Frito-Lay brings 'rural' to the big city

Lay's®, America's favorite potato chip and a leading brand from PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division, unveiled today a mobile greenhouse designed to bring a rural farm experience to the center of metropolitan areas across the country.  The six-city "Lay's Mobile Farm"tour kicks-off this morning in New York City's iconic Times Square and will then travel to five other major cities throughout the U.S. – Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas.  The campaign marks another phase of the brand's strategy to celebrate the people and communities across the country that produce its line of potato chips.

Visitors to the "Lay's Mobile Farm,"a 70-foot long, 10-foot wide and 14-foot high traveling greenhouse will have an opportunity to interact first-hand with plants, meet a Lay's potato farmer and enjoy interactive stations. Families will also receive take-home educational materials that provide simple tips and fun activities to inspire at-home gardening.

To help get more gardens growing, the Lay's brand will give away approximately 8,000 individual basil plants to people who participate in the farm experience.  And, at the culmination of each city stop, the brand will donate all contents of the greenhouse to local community gardens, resulting in the planting of hundreds of vegetables and fruits in these urban areas.

"Many Americans are looking for ways to bring a taste of the simple life home and learn more about where their food comes from,"said Justin Lambeth, vice president, marketing, Frito-Lay North America.  "As a brand that embraces simple happiness and includes just three simple ingredients in our Lay's Classic potato chips, the 'Lay's Mobile Farm' is a natural way for us to deliver that experience to our consumers."

In the spirit of taking the farm to the heart of the city, the mobile tour will make stops in high-traffic areas in cities in each region of the country and ultimately will provide more than 50 potato, tomato, onion, pepper and basil plants to each of the non-profit groups that are creating and maintaining community gardens.  The selected plants represent some of the all natural ingredients used in six new regionally inspired Lay's potato chip flavors, including Garden Tomato &Basil, which will be available to try at each mobile farm stop.