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Its an experience almost everyone is familiar with: that moment after youve been mindlessly snacking on a bag of Cheetos, when you realize that your fingers are now coated in a gritty, fluorescent orange dust. The finger dust phenomenon is so ubiquitous that Doritos and Cheetos have each run their own ads centering on the topic. Now, PepsiCo is debuting a version of both iconic snacks that come sans artificial orange. PepsiCo recently announced a product line called Simply NKD, a new sub-category of Doritos and Cheetos that come with no artificial flavors or dyes, rendering them completely colorless. The collection will include orange-dust-free versions of Doritos Nacho Cheese, Doritos Cool Ranch, Cheetos Puffs, and Cheetos Flamin Hot, set to arrive on shelves starting on December 1. [Photos: PepsiCo] PepsiCo already sells a line of Cheetos and Doritos called Simply that are made with no artificial colors or flavors, but they come in separate flavor offerings like white cheddar. Simply NKD, on the other hand, are supposed to taste exactly like the classic Doritos and Cheetos you know and love, just with a less vibrant appearance. [Photo: Brielle Patton/D3 Studio/PepsiCo] For PepsiCo, the Simply NKD line is part of a larger effort to expand the companys focus on health and nutrition, as a growing number of customers (especially young people) become more invested in wellness. It also signals a broader trend across the snack and beverage industry, as major corporations rush to replace artificial food dyes amidst new legislation from the Trump administration designed to phase out certain artificial dyes. PepsiCo’s next move PepsiCo has recently been on a mission to shift its brand toward a healthier product lineupincluding, most recently, by rebranding its corporate identity to resemble stalks of grain and a droplet of water. In a February earnings call, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta explained that the company has seen a higher level of awareness in general of American consumers toward health and wellness, which he said was driving shifts in how consumers approach snacking. PepsiCo has followed that trend by pouring more investment into health-conscious moves, including by acquiring the grain-free, healthy tortilla chip brand Siete Foods and the prebiotic soda brand Poppi, as well as prepping to launch its own prebiotic cola brand this fall and introducing Lays and Tostitos with no artificial colors or flavors by the end of the year. Meanwhile, PepsiCo is facing another external pressure to change some of its core offerings: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s plan to phase out eight petroleum-based artificial colors from the nations food supply. Already, many major companies have pledged to remove synthetic dyes from certain snacks and candies, including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Nestlé, and Campbells. PepsiCo announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. As of now, about 40% of its U.S. products use synthetic dyes, including Doritos and Cheetos, which both rely on a combination of Yellow 6, Yellow 5, and Red 40 to achieve their iconic hues. Right now, PepsiCo is actively working on finding natural alternatives to color its core products like Gatorade and Cheetosa process that could take several years. In the meantime, the company is betting that some customers will prefer a new version of their favorite snacks without any color additives at all. [Photo: Brielle Patton/D3 Studio/PepsiCo] How PepsiCo designed dust-less chips Simply NKD are Doritos and Cheetos as youve never seen them beforeboth in and out of the packaging. Compared to their electric orange original counterparts, these naked versions of the snacks are both a light yellow hue. In an interview with Bloomberg, Rachel Ferdinando, CEO of PepsiCo Foods U.S., said that expert tasters tried the chips under special red lights that prevented them from seeing the chips color in order to ensure that the NKD versions are just as tasty as the orange ones. The chips packaging has similarly lost its quintessential color. Both the Cheetos and the Doritos bags are mostly white, with pops of orange, red, and blue depending on the specific flavor. To communicate that the new products are free from artificial flavors and dyesmaking them colorlesswe intentionally stripped away the classic bright hues that consumers expect, starting with a blank canvas, a PepsiCo Foods U.S. spokesperson told Fast Company, adding that the design differentiation is enhanced by incorporating elements like a matte finish, metallic accents, and a simplified presentation. And in case anyone is still confused, every bag comes with the phrase, Naked of dyes alongside an arrow pointing to an image of the chip. When you see the Simply NKD bag on the shelf against the sea of colorful bags, its hard to miss, the spokesperson says. The visual identity is obviously walking a fine line between communicating the nakedness of the chips while also steering clear of any visual signals that would consign them to the health food category. In other words, these arent healthy Cheetos and Doritos; theyre just colorless.
