Approach

While PepsiCo is one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, we recognize PepsiCo products generally represent a small component of individuals’ diets. In recent years, we have expanded in some markets into new food categories that can be central to a healthy diet. We also continue to improve the nutritional profile of our existing product portfolio, to help make the Positive Choice an easy choice. Furthermore, we strive to impact food security beyond the products that we sell by sharing agronomic expertise with farmers and driving the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices, a transition that is shown to increase crop yields and support farmers’ livelihoods. We have also made significant investments to provide nutritious meals to underserved children and families around the world.

But we cannot address food insecurity alone — this is a complex challenge that requires cross-sector solutions. Leveraging relationships across our value chain, our work to improve food security aims to contribute towards increased availability of and access to nutritious foods, while helping to ensure the stability of the food systems and environments that produce them. We believe it is important to complement our commercial efforts with long-term philanthropic investments in a way that extends positive impact beyond our company walls. We are broadening our ability to drive impact by, for example, leveraging our logistics expertise to facilitate distribution of nutritious meals.

We have established several objectives aligned with the objectives of SDG 2. Specifically, by 2030¹ we aim to support global progress by:

• Investing towards SDG 2: Zero Hunger: Invest $100 million in sustainable agriculture and other food and nutrition access programs in select priority markets identified by external experts, as part of the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge;
• Building food security: Partner with communities to advance food security and help make nutritious food accessible to 50 million people; 
• Improving nutrition: Reduce added sugars, sodium and saturated fat across our portfolio and deliver more diverse ingredients — such as legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, plant-based proteins and nuts and seeds — that people do not consume enough of in many countries;
• Promoting sustainable agriculture: Spread the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices across 7 million acres and aim to improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in our agricultural supply chain and communities through dedicated programming aiming to support economic prosperity, farm and farm worker security and women's economic empowerment.

See our Agriculture and Nutrition pages for more detail on these ambitions.

Investing towards SDG 2: Zero Hunger

PepsiCo was a founding member of the Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge in 2021 and has made one of the most ambitious commitments to date, totaling approximately 1/6 of the total amount pledged as of January 2024. Our pledge will be met in partnership with over 20 organizations across more than 20 priority markets. These partnerships target two high impact areas:²

• Agricultural interventions to help support sustainable practices that are economically viable for farmers; and
• Scaling up social protection programs.

For example:

• Agricultural interventions aimed at empowering women in agriculture and educating female growers around the world: Our five-year, $20 million partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Women's Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative aims to demonstrate how actively engaging women as critical drivers of PepsiCo's sustainable sourcing strategy leads to better business results. Similarly, the PepsiCo Foundation’s partnership with CARE's She Feeds the World program aims to impact small-scale women producers and their families with education, resources and economic support to help them increase crop yields and improve nutrition. More information about this partnership can be found in the first Zero Hunger Pledge accountability report.
• Social protection programs aimed at increasing access to nutritious foods: We have contributed more than $14 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) through various programs during a decade-long partnership. For example, PepsiCo supported programs in the Middle East and North Africa to help improve the long-term food security needs of communities affected by climate change, conflict, natural disasters and humanitarian crises. In the Philippines, Pakistan, Colombia, Haiti, Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan, PepsiCo has helped provide support to school meal programs. In addition, WFP has benefited from PepsiCo’s Move for Good global employee step challenge that generates grants for selected nonprofits based on employee participation.
  

Building food security

We believe affordability and access should not stand in the way of adequate nutrition. In markets around the world, we are diversifying our portfolio in an effort to provide access to nutritious foods with important benefits. We work to create products with brands consumers trust that suit local needs in terms of both taste and nutrition and that are offered at an affordable price point in pack sizes that maximize value. 

In order for commercial products to contribute towards our goal to increase access to nutritious food for 50 million people by 2030, they must:

• Meet our internal Global Nutrition Criteria for Affordable Nutrition Initiatives, which includes maximum thresholds for nutrients to limit (e.g., added sugars, sodium, saturated fats and trans-fat); minimum micronutrient levels to help combat hidden hunger; and food groups and nutrients to encourage such as whole grains and fiber; and
• Be accessible to lower-income consumers at risk of poor nutrition. We determine this at the market level informed by local socioeconomic indicators and externally available data. 

For example:

• In Mexico, we sell Quaker 3 Minutos, a whole grain, oat-based breakfast product fortified with nine vitamins and minerals. It contains Iron and vitamin B12, which are two of the three main nutritional deficiencies in the country. 
• In South Africa, our White Star super maize meal provides the taste and convenience consumers want, while also containing critical micronutrients, including Vitamin A, Folic Acid, Iron, four B-vitamins and Zinc. Our local portfolio also includes other staple food products such as legumes and pulses, offering key nutritional benefits to consumers at an affordable price point.

Additionally, in the U.S., we work to ensure our most nutritious products are accessible to low-income women, infants and children up to age five who are at nutritional risk through the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). We are actively increasing the number of products that meet the applicable federal- and state-level requirements through a combination of new product development, pack size changes and additional investments. A full list of PepsiCo’s WIC-approved products is available here.

