PepsiCo reports progress in sustainability efforts; launches innovation hub
n its latest Sustainability Report, PepsiCo reported important progress in 2017 against each of the its three focus areas—Products, Planet, and People—while also returning $6.5 billion in cash to shareholders during the same period.
In its latest Sustainability Report, PepsiCo reported important progress in 2017 against each of the its three focus areas—Products, Planet, and People—while also returning $6.5 billion in cash to shareholders during the same period. This progress advances PepsiCo’s ongoing sustainability efforts across its operations, value chain, and the food and beverage industry at-large, as part of the company’s Performance with Purpose 2025 Agenda.
The report highlights PepsiCo’s continued work to reduce added sugars and sodium in its beverage and foods portfolios, respectively, in 2017 and move its business towards more nutritious products. Through new product innovations and reformulations, 43% of its beverage portfolio volume, up from 40% in 2016, contained 100 calories or fewer from added sugars per 12-oz serving.
As part of its focus on the planet, PepsiCo reported that nearly 80% of its directly sourced crops globally came from farmers engaged through the company’s Sustainable Farming Program, which aims to optimize economic, social, and environmental on-farm practices and outcomes. This number has more than doubled from 34% at the end of 2016 and it represents more than 40,000 growers in 38 countries.
The report also detailed the work the company is doing in the focus area of people. PepsiCo has now reached 6.4 million women and girls through increased investments in local communities around the world since 2015. This includes projects like Women with Purpose, through which the company helps support thousands of women in Latin America to access entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.
In other news, PepsiCo has announced the launch of an innovation hub, called The Hive, to foster niche brands. According to Marketing Week, in a call for investors, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi revealed that the company is creating “a small entrepreneurial group” that will sit separate to the rest of the business.
She explained: “It is a business within a business and will be taken out of the core headquarters. It’s going to be an entrepreneurial group which will take some of the products we launched and nurture and incubate them to find what works.”