Category:
E-Commerce
A few days ago, I wrapped a coaching call with a senior executive navigating a complex restructuringwork that demands steadiness in ambiguity, patience when emotions rise, and the discipline to stay grounded while others are spinning. Minutes later, I walked into my kitchen and found my child in a mismatched Halloween costume, eating shredded cheese out of the bag, and crying because her Lego creation was too wobbly to be art. The contrast was sharp, but the underlying lesson was familiar. Parenting and leadership rarely feel similar in form, but they draw on the same internal architecture. Both require influence without force, emotional regulation under pressure, and the ability to create clarity in chaotic, unpredictable environments. Both ask us to decide when to step in, when to step back, and what it means to act with intention instead of urgency. Across my work with senior leaders, and in my own life as a parent, Ive seen these patterns repeat. The skills we associate with leadership are often forged in everyday family life, and the habits that make parenting sustainable often strengthen our leadership. Here are six lessons that cut across both domains. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} 1. Emotional steadiness is a leadership skill Composure is often misunderstood as restraint or politeness. In reality, it is the capacity to tolerate emotionyour own and otherswithout reacting impulsively. At home, this can look like staying calm through a meltdown or responding thoughtfully to a childs frustration. At work, it means anchoring your team when uncertainty is high or when interpersonal tensions flare. Across settings, emotional steadiness supports psychological flexibility: the ability to remain centered enough to think clearly, consider options, and choose a productive response. The more leaders practice this, the more they can navigate ambiguity without defaulting to control, reactivity, or avoidance. 2. Clarity beats complexity Parents learn quickly that children thrive with specific expectations and simple instructions. Adults are no different. Leaders often overexplain to project expertise or avoid difficult conversations, but complexity usually obscures rather than illuminates. Clarity requires the discipline to say: Here is what were doing. Here is why. Here is what success looks like. Clear communication reduces cognitive load, increases accountability, and strengthens follow-through. When leaders simplify the path, teams can focus on execution instead of interpretation. 3. Boundaries are care, not control In family life, boundaries allow routines to run, needs to be understood, and conflicts to be resolved without constant negotiation. They protect rest, attention, and relationships. At work, boundaries function similarly. They create predictability, prevent burnout, and help teams focus on what matters most. Many leaders struggle more with boundaries at work than with children at home. Over-functioning often comes disguised as praise: Youre the only one I trust with this. But taking on too much erodes capacity and models unhealthy norms. Boundaries are not barriers; they are structures that support shared responsibility and mutual respect. 4. Repair matters more than perfection Parents inevitably make mistakesraising their voices, rushing through routines, reacting too quickly. The critical practice is repair: circling back, naming what happened, and reconnecting. Repair teaches accountability, empathy, and relational safety. Organizations benefit from the same ethic. Leaders sometimes avoid repair because they fear it signals weakness, but unaddressed ruptures undermine trust. A brief acknowledgmentI want to revisit that; I didnt handle it as well as I could havecan diffuse tension, clarify intent, and rebuild confidence. Repair is the foundation of psychological safety, which drives performance far more reliably than perfection. 5. Autonomy develops courage Watching a child wobble on a bike for the first time is uncomfortable, but it builds resilience. The workplace equivalent is resisting the urge to overmanage. Empowering people to make decisions and learn through experience expands their competence and confidence. Micromanagement, by contrast, signals fearfear of failure, judgment, or loss of control. Autonomy is not abdication. It requires clear expectations, appropriate guardrails, and support when needed. But real leadership involves stepping back enough for others to step forward. Growth happens in the wobble. 6. Purpose lives in the mundane Parenting quickly teaches that meaning is built less through big milestones and more through accumulated micro-moments: answering questions while cooking dinner, revisiting hard conversations, showing up consistently even when enthusiasm is low. Steadiness matters more than spectacle. The same is true in organizational life. Culture is shaped not by strategy decks or keynote speeches but by everyday interactionshow leaders greet people, how they listen, how they give feedback, how they respond on difficult days. Purpose is expressed through small behaviors that signal what the organization values and how people should treat one another. The contexts are different, but the core work is the same. Leadership, in any environment, asks for clarity, steadiness, and intentional action. The setting changes, but the work is the same: stay steady, stay human, and lead with intention wherever you are. