talking about the vuvuzela now.

I am Brazilian, and I am used to the sound of vuvuzela for a long time. In every major or minor competition in the country there is vuvuzela. A friend of mine even drank beer from one, in the Brazil's 1994 World Cup victory.

Vuvuzelas are taking over the world of sports in this World Cup 2010. So many stories, so much controversy, for such a simple device that represents the enthusiasm of a cheerful crowd. I think it’s fun.

Of course there is not just good news about vuvuzelas.

During the world’s largest sport event press, players, and some supporters complained about the noise. All others blow out their vuvuzelas creating a wall of sound that is transmitted to the world via tv broadcast. Ah, there are cases of supporters who got their ears injured and had to be hospitalised, for example, Sven Wipperfurth in West Germany. Or worse, like the South African kid who was shot for blowing the vuvuzela out; in the city of Pamplona, Spain, the council banned the vuvuzela sale at the San Fermin festival (mX News, p.6, Tuesday, July 6, 2010. Melbourne, Australia).

The way the audience manifests itself keeps changing over the years: from ripped paper and singing echoed by supporters, in the seventies, to inflated sticks that are hit together to produce noise, in the first competition of the millennium, in South Korea and Japan.

In South Africa now there is a new way that will go into history forever. It’s like that saying, “say something bad, or something good, but say something about me”. In this World Cup it happened involuntarily. For the better or worse.