Interview with PepsiCo Europe Chief Sustainability Officer: Sustainability and Innovation in Packaging!
PepsiCo faces important challenges and opportunities in sustainable practices in the food and beverage industry. As a multinational company with a large product portfolio, PepsiCo generates more than $1 billion in revenue per brand, including Walkers, Doritos, Gatorade, and PepsiCo.
PepsiCo has more than 600 bottling plants around the world, the largest of which is located in Denver, Colorado, USA, covering 1.20 million square feet. How to permanently use this huge reach and reach to drive sustainability in the food and beverage industry is an important question. Recently, PepsiCo has taken some sustainable initiatives, such as a partnership with the UEFA Champions League final, using recyclable and reusable packaging, and releasing PepsiCo's new platform pep +, which aims to help customers achieve their sustainability goals.
Archana Jagannathan, PepsiCo's Chief Sustainability Officer, gave a presentation on packaging innovation, research and consumer engagement, and the sustainable packaging business. They believe that improving the food system's positive impact on people and the planet is critical when it comes to assessing packaging sustainability. PepsiCo has accelerated its efforts over the past few years to help achieve a more sustainable, renewable and inclusive food system. This includes improving the way raw materials are sourced, producing and selling products in a more sustainable way, inspiring consumers to make better choices through its iconic brands, as well as supporting communities and improving supply chains.
Because packaging plays a key role in the overall sustainability agenda, PepsiCo uses strategic oversight provided by executive leadership and resources such as the Office of Public Policy and Government Affairs, R & D, Supply Chain and Sustainability to guide them toward best practices. PepsiCo also has cross-functional teams that continuously monitor and evaluate progress on packaging issues and the goals they set.
PepsiCo is also undertaking an end-to-end strategic transformation under the leadership of pep + (PepsiCo Positive), placing sustainability at the heart of creating growth and value. One of the pillars of action is the "positive value chain", focusing on sustainable packaging and driving a circular economy.
When it comes to encouraging consumers to dispose of or recycle their packaging responsibly, PepsiCo believes recycling is a key part of sustainable packaging for food and beverage products. They work hard to support recycling, from retail to environments far from home. PepsiCo has partnered with TURN, the world's leading scalable reuse system, to promote recycling at this year's Champions League final, making a circular economy simple and efficient by encouraging consumers to recycle through incentive structures.
PepsiCo is also committed to prioritizing sustainability in innovation and research to develop packaging solutions that balance functionality, brand appeal and sustainability. Working with numerous teams and executives, especially R & D teams, they continue to develop effective sustainable solutions that achieve multiple priorities such as functionality, brand appeal and sustainability.
PepsiCo has a dedicated external innovation team that actively seeks, identifies and develops strategic partnerships with external partners. Their goal is to find key external insights, business models, technology unlocks and new capabilities, collaborate with their strong R & D expertise to bring disruptive innovations to core products and create new and emerging products that improve the entire value chain, especially packaging. The external innovation team works to identify and explore new technologies, business models and partnerships to improve the sustainability, efficiency and health of the food and beverage portfolio.
PepsiCo has set a series of goals to achieve sustainability and innovative solutions in packaging. By 2025, they aim to make 100% of their packaging recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable, and to increase collection rates in key markets through investments. By 2030, in the global beverage and convenience food portfolio, they aim to reduce the use of virgin plastics from non-renewable resources by 50%, promote new business models such as reuse, refill, prepare and use concentrates at home, etc., so that reusable models account for 20% of all beverage services.
By using market-leading bio-based and renewable materials and 50% recycled content, PepsiCo plans to reduce the use of virgin plastics from non-renewable sources by 20% by 2030. They also plan to develop and promote disruptive sustainable packaging materials and new models for convenience food and beverages such as SodaStream, powders, bio-based materials, and reusable or low/no packaging models.
PepsiCo is committed to achieving these goals by fostering cross-industry and public-private partnerships, supporting improved recycling, composting and broader waste management infrastructure and regulatory reforms, driving the development of new materials, recycling technologies and alternative delivery models, and working with suppliers and partners to improve consumer education and acceptance.