PepsiCo Introduces Lay’s Academy for Romanian Students

Lay’s has recently announced the introduction of an educational program, named Lay’s Academy in partnership with the University of Agronomic Science and Veterinary Medicine (UASVM), which targets students who will be trained and specialized in the potato chips culture.

“By organizing The Lay’s Academy, we intend to create an applied educational platform for students, by offering them access to important theoretical and practical resources. We are basing this program taking into account the current agricultural context in Europe, where more than one third of farmers are 65 years old and less than 5% are under 35. This indicates that the market needs young specialists, who need to be properly trained in order to take over sustainable businesses,” said Alexandra Lupaşcu, Agro Specialist PepsiCo.

39 students have already enrolled in the first edition of the program, belonging to sophomore and senior years, as well as trainees for master courses. The program lasts nine months and will end with a paid internship and trainee position in PepsiCo’s Agro department, which will be offered to three of the most promising students.

“The University of Agronomic Science and Veterinary Medicine from Bucharest encourages extracurricular activities for students. Lay’s Academy is a daring program, which we support and promote, especially taking into account that it is created by an experienced international company”, said Razvan Teodorescu, university teacher at UASVM.

The program is structured in two stages: a theoretical module, targeting all students enrolled, who will attend in teams of three, as well as a practical stage, which includes three workshops at a potato farm in Romania. The theoretical module will focus on potato processing, especially the specific needs of the potato chips. Each team of students will also create an innovative project on identifying and controlling the potato Stolbur Phytoplasma, which so far has been a real challenge for researches.