We are also leveraging our global expertise in product development in an effort to implement clinically proven interventions to help supplement basic nutritional needs of children and address mild-to-moderate malnutrition. Quaker Qrece is a clinically-proven intervention that works with children 2-5 years of age in Mexico and Guatemala to overcome malnutrition. The program delivers PepsiCo-produced specialized food to address malnutrition and carries out workshops on hygiene, nutrition and health, in partnership with Un Kilo de Ayuda and CARE with funding from the PepsiCo Foundation. In 2023, the program expanded to India through the Quaker Bowl of Growth program, in partnership with the MAMTA Health Institute for Mother and Child. These programs deploy a unique business model leveraging PepsiCo’s world-class food science and research and development capabilities as well as the expertise of our commercial functions, while also relying on strategic philanthropic partners to facilitate delivery of the product to the target population.

Improving nutrition

In addition to investing in affordable, nutritious products and expanding into staple foods in some markets, we are working to improve the nutritional content of products across our portfolio to make even our more indulgent products more nutritious. For more detail, see Nutrition, Saturated fat, Sodium, Sugar and Trans fat.

We are pursuing our goals by selling more of our existing products that meet these nutritional targets, launching new, more nutritious products and renovating existing recipes to improve the nutritional profile, helping to make the healthier choice the easier choice for consumers. For example:

• We’ve reduced saturated fat by using healthier oils to cook Doritos in Mexico and Lay’s in Saudi Arabia and China;
• We offer reduced-sodium versions of our beloved potato chips, such as Lay’s Lightly Salted in the U.S. with 50% less salt and Walker’s in the U.K. with 45% less sodium; and
• We offer Bare Snacks, which are real fruits and coconuts baked to crunchy perfection, in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.
  

Promoting sustainable agriculture

We currently source agricultural crops and ingredients from more than 7 million acres around the world. We believe that regenerative agricultural is essential in supporting local food supplies and meeting the increasing demand for food as our global population continues to grow. We are driving systemic change by providing farming communities within our supply chain with agronomic advice aiming to build capabilities and to drive adoption of regenerative farming techniques, which increases crop yields and quality and improves resilience against evolving climate impacts. 

In many cases, the regenerative agriculture practices that benefit PepsiCo crops — such as improved soil health, better pest management practices or more efficient irrigation — also benefit other crops in farmers’ rotations. This often includes staples like rice, maize, lentils and pulses that are planted in rotation with crops grown for PepsiCo. We also work to help to ensure stable, predictable income for farmers, protecting them from post-planting market volatility. By supporting improved profitability through stable income from cash crops, we aspire to enable farmers’ continued participation in a sustainable agrifood system and provide funds to invest in other crops.

For example, we have partnered with the German government-owned Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on a program to build a climate-resilient supply of potato, rice and maize in Thailand. Through this program, PepsiCo works with local potato crop farmers to help drive adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation practices, such as the use of drip irrigation and integrated pest management. This increases yields and reduces the carbon footprint associated with potato production relative to traditional farming methods. Outside of potato season, the partnership provides similar guidance for maize and rice crops.

We also recognize that poverty and food insecurity are inextricably linked, and that by working to improve farm productivity, we may positively impact the livelihoods of farmers and their families and enable access to greater nutrition. For example, in partnership with USAID we are seeking to help potato farm laborers in India and Pakistan get access to social security programs, including food vouchers and income support.

Finally, regenerative agriculture practices can help conserve and rebuild soil nutrient stores, which can filter into food crops and result in higher nutritional content. We partner with farmers to develop and grow oats with higher fiber and protein content using regenerative agriculture innovations. This helps to make Quaker Oats – which are already a cost-effective way to increase intake of critical nutrients like fiber, iron, vitamin A, magnesium and zinc – even more nutritious.

Progress

In the two years following the announcement of our pep+ food security goal, PepsiCo made nutritious food accessible to 50 million people each year on average, through a combination of philanthropic and commercial initiatives.

By the end of 2022, PepsiCo invested nearly $20 million of its $100 million target towards its Zero Hunger Private Sector Pledge. These investments have been verified by third-party evaluators, who will be conducting accountability assessments on a bi-annual basis. The first accountability report for this pledge was published in November 2023. 

Information on progress towards our related efforts to create a more sustainable food system can be found on our Agriculture and Nutrition pages.

Strategic partnerships

Achieving food and nutrition security requires society to address a complex set of sociocultural, political, geographic and economic factors. These variables are not going to be addressed by any one actor or industry alone, but rather require a whole-of-society approach that brings together all stakeholders to improve our collective knowledge on how to sustainably produce and distribute the food we eat, while making it safe, available and adaptable to address consumers’ needs. By working in collaboration with industry peers, local and international organizations and employees globally, PepsiCo and others in the private sector can leverage their unique expertise and capabilities to help accelerate progress towards zero hunger. For more information, see Food and nutrition security partnerships and engagement.

What's next?

PepsiCo recognizes that a lot of work remains to meet SDG 2 – to create a hunger-free world – by 2030. For our part, we remain resolute in our ambitions for global food and nutrition security and are already executing programs aiming to address this issue. We are also working closely with the Zero Hunger Pledge coordinators to report on progress towards our 2030 goal, raise awareness of the Pledge among our peers and encourage others in the private sector to join us in this fight.

¹Targets for added sugars and saturated fat reduction are through 2025; trans fat reduction target was through 2023.

²High-impact areas were identified by the coordinators of the Zero Hunger Pledge based on the research from Ceres2030, a project lead by Cornell University, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Institute for Sustainable Development.