Currently browsing posts about: PepsiCo

I’ve been trying to keep up with the news on plant-based meat alternatives.   This isn’t easy.  There’s a lot going on.

Plant-based meat politics

• PepsiCo (!) and Beyond Meat have established The PLANeT Partnership to bring new plant-based protein offerings to market.  Big Soda marries Big Plant-Based?
• Lawsuit challenges FDA approval of additive that makes Impossible Burger ‘bleed’:  The Center for Food Safety is challenging the FDA’s approval of a color additive used to make Impossible Foods’ plant-based burger appear to “bleed” like real meat. The advocacy group claims that the FDA’s decision was not based on “convincing evidence” as required by regulation.  Continue Reading

Plant-based science news

• Plant Protein Meal Patterns May Compromise Bone Health
• Food Technology and Plant-Based Diets  
• Plant-Based Meat and Dairy Substitutes as Appropriate Alternatives to Animal-Based Products?

Plant-based business news

• Coldplay bassist launches plant-based protein range: A new range of plant-based protein products has been launched by Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman. Read more
• Europe’s largest plant-based factory to open in UK:  Plant-based food manufacturer Plant & Bean is to open Europe’s largest plant-based food factory in Boston, Lincolnshire and has revealed strategic partners including Griffith Foods and soy processor Gushen alongside this news. Read more
• Unilever unveils mission to make plant-based eating ‘the new normal’ Unilever is targeting annual sales of €1bn ($1.19bn) from plant-based meat and dairy alternatives within five to seven years as part of a broader plan to make plant-based options more accessible, affordable and appetizing, effectively becoming “the new normal.”… Read more
• Nestlé is launching a plant-based tuna product in Switzerland and eventually worldwide, called Sensational Vuna. The food maker’s first vegan seafood offering, Vuna is made from pea protein and packaged in a glass jar. Reuters reports.
• How the poultry industry can win against meat alternatives: The poultry industry is searching for innovative ways to tempt consumers away from plant-based meat alternatives or tissue cultured raised meat.
• Pea Protein: Sowing the seeds for plant-based perfection:  The alternative protein market is continuing to grow exponentially across the globe, thanks to the rising popularity of flexitarian diets and trends like Veganuary… Read more
• McDonald’s launched McPlant today
• Beyond Meat launched two new versions of its Beyond Burgers

Comment

This is a big industry with many questions about quality, degree of processing, and effects on the environment still to be settled.  And these are just the plant-based products.  Next week, I’ll post a collection of articles on the cell-based meat alternatives.  These are not yet on the market (except in Singapore) but also look like big business.  Stay tuned.

My colleague, former doctoral student, and frequent correspondent, Dr. Lisa Young, sent me this choice item:

Now why would PepsiCo be interested in putting money into a conference on fermented foods?

Lisa has the answer to that one too: the company just bought a company that makes fermented beverages.

PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire KeVita, a leading North American creator of fermented probiotic and kombucha beverages. The transaction will expand PepsiCo’s health and wellness offerings in the premium chilled beverage space.

I’ll bet speakers at that conference talked a lot about the purported health benefits of drinks like these.  And I’ll also be willing to bet that they did not talk about studies that show no benefit.

Just a wild guess.

A few more items about what soft drink companies are up to these days.

1.  Pepsi is releasing spa kits to ease your home-bound stress (this one was sent to me by Nancy Fink, who is keeping track of this sort of thing for the Center for Science in the Public Interest).

The kits include an exfoliating cola-scented Pepsi sugar scrub, a Pepsi Blue face mask and a Pepsi cola-scented bath bomb, according to the company’s email. With its latest branded merchandise, Pepsi can tap into trends around self-care that have emerged during a chaotic year.

What do you have to do to get one?  You have to help market Pepsi, of course

The company launched a sweepstakes on Wednesday to let consumers enter for a chance to win a limited edition Pepsi Spa Kit. To participate, consumers must tweet #PepsiSpa and #Sweepstakes and tag one of their friends, the company said.

2.  Coca-Cola sought to shift blame for obesity by funding public health conferences, study reports

The Coca-Cola Company worked with its sponsored researchers on topics to present at major international public health conferences in order to shift blame for rising obesity and diet related diseases away from its products onto physical activity and individual choice, according to a new report.

Academics in Australia and the US worked with US Right to Know, which lobbies for transparency in the food industry, to obtain and analyse emails between Coke and public health figures about events run by the International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH).

They analysed 36 931 pages of documents to identify exchanges referencing Coke’s sponsorship of the International Congresses on Physical Activity and Public Health (ICPAPH) held in Sydney in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2014 [The study is here].

3.  Coke and Pepsi join Nestlé (no relation) as “Plastic Polluters of the Year“

This is the third year in a row they have won this title from Break Free From Plastic. which demands corporate accountability for plastic pollution.  It’s always good to keep this in mind, along with soda companies opposition to bottle recycling laws.

According to ABC News:

With so many people feeling cooped up due to restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic, potato chip maker Lay’s has developed four new internationally-inspired flavors to satisfy both food and travel cravings alike.

But here’s the real gimmick:

The new flavors won’t be sold in stores.  Anyone wishing to taste one of the new flavors will have to reply to one of the company’s social media posts and tell them which country you’d like to visit.  A bag from the country they choose will be shipped to the lucky winners.

