India's water-crisis poses serious threat to Lay’s manufacturing operations. 1 kilogram of Lay's needs 3 Litres water. To protect our business growing at 13% volume CAGR, we needed to reinvent the way we source water.

So we went back to basics. Potato is 80% water- leading us to develop ‘Project Drops of Joy’- rethinking potato as alternate water-supply source to create a self-sustainable water recovery system.

By transforming our manufacturing water-supply and creating pure water where none existed, Lay’s plants now run at 50% water self-sufficiency and create 120Mn Litres of water every year; reducing water-footprint and strengthening water security.

Lay's is India's favourite potato chips with 43.3% market share. To meet the growing demand; we process millions of quality potatoes. But chip-manufacturing consumes a lot of water in the process.

Nearly 70% of India’s water is contaminated and by 2030, India’s water demand is projected to be double the amount available. This national crisis threatens our manufacturing capability- as the brand demand is growing by 13% - and impacts supply-chain efficiencies.

Lay's brand purpose is to instil joy across people, business and planet. Our 2030 Sustainability Goals are among the most aggressive of any large enterprise

outlines our ambitions to:

1. Improve operational water-use efficiency by 25% in high water-risk areas

2. Ensure that we have net water positive impact by:

-> Water-use efficiency in 100% of high water-risk manufacturing facilities; conserving more than 11 Billion litres of water

-> Replenish back into the local watershed more than 100% of the water we use;

-> Continue to adopt the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard in high water-risk manufacturing facilities, by 2025, as a vehicle for water advocacy;

Project Drops of Joy cements our 2030 SDG goal of responsible consumption and production by reducing our water footprint and strengthening water security in a way that goes beyond saving current resources to actually creating a new one.

Lay’s is India’s largest potato chip manufacturer. We process about 507 Million kilograms of potatoes to keep up with the demand of 5 Billion packs every year. Steady manufacturing is critical to meet the business demand. But potato chip manufacturing requires high water usage- 1 kilogram of Lay’s needs 3 litres of water.

Water is finite. There is the same amount of water today as there was during the caveman age. With over 17000Bn litres water getting withdrawn in India for industrial use every year;

pressure on water sources is mounting. Growing Lay’s demand amidst limited water supply, threatens our processing capacity and business.

To protect our business from water crisis and reduce the pressure on water bodies; we needed to fundamentally reinvent our manufacturing operations to reduce our water footprint.

India is facing one of the world’s biggest water crisis. Having the world’s largest total water footprint, 600Mn Indians in extreme water stress. Our rivers have water lower than 40% of their capacity and 17% groundwater blocks are overexploited.

To reduce pressure on natural water sources for our manufacturing processes, we developed ‘Project Drops of Joy’- a system which rethinks potato as alternate water-supply source to create a self-sustainable water recovery operation.

Using the singular ingredient of Lay’s- the potato- we reclaim its water content and

reinvented our manufacturing operations to self-sustain the water consumption during the processing of potato into potato chips.

Thus, turning an unsustainable system of “Taking, Making and Wasting” potato water to a sustainable water supply which “Reclaims, Reprocesses and Reuses” potato water within its processing.

To reduce pressure on finite water resources while keeping up with growing Lay’s demand; we went back to basics.

Our breakthrough moment was as simple as it was shocking.

Middle school science teaches that the humble potato goes beyond from just being a potato- it is 20% starch and 80% water. This potato water is unaccounted for when considering water sources- we think of lakes, reservoirs, rivers, seas- but what about water in potato?

This sparked the ingenuous idea of transforming our chip manufacturing water supply by

rethinking potato as an alternate water supply source.

To initiate this ambitious system, we targeted our biggest processing plants in India- in Kolkata and Kosi. Partnering with hydrologists and chemical engineers, we developed the ingenious water recovery system and began full scale operations in 2023.

Flipping the conventional notion of water supply; we developed Project Drops of Joy- a self-sustainable water recovery system to turn every potato into a water source.

At our plant, we slice and cook the potatoes to make chips. The 80% water in potato turns into vapor while cooking. Under this project, we have engineered a way that

-> Vapors from potatoes are collected and sent to a condenser unit

-> The condenser converts vapors to liquid water at exactly 6 Degrees Celsius.

-> To clean this potato water effectively, we then purify it in three steps:

1. Particles are made to settle with alum treatment

2. Filtration eliminates all impurities

3. UV light removes the harmful pathogens to clean it completely

After purifications, life is added to water in the form of dissolved oxygen, making it exactly like natural water.

‘Project Drops of Joy’ goes beyond saving water to creating water. By rethinking the core business function of manufacturing; we are transforming our business to reduce water stress on both planet and operations. Thus, impacting millions of life and strengthening global water security:

-> Reducing pressure on planet and life, 120Mn Liters pure water is currently being created every year in just 2 plants

-> Reducing pressure on business, 50% of our manufacturing water supply is now self-sustained by potatoes

-> +$1.7Mn saved in water cost every year

-> The water we created is exceeds the quality of local water supply - with just 0.017 ppm levels and neutrality with 7.17pH - ensuring gold standard quality of our chips

Reimagining water supply sources, ‘Project Drops of Joy’ pushes the boundaries of sustainable solutions within core business functions.

Potato is a staple crop. By using invisible water from potato this Project isn’t limited to chip manufacturing. We can leverage this technology to

1. Sustain 2800 people for entire year for all domestic needs a

2. At category scale, we can create 7.7 trillion Litres of pure water in next 50 years in India

Not just this, after its successful implementation, Project Drops of Joy is now being scaled to 30 global Lay’s plants in high-water-risk countries.

Drawing 1000 litres of water from main water body produce 0.344 Kg CO2e.

During Project Drops of Joy, we were diligent to ensure that in our ambition to save water we should not add carbon emissions through other means.

It was imperative for us to develop a system which ran sustainably end-to-end.

By saving 120 Mn Litres of water every year- as number that is only growing as we scale- and using clean energy run our plants, Project 'Drops of Joy' is reducing our carbon emissions by 41.2 Mn Kg every year.