Seed to Shelf: NatuChips

Ten hours west of Bogotá, Colombia’s bustling capital city, sits Belén de Umbría — a small town with a plaza at the center and an abundance of hillside farms surrounding it. For over 130 years, this community in the Cordillera Occidental (West Andes) has been growing plantains, traversing their land on horseback, and growing a bounty for their country.

The farmers harvest and load bundles of the starchy bananas into vintage 4x4s then traverse rocky mountain roads to deliver the plantains to a local processing plant. The plant is staffed by 50 mothers, indigenous women, and female heads-of-household, most of whom came from far away to escape armed conflict and violence between government military and guerrilla groups.

Together these women manually strip the plantains of their peels and prepare them to become one of South America’s most beloved snacks — NatuChips.

No more than 48 hours will pass before a plantain becomes a bag of crispy, perfectly salted NatuChips. It’s a quick process, but making sure that process benefited the farmers, workers and culture that are vital to the brand took far longer.

From supplier to partner: empowering local women 

“It’s a very artisanal process that touches many people,” says Gustavo Guacaneme, procurement Agro Business senior manager at PepsiCo. And he would know. As a supply chain specialist, Guacaneme helps PepsiCo secure their raw materials like corn for Doritos and, of course, plantains for NatuChips. “It’s beautiful to see how the tradition and culture are preserved.”

For years, PepsiCo has been working with local farms in Colombia to produce NatuChips, but in 2008, they were approached by one of their suppliers — the nonprofit organization Asplabel, in Belén de Umbría — to become a partner and create a more lasting impact.

“Colombia has a history of violence,” says Cristina Davila, senior marketing director of Global Brands Salty Snacks for Caribbean, Central, & South America. As a Colombian native, Davila knows the story well, “In the ’90s, a lot of people — farmers, women and families — had to leave their land to find peace in other places.”

Enter the plantain, a fruitful crop

Nonprofit organizations like the Asplabel Association wanted to help these women find safe and meaningful work. The plantain plant was the perfect place to start. Plantains are a delicate and needy raw material — it takes a pair of attentive hands — not machinery — to remove the peel.

“It’s not something just anyone and everyone can do,” says Juan Carlos Osorio Garcia, procurement Agro Business representative. “You have to know what you’re doing so that the plantain doesn’t lose its shape in the peeling process, or you could risk the chips having the wrong shape and texture.”

Osorio Garcia intimately knows the details of the plantain. In his role he visits fields, plants and towns in rural Colombia to ensure product quality and form personal relationships with the PepsiCo suppliers.

The Asplabel Association was once a nominal supplier, but now they are a key player in NatuChips supply chain. Over 40% of NatuChips’ plantains are peeled at the plant, with each worker peeling at an incredible rate of nearly 33 kilograms per hour.

But plantain peeling was just the beginning of a strong partnership. Each year more support and opportunities are made available. For example, PepsiCo recently built a new childcare center on the plant’s premises, ensuring that women don’t have to choose between going to work and caring for their children. Newly developed training programs teach the women how to make honey and jams so they can earn supplemental income. And to foster community among the workers, a new cafeteria was built so the workers could gather at tables together instead of sitting on the grass.

“The women know that they have a future with their work,” Guacaneme says, “even despite what has happened in their past. They have hope that there is a way forward for themselves and their families.”

Some women have been able to send their children to university for the first time. Others have been able to purchase their own homes. And a few have flown on a plane for the first time in their lives, visiting the PepsiCo manufacturing plants in Bogotá.

“We wanted them to see the fruits of their labor,” Guacaneme says. “How the plantain they peeled becomes a bag of NatuChips, how it reaches the consumer. Often people know their role, but they don’t know how their work impacts the rest of the chain. In Bogotá they saw firsthand the importance of what they do, and they were filled with pride.”

Caring for the planet by caring for the people

But the social impact of NatuChips doesn’t start and stop at the Asplabel plant. It also reaches into those mountain farms of Belén de Umbría. “We see our footprint expand beyond the women,” Davila says. “Yes, it’s about the peelers, but it’s also about the farmers.”

Davila sees that intention resonating within PepsiCo, especially among leadership. As a senior marketing director, she has witnessed firsthand how much social responsibility and environmental awareness have become a key component of the company’s strategic growth plans and business models.

So, working closely with the community, PepsiCo has been able to help local farmers improve their farms and their agricultural practices with PepsiCo’s Sustainable Farming Program (SFP). Colombia is one of 38 countries where the SFP is providing farmers with training and resources to accomplish social, economic and environmental sustainability.

“These three pillars are really important to our collective success,” Guacaneme says.

Among the social goals of the SFP are ensuring fair pay, work security and an environment free of exploitation. To achieve economic sustainability, PepsiCo is working with farmers so that they have ownership over their craft, that they know that the field is their business and that it is respected as a source of income.

“Environmentally,” Guacaneme says, “the land should be used responsibly and cared for intensely. This means limiting the use of harmful pesticides, reducing water use and contamination, and eliminating as much waste as possible.”

PepsiCo is working with all its raw material suppliers to meet the SFP guidelines. For example, 100% of their potato suppliers will be aligned by the end of this year, and the goal is to have 100% of plantain farmers aligned by 2025.

That environmental awareness is key for Osorio Garcia, who works closely with the farmers in Belén de Umbriá. “We’ve seen the impact of climate change on our seasonal harvests,” he says, “both in terms of summer drought and intense rainy seasons.” This makes it hard to maintain consistency from year to year.

But by providing farmers with a guaranteed purchase agreement at a fair and stable price, PepsiCo is empowering local farmers to plan ahead for a sustainable future in farming.

Another sustainable initiative is simple: Keep things local.

“53% of the plantain is fruit, but the other 47% is the peel,” Guacaneme says. “If we brought the plantain to Bogotá to peel, we would be transporting 47% of what would be considered waste in the city.”

But in the mountains that “waste” has a purpose. When the plantains are peeled locally, 13,000 tons of waste is diverted from landfills per year and instead converted into fertilizer and animal food.

Adelante: a new way forward

“We have seen a generational change in the field,” Guacaneme says. For many youths in the countryside, success meant going to the cities. “But now, that’s a myth. The fields are the source of progress for our country. We see it now even more during the pandemic. The need for guaranteed food security and stability puts the power in the hands of the farmer. The work of the farmer deserves to be a well-paid and highly respected occupation.”

Today, the Asplabel Association is the second-largest employer in Belén de Umbría, after the local government. This successful partnership between Asplabel and NatuChips has become a model that PepsiCo is already starting to replicate in other countries.

“In Guatemala, women also play a big role and in our production line,” says Alejandra Ramírez, manager of Corporate Affairs for the Caribbean and Central America. With a background in social work, Ramírez has been key in engaging her local community in Guatemala. “All the people that operate the line are women, but we see the impact beyond just women. NatuChips is embracing all the minority communities and increasing our efforts based off the flagship partnership in Colombia.

“At PepsiCo,” Ramírez says, “we have a fundamental role to empower those who don’t feel so empowered. These programs and the relationships that we have with our communities are our future.”

“In Guatemala, women also play a big role in our production line,” says Alejandra Ramírez, manager of Corporate Affairs for the Caribbean and Central America. With a background in social work, Ramírez has been key to engaging her local community in Guatemala. “All the people that operate the line are women, but we see the impact beyond just women. NatuChips is embracing all the minority communities and increasing our efforts based off the flagship partnership in Colombia.

“At PepsiCo,” Ramírez says, “we have a fundamental role to empower those who don’t feel so empowered. These programs and the relationships that we have with our communities are our future.”