In October 2025, Lay’s unveiled what it calls the largest rebrand in its nearly 100-year history. The iconic yellow sun logo now radiates new energy through “Lay’s Rays.” The bags feature matte finishes and farm photography that underscore a simple message: these chips come from real potatoes. And with all the visual changes—new rays, new colors, new imagery—the OU symbol stayed in place on the front of every package. While nearly everything else was reimagined, that consistent placement signals continuity in the verification systems behind the product.
The impetus for all this was surprising research revealing that 42 percent of Lay’s consumers didn’t realize their chips were made from actual farm-grown potatoes. For a brand that has been part of American snacking since 1932, that disconnect posed a fundamental marketing challenge: how do you remind people of something they should already know?
The rebrand goes deeper than design. By year’s end, all core Lay’s products in the U.S. will be made without artificial flavors or colors. Lay’s Baked is switching to olive oil, and the reduced-fat kettle-cooked line is moving to avocado oil. These changes are part of a broader industry shift toward ingredient transparency—a movement driven by consumers who read food labels and seek cleaner, more traceable products.
Beyond ingredients, trust also extends to the systems that ensure consistency and integrity. The OU Kosher symbol has appeared on Lay’s packaging for more than 30 years, effectively becoming part of the brand itself. The certification process—with its requirements for ingredient verification, production monitoring, and facility standards—speaks directly to the questions many consumers now ask: What’s in this product? How is it made? Can I trust the process?
For a company producing millions of bags a day across global facilities, maintaining certification requires systematic ingredient tracking and rigorous supply chain oversight—the kind of operational discipline that scales with a company’s reach. As Lay’s repositions around authenticity and cleaner ingredients, its long-standing certification infrastructure provides tangible evidence of those commitments. The rebrand may be new, but the systems ensuring its integrity have quietly supported it for decades.