Frito-Lay Chips Going All-Natural, One Cabbage At a Time

To make potato chips, it takes beet juice, purple cabbage and carrots. At least that's what Frito-Lay has concluded as part of its big push to use natural ingredients in its chips. The veggies replace ingredients such as FD&C Red 40, an artificial coloring agent.

"If the ingredient isn't in a consumer's cupboard, can we get it off the label?" says Tim Fink, director of Frito-Lay's seasonings team.

Frito-Lay, the biggest U.S. seller of salty snacks, is embarking on an audacious plan. By the end of the year, it intends to make half its snacks sold in the U.S. with only natural ingredients. Many are already in grocery stores.

The PepsiCo Inc. unit is responding to conflicting currents in the marketplace: Many customers say they want to lose weight and eat better—but it's not clear that healthy snacks sell as well as junk food.

Still, Frito-Lay is saying so long to monosodium glutamate and roughly three dozen other artificial ingredients in more than 60 snack varieties. Lay's flavored potato chips, Tostitos tortilla chips, multigrain SunChips and Rold Gold pretzels are all getting a makeover.

Of course, the company is mindful of chip-munchers who may equate the term "healthy snacks" with "tastes like cardboard." While market researchers believe "all natural" is a consumer magnet, the company has adopted a stealth health strategy for another move: It's not advertising that it's reducing sodium by 25% in many of its snacks. U.S. Dietary Guidelines issued earlier this year call for Americans to cut back on salt, and federal and local governments are pressing food manufacturers to reduce sodium in their products.

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