PepsiCo Latin America, focused on improving access to nutrition, education and empowering communities announced current progress in the region. First, PepsiCo Latin America is announcing its “Nutrition for the Future” platform in which it has invested USD $7 million in the last 5 years, to support nutrition programs across the sector. Second and related, the PepsiCo Foundation has invested USD $500,000 in a grant to The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) to support the program by expanding access to nutritious food and delivering 6.75 million nutritious servings throughout the region. Both efforts will allow the company to further strengthen its impact in Latin America and the Caribbean.
These programs are aligned with PepsiCo’s Performance with Purpose (PwP) agenda, which is our vision to deliver top-tier financial performance by improving the products we sell, operating responsibly to protect our planet and empowering people around the world.
Within PepsiCo’s PwP agenda, the company intends to provide access to at least 3 billion servings of nutritious foods and beverages to underserved communities and consumers, with an increased focus on products that are locally sourced and produced. The company is making strong progress against this global goal through a variety of channels and programs, many enabled by the company’s non-profit arm, the PepsiCo Foundation.
Today’s announcements demonstrate further investment by PepsiCo to deliver results against the PwP agenda. The “Nutrition for the Future” platform represents a USD $7 million-dollar investment in the last 5 years and is integrating all of PepsiCo Latin America’s existing nutrition programs across the region. These programs have been implemented in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela and have focused on granting: access to nutritious food and beverages, education for healthy lifestyles and balanced nutrition, while supporting agro-economic self-sufficiency. To date, PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation have benefitted 20,000 people and aim to benefit totally over 30,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2020.
An important part of the platform is the PepsiCo Foundation’s USD $500,000 grant to the GFN, a recognized leader in boosting food security and fighting hunger, which also contributes to providing access to nutritious servings. This partnership will support the “Expanding Access to Nutritious Food” global program that intends to provide access to at least 6.75 million nutritious servings in the region over 18 months (by the end of 2018) by building food bank capacity with emphasis on providing communities increased access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region supported by the PepsiCo grant include Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and the Dominican Republic. The grant will be used for both cash grants for national food banking organizations as well as to provide technical assistance and training to allow identified organizations to accelerate local efforts to deliver more nutritious foods.
“The Global FoodBanking Network envisions a world where people facing hunger can reliably access nutritious meals through a thriving global network of food banks,” explained Lisa Moon, GFN President and CEO. “The development of global public-private partnerships, rigorous benchmarking of progress, and powerful knowledge sharing are essential to reducing hunger. Thanks in part to the generous support from the PepsiCo Foundation and GFN’s partnership with PepsiCo throughout Latin America and beyond, the GFN network of food banks is able to serve more than 7.78 million people facing hunger annually.”
The event was also attended by Juliana Pungilupi, Director of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute, who commented: “The ICBF is committed to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in the country. The second objective, which aims to eradicate hunger, requires articulated work between State entities, the national and territorial levels. The institute will strengthen its supervision schemes in order to identify early warnings of malnutrition or malnutrition in its early childhood service units. Our goal is a country with zero hunger, which does not require any of the 11 Nutritional Recovery Centers. It is very gratifying to have allies such as the PepsiCo Foundation to overcome child poverty in the country.”
Hand in hand with its goal to provide access to at least 3 billion servings of nutritious foods and beverages to underserved communities, PepsiCo is continuously refining its food and beverage portfolio to meet changing consumer needs by:
- Expanding its portfolio of nutritious, natural options – brands such as Tropicana, Naked, Kero Coco and Quaker Oats offer consumers such options.
- Reducing added sugars, saturated fat, sodium and calories in many of its products, while maintaining the classic taste that its customers have come to love and expect.
- Investing in Research & Development to continue innovating and providing its consumers with the products they love.
In 2017 alone, through new product innovations and reformulations, 66% of PepsiCo’s Global Foods portfolio contained less than 1.1 gram of saturated fat per 100 calories and 43% of its Global Beverage portfolio contained 100 calories or fewer from added sugars per 12-ounce serving. As of 2017, PepsiCo has reduced a 32% of sat fats and a 55% of sodium in its Latin American snacks. In the sector for beverages, the goal is to have 67% of its portfolio with 100 kcals or less by 2025. So far 58% of its beverages volume has 100 calories or less.
Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of PepsiCo Latin America, Europe Sub-Saharan Africa, said: “Our commitment to nutrition in the region goes beyond the transformation of our food and beverage portfolio and expands to offering support to improve the nutrition of vulnerable communities in which we are present. As of today, through the programs that we’ve implemented which represent an investment of USD $7 million dollars, we expect to impact over 30,000 people in Latin America. We are also very proud to partner with The Global FoodBanking Network to provide 6.75 million nutritious servings to propel a better future to the region.”
