Lay's celebrates local growers, lets the chips fall where they may

Frito-Lay, like seemingly every other marketer on earth, is making a big point about going local. Its newest marketing blitz focuses on the 80 "local" farmers from 27 states who grow the potatoes used to make its Lay's chips. In addition, they're making 40,000 in-store displays customized by state, and a tech toy at Lays.com can identify where any bag of the chips was made if you enter the first three digits of the product code on the bag and your ZIP code. Not to undermine their efforts here, but they're missing the point of "locally" grown food. We understand that their chips are made somewhere, but, as an executive from Sustainable Table points out in the article, their stock is still grown on industrial farms, which are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the rugged, individualistic American farmers they claim to support. Now Utz, there's a potato chip for you uppity-liberal-guilt types.

—Posted by David Kiefaber