Today, Lay’s® announces a new global initiative, Lay’s RePlay, to bring joy to deserving communities around the world through the power of football. Lay’s has partnered with the UEFA Foundation for children and streetfootballworld to reuse empty chip packs to help create sustainable football pitches, uniting communities and driving positive outcomes for people and the planet. Lay’s selected GreenFields as the supplier of the pitches, as they manufacture the most durable and sustainable pitches available in the industry.

Up to five Lay’s RePlay football pitches are expected to open in 2021 around the world, with the first in Tembisa, South Africa, followed by communities in Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and the UK. In the first year alone, the pitches will offer more than 3,600 hours of play and educational-sporting programs benefiting over 16,000 members of the community.

Supported by long-time global Lay’s ambassador and six-time Ballon d’Or winner, Lionel Messi shares, “I was lucky enough to start playing football at a young age and it transformed my life. Everyone deserves the chance to play and fall in love with the sport, and Lay’s RePlay is giving communities across the world that opportunity. I’m proud to give back through this project and excited about the impact it can have on the next generation.”

Lay’s RePlay pitches maximize social value, while minimizing environmental impact. From the materials making the pitch to the installation, the GreenFields pitches are designed to be as environmentally sustainable as possible. In partnership with GreenFields, empty Lay’s chip packets are collected from local waste and recycling partnerships and given a second life – shredded and converted into pellets that become part of the Ecocept™ base layer. The turf, a GreenFields MX NF non-infill pitch is developed for long-lasting, high-performance play. The pile of the pitch consists of resilient but soft to touch pile yarns in two different shapes and are combined with a voluminous air texturized thatch layer that replaces infill. GreenFields MX NF is made from one polymer family and can be recycled into high grade polymeric granules for new applications. At the end of its long life (approx. 20 years) Ecocept can be re-granulated and paved again to extend the life cycle of the system, for a truly circular solution. Beyond the turf, Lay’s has committed to adopt a carbon compensation strategy that will ensure all pitches deliver a net zero carbon footprint over their life spans of an estimated 10 years.

This global initiative and commitment by Lay’s has been verified by independent consultancy, Good Business, with an in-depth study finding that Lay’s RePlay pitches have a significantly lower environmental impact than alternative artificial pitches across several areas, including: reduced greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic pollution, recyclable material and turf, ecological disturbance, and water usage.

Lay’s has longstanding ties in the football community and is an official partner of the Men’s UEFA Champions League and UEFA Women’s football. The brand launches Lay’s RePlay as a progression of the artificial pitches it developed with the UEFA Foundation for children in Jordan’s Za’atari and Azraq Refugee Camps in 2017 and 2018, which have since provided 35,000 people with access to the sport.

Additionally, Lay’s RePlay demonstrates PepsiCo’s ongoing commitment to create a more sustainable food system, inspiring millions of consumers to take positive environmental and societal action.

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