Frito-Lay hopes to make some big noise in the U.S. with a quieter version of its biodegradable SunChips bag.

The company introduced a biodegradable bag in April 2009 with a big marketing effort to play up its environmentally friendly nature as it was made from plants and not plastic and could break down in compost.

However, customers complained the bag was too loud. The stiffer material made it give off noise that, measured in decibels, is about as loud as a busy city street. The criticism grew so deafening that, in the U.S., the company switched back to its original bag for most flavors in October.

In Canada, however, consumer reaction was significantly different. It seemed that while people agreed the bag was noisy, they said they could put up with it for the sake of the environment and the bag remained on store shelves for all flavors.

PepsiCo Inc., which owns Frito-Lay, spent a good chunk of last year trying to find a solution to the noisy bag.

The company found that if it used a different adhesive to put together the two layers of a bag-one which protects the food on the inside and one which carries the logo and labels on the outside-it created a sort of noise barrier.

Brad Rodgers, manager of sustainable packaging for PepsiCo advanced research, said engineers looked at dozens of possible options. He admitted that he was initially suspect of the theory that the razor-thin layer of adhesive would solve such a big problem. But engineers found that a more rubber-like adhesive really did absorb some of the sound.

The company's first design gave off noise that registered at roughly 80 to 85 decibels. The new design dampens the noise to around 70 decibels, on par with its original packaging and most other chip bags.

Frito-Lay's new bag is arriving in stores now.

Ta-da! Frito-Lay presents quieter compostable SunChips bag

``Canadians told us back in 2010 that the value to our environment was worth the noise, so we kept the bag on store shelves at that time, but we promised to continue our quest to evolve the bag. This new compostable bag will be available for all of our SunChips flavors in Canada in the coming weeks,'' Sebastian Brandt, director at PepsiCo Foods Canada, told The Canadian Press in an e-mail.

In the U.S. the quieter bag will only be seen on the company's plain flavored chips, the only one of its varieties that never switched back to plastic. The company said it will wait to hear from American customers before deciding whether to use the new packaging for other flavors or products.

The snack company would not disclose how much it spent on the bag efforts.

Frito-Lay, based in Purchase, N.Y., is one of several companies trying to develop more sustainable packages. This helps companies fulfill new environmental ethos, appeal to shoppers' desire to go green and, in some cases, cut costs as they shift away from plastic that is made largely with costly oil.

(c) 2011 The Canadian Press

.