Most business believe there is a strong and growing preference by consumers for "green" products, but snack giant Frito-Lay's experience with its innovative biodegradable bags for its SunChips brand shows that preference only goes so far.
Announced with much fanfare in on Earth Day 2010, the new bags were the result of a substantial amount of R&D investment and made of plant material, rather than being plastic-based as most other chip bags were. The new bags were said to be able to fully decompose over 14 weeks when placed in a hot, active compost bin or pile—at home or at an industrial composting site, and viewed by many as a vanguard of where green packaging was headed. The effort was supported by advertising, web pages, videos dedicated to the bags, and other marketing moves.
Just one problem: just like the proverbial dog that didn't like the new dog food, the consumer didn't like the bag. The new material was extremely noisy when opening and closing the bag.
The noise was so loud, in fact, that when reporter Derricke Dennis of the New York City CBS affiliate tested the bag on a subway platform, full of noise already, he measured more than 100 decibels of crunch. Compare that to a lawn mover at 90 decibels, the good old subway at 94 decibels and a motorcycle at 95 decibels.
The noisy bags even generated its own Facebook group with over 44,000 members called "Sorry But I can't Hear You Over this SunChips Bag."
Not exactly the marketing impact Frito-Lay had hoped for.
 This week, the snack giant announced it was killing the new bag and returning to the traditional packaging for now, effective immediately, on 5 of the 6 SunChips flavors.
"Clearly, we received consumer feedback that it was noisy," said Frito-Lay spokesperson Aurora Gonzalez. "We recognized from the beginning that the bag felt, looked and sounded different."
But Frito-lay clearly misread the level of consumer resistance to those changes, which made the SunChips experience more irritating than enjoyable for many.
That irritation showed up in sales - dramatically. Sun Chips saw a substantial 11% decline in sales over the past 52 in retail channels outside of WalMart, which doesn't provide data to retail data provider Symphony Group.
It may not all have been the bag - but in a sense Frito-Lay probably hopes it was, as it reverts to its former bags.
The move provides a couple of lessons, TheGreensSupplyChain.com believes. First, it seems clear the new packaging was released with inadequate research, perhaps under the pressure to meet an Earth Day announcement.
Second, we believe that to date, there is little evidence consumers will support the "Green" product alternative if it costs more or provides less utility. Here, about 10% of consumers rejected the bag just for the sake of some extra noise, when the chips could have simply been poured into a dish, resulting with issue of the noise only when first opening the bag and putting any leftovers back in.
For its part, Frito-Lay says it isn't abandoning the effort, just taking it back to the lab for now.
"We are on a journey with compostible packaging," said Gonzalez.
What lessons do you see from the SunChips bag experience? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.
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