★ Featured Exhibit ★
Catalog record
26

The SunChips Compostable Bag

We preserve disappointment.
It lasts longer.
The SunChips Compostable Bag
26
Accession no.
26
Regret level
A greener snack bag that made opening lunch sound like demolition.
Collection color
#D7A900

★ Curator’s Notes ★

In 2010, Frito-Lay introduced a plant-based, 100% compostable SunChips bag—a genuinely admirable idea engineered with one unforeseen feature: it was spectacularly loud. After consumers complained that getting a snack sounded like industrial roofing, the company returned most flavors to conventional packaging, then tried again with a quieter version. Sustainability was briefly defeated by crinkling.

Sources: NPR/KUNC · Packaging World

Image: © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. The photograph shows the SunChips brand before the 2010 compostable package.

A genuinely admirable packaging idea, defeated by the noise made while accessing a handful of chips.
Please do not clap.
Handle expectations with care.