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/acupofambition_logo.jpg","headline":"A Cup of Ambition","description":"A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more visit acupofambition.substack.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/acupofambition.substack.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Youve decided to start a solo business. Congratulations! Ive been a solopreneur for years and love being my own boss. My decision to become a full-time freelance writer happened overnight. I lost my full-time job at a marketing agency. Looking around, the job market seemed bleak. Working for myself was a way to start earning money immediately to pay bills. However, Id been thinking about a solo business for months. So while the timing wasnt my decision, it was a direction I was headed anyway. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} I had been freelancing alongside my 9-5 job for a few years, so I had the infrastructure in place to turn my side hustle into a full-time business. What you need on Day 1 is a lot different than what you need on Day 1,001. Here are some of the minimum things you need to get started. 1. Pricing Before you even start talking to potential clients, you need to know what youll charge for your services. Will you charge by the hour? By project? On a retainer? Pricing is one of the hardest things to figure out when you start your own business. You often dont have a good benchmark to know what you should charge compared to other solopreneurs doing similar work. You can start with your salary if you were working full-time at a company. Break it down into an hourly rate (even if youre charging on a per-project basis). Keep in mind that youll also be paying taxes and covering your own business expenses. In addition to determining pricing, youll also need a way to present pricing to a potential client. You might want to consider software that lets you put together polished proposals for clients. Some can even collect e-signatures and payments as an all-in-one tool. But this isnt necessary. You could also put together a proposal in a tool like Canva. Youll also want to have clients sign a contract, agreeing to your pricing and terms. You could pay a lawyer to draw up a contract for you, but thats often cost-prohibitive for new solopreneurs. Instead, you could look for a template that you can modify, or use this free one from the Freelancers Union. 2. A website Im a big advocate for launching a website for your solo business. It doesnt have to be fancy. Mine isntit simply provides some information about my background and the services I offer. It includes a link to my portfolio of work and a Contact Me form. A website, even if its a one-pager, gives your business credibility. It also provides more information than you can showcase on a site like LinkedIn. Ideally, you would connect your website to your own domain. If youve never done this before, it sounds scarier than it actually is. Most website builders will provide step-by-step instructions to connect to a domain you buy from a company like GoDaddy or Cloudflare. If you want to take it a step further, you can connect your domain to Google Workspace so that your email address is @yourdomain.com. However, Google Workspace isnt free. If youre not ready to pay for it, you can always connect your domain to your email later. 3. An invoicing and payment tool My first invoices were created in Google Sheets. I was lucky that my clients paid me via check, because otherwise, Im not sure how I would have collected payments. Youll want to make it easy for clients to pay you, in the method of their choosing. Some may want to send you a bank transfer, while others want to use a credit card. Ive even worked with companies outside of the U.S. and needed to collect international payments. Payment should never be a point of friction. Some tools provide invoicing, payment, and accounting all in one. Or, you can use a standalone product like Stripe to create invoices and collect payments. Platforms like Stripe will charge you a fee (a percentage of the invoice), but they will handle the payment processing for you. They collect money from the client using whatever payment method the client choosesand then send it to your bank account. 4. A plan to find clients Once you have the foundational things in place (pricing, a website, and invoicing/payment), you can start to think about how youll find clientsor how theyll find you. This is not a single-day activity. Everything else Ive mentioned can be pretty quick to set up. Marketing yourself is a long-term strategy. When I first started freelancing full-time, I was desperate for work (Id just lost my job!). I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. I joined several Slack communities and networked with potential clients. I was a guest on podcasts to get my name out into the world. Effective tactics will depend on the services you offer, but youll need to do some hustling to find your first few clients. Your approach will likely evolve as your business grows. What worked for me in my first few months looks very different now. Over time, I learned which clients and projects aligned best with my skills and servicesand which ones didnt. Starting a solo business can feel overwhelming at first, especially in the early days. However, you get to design and build something thats fully your own. Start with the foundation you need on Day 1, and youll figure out the rest as you go. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
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