The Smartfood Brand And TV Personality Brooke Burke-Charvet Announce The "SMARTest" Person In The Nation - Winner Of The SMART Search 2013 Contest

Winner to receive $10,000 in prize money and be featured in SELF Magazine, all for having "smart in the bag"

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Aug 14, 2013, 07:00 ET

PLANO, Texas, Aug. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Smartfood brand and TV personality Brooke Burke-Charvet, along with support from SELF magazine, today announced Karen Sims as the winner of the Smartfood brand's SMART Search 2013 contest. Sims, age 54, was chosen from thousands of submissions on the Smartfood Facebook Page for having "smart in the bag" – embodying a lifestyle that aligns with the brand's values of eating and living well. As the SMARTest person in the nation, Sims will be highlighted in an advertorial feature in the September issue of SELF magazine and receive $10,000 in prize money. Smartfood is one of the many brands from PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division.

"We are thrilled to announce Karen as the winner of the SMART Search 2013 contest," said Dave Skena, vice president of marketing for Frito-Lay. "The thousands of submissions revealed so many amazing people from around the country that live out the ideals of our SMART criteria every day; ultimately Karen was chosen for her dedication to charity, commitment to her community and all around approach to living a well-balanced lifestyle."

Today's announcement is part of the Smartfood brand's summer-long effort to celebrate what it means to live and snack SMART. To start, the brand broadened and redefined "SMART" by assigning each letter a specific area of focus: Savvy, Motivated, Accomplished, Responsible and Thoughtful.

A hard-working single mother of two from West Palm Beach, Fla., Sims was selected based on her enthusiastic passion for life and how she exemplified the Smartfood brand's definition of living SMART. In addition to being a Registered Nurse with an MBA, she's a lifelong runner who recently began triathlons. Sims' ongoing dedication to the health and well-being of others as well as the environment are just a few of the amazing qualities that earned her the title of the Smartfood brand's SMART Search 2013 contest winner.

Based on the SMART criteria, the Smartfood brand, along with Burke-Charvet and SELF magazine, revealed in San Francisco last month the list of the Top 10 SMARTest Cities in America – and the City by the Bay took the No.1 spot. As part of the celebration in San Francisco, Burke-Charvet also helped kick off the SMART Search 2013 contest, and served as an official contest judge to help determine the winner.

"The Smartfood brand truly offers a line of snacks that fit into my family's balanced lifestyle," TV personality Brooke Burke-Charvet said. "Being a part of this contest was such a natural fit for me. I was very excited to help further a dialogue about conscious living with a brand that is already living out those very ideals, and ultimately help celebrate one lucky winner for being so SMART!"

The Smartfood brand offers a delicious line of snacks including popcorn, puffed corn and popped chip varieties with no artificial flavors or preservatives. Last year, the Smartfood brand introduced Smartfood Selects, which boast smart flavor combinations of real herbs and spices, providing delicious snack options. The brand's careful pairing of select ingredients creates unforgettably delicious flavors to spice up snack time. Smartfood snacks are available at retailers nationwide and online through Amazon.com. For more information, visit www.Smartfood.com.

About the SMART Search 2013 Contest

From June 20 – July 7, the Smartfood brand conducted a nationwide SMART Search on the Smartfood Facebook Page, to reward someone who had "smart in the bag" – which means being savvy and living a balanced lifestyle; motivated to get regular physical activity; accomplished by achieving their educational, career and life goals; responsible in his or her care for the planet; and thoughtful when it comes to philanthropic efforts. Thousands of entries were received and ultimately, Karen Sims was chosen by a panel of judges as the winner.

About the SMARTest City Search

On June 20, the Smartfood brand released its SMARTest City list. The list was compiled using a combination of five criteria:

Savvy measured the availability of balanced foods using 2012 per capita concentrations of farm-to-table restaurants, health food stores and farmers markets.
Motivated measured the physical activity level in a city using existing city rankings for walkability and bikeability and the American College of Sports Medicine's American Fitness Index.
Accomplished measured education using the 2012 Scarborough study of people with college degrees as a percent of the total city population.
Responsible measured environmental stewardship using the 2012 National Resource Defense Council ranking of green cities.
Thoughtful measured philanthropy using the Chronicle of Philanthropy's 2012 charitable cities ranking.

Based on these criteria, the Top 10 SMARTest Cities as ranked by the Smartfood brand include:

San Francisco, Calif.
Seattle, Wash.
Washington, D.C.
Austin, Texas
Minneapolis, Minn.
Portland, Ore.
Denver, Colo.
Boston, Mass.
Honolulu, Hawaii
San Jose, Calif.

About Smartfood

Smartfood is one of the many brands that make up Frito-Lay North America, the $13 billion convenient foods business unit of PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), which is headquartered in Purchase, NY. Learn more about Smartfood at www.facebook.com/smartfood and Frito-Lay at the corporate website, http://www.fritolay.com, the Snack Chat blog, http://www.snacks.com/ and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/fritolay.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo is a global food and beverage leader with net revenues of more than $65 billion and a product portfolio that includes 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in annual retail sales. Our main businesses – Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola – make hundreds of enjoyable foods and beverages that are loved throughout the world. PepsiCo's people are united by our unique commitment to sustainable growth by investing in a healthier future for people and our planet, which we believe also means a more successful future for PepsiCo. We call this commitment Performance with Purpose: PepsiCo's promise to provide a wide range of foods and beverages from treats to healthy eats; to find innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment by conserving energy and water and reducing packaging volume; to provide a great workplace for our associates; and to respect, support and invest in the local communities where we operate. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.

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About SELF Magazine

I am in charge. I dream large. I choreograph my personal story. The SELF brand provides the content, the tools and the community to inspire a woman to live her most vivid life. Named to the current Adweek Hot List, SELF is the founder of the Pink Ribbon, and an ASME National Magazine Award winner for excellence in journalistic achievement in print and digital. The SELF brand reaches a total print and digital audience of 13 million. SELF is published by Condé Nast, home to some of the world's most celebrated media brands. Visit Self.com and follow @SELFMagazine on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Foodily and Google+.

BROADCAST / PRINT / TV MEDIA: Broadcast quality video, photo stills and press information is available to preview, download and share at http://magicbulletmedia.com/MNR/Smartfood.

SOURCE Frito-Lay North America