Lays tried this in 2016.  But you could buy those in stores, although not for long evidently.  The Greek Tzatziki flavor is the only one of that lot to make it into this one.

Frito-Lay, of course, is owned by PepsiCo.  So this is Big Food in marketing action.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pointed out how the higher risk of complications and death among members of minority groups.  The reasons are fairly well established.  Members of minority groups are more likely to:

• Be overweight
• Have diet-related risk factors: hypertension, type-2 diabetes, multiple metabolic problens
• Live in high-pollution areas
• Have asthma
• Suffer from the daily stress of discrimination
• Lack sick leave benefits
• Have poor health care

The .latest report from Rudd Center on Food and Obesity Policy, Sugary Drinks FACTS 2020, highlights how sellers of sugary drinks target their products to minority populations.  The press release says that the report found:

• In 2018, companies spent $84 million to advertise regular soda, sports drinks, and energy drinks on Spanish-language TV, an increase of 8% versus 2013 and 80% versus 2010.
• Sports drink brands disproportionately advertised on Spanish-language TV, dedicating 21% of their TV advertising budgets to Spanish-language TV, compared to 10% on average for all sugary drinks.
• Compared to White children and teens, Black children saw 2.1 times as many sugary drink ads and Black teens saw 2.3 times as many. Black youth exposure was particularly high for sports drinks, regular soda, and energy drinks.

Click here for the full report. 

• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 Supplement: Examples of social media campaigns targeted to teens and Hispanic and Black youth
• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 Appendix Tables
• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 report summary

The report’s main finding:

CNN has an excellent account of this, in which I am quoted.

Experts say soda companies have also taken a page out of the tobacco industry’s marketing playbook, by providing funding for many Black communities and endeavors “in ways that don’t look like advertising, like funding playgrounds in minority neighborhoods, minority community groups, and sponsorship of Black and Hispanic sports figures,” said Marion Nestle, who also authored “Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics.”  “These work,” Nestle said. “Minority kids identify soda brands with sports figures, and minority community groups find it hard to oppose soda company marketing when the companies have been so generous.”

“The great irony of Ramon Laguarta’s promises to counter PepsiCo’s conscious or unconscious racist practices in the company, its business, and communities is that none of them addresses targeted marketing,” said Nestle.

“The best thing Pepsi could do to improve the health of its customers would be to stop advertising and marketing to children and teenagers, especially those of color,” Nestle added.

I was interested to see what BakeryandSnacks.com had to say about PepsiCo’s investment in Mexico.

This company, which makes ultra-processed drinks and snacks, plans to invest $4 billion in Mexico over the next two years.

The $4 billion will be spent on “four strategic areas:”

• Improved supply chains for potatoes, corn, and sugar, purchased from small, medium and large producers ($1 billion).
• Improved nutrient profile of PepsiCo products (the total is unspecified but $13 million will go to reducing saturated fats).
• Reduced CO2 emissions and increased renewable energy (amount unspecified).
• Strengthened development programs focused on water, recycling, nutrition and the empowerment of women (> $7 million).

This is on top of the $5 billion Pepsi invested in Mexico in 2014 for “product innovation, brand consolidation, infrastructure, sourcing, and community outreach.”

Pepsi has a big operation in Mexico.  It claims the new investment will add 3000 jobs to the 80,000 it already employs there.

What is this about?  In 2017, Mexico’s $3.6 billion in sales represented nearly 6% of PepsiCo’s total global net revenues of $63.5 billion.

I’ll bet Pepsi sees plenty of room for growth.  I do too, but also in the prevalence of obesity and related chronic disease.

In 2017, Jennifer Pomeranz and Mark Pertschuck published an article in the American Journal of Public Health titled State Preemption: A Significant and Quiet Threat to Public Health in the United States.

How right they were.

Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a law banning new soda tax initiatives in the state until 2030, thereby preempting local initiatives planned and in progress.

How did this happen?

Raw, overt power politics (my emphasis throughout).  The Sacramento Bee shows how it’s done.

The Hill explains that this bill was a compromise.

The measure was a last-minute compromise to stop an initiative circulated by the beverage industry that would make it more difficult to raise state and local taxes in California.  “Mayors from countless cities have called to voice their alarm and to strongly support the compromise which this bill represents,” Brown wrote in a signing message.

Big Soda’s tactic: use California’s ballot initiative process to put forth a measure requiring a two-thirds majority to pass any new tax legislation.  Brown and those mayors must have assumed it would pass (anything to prevent new taxes).  Brown said he would agree to a 12-year moratorium on new soda taxes if the soda industry would withdraw the measure.  It did, and he signed.

In explaining the so-called “compromise” (in quotes because this was blackmail), US News quotes state senator Scott Wiener (Dem-San Francisco):

This industry is aiming a nuclear weapon at government in California and saying, ‘If you don’t do what we want we are going to pull the trigger and you are not going to be able to fund basic government services.”

In other words, the beverage industry held the state hostage. Like the Sacramento Bee, I’d call this a shakedown.

The Sacramento Bee also called it extortion—a power play by the American Beverage Association that:

appears to be working as intended. As the deadline for signing the state budget approaches this week, a developing trailer bill attached to it would give Big Soda a 12-year ban on local soda taxes in exchange for dropping a ballot initiative that would threaten the finances of cities throughout California. Who says extortion doesn’t pay?

The New York Times explains the “stunning” preemption:

Now the beverage industry has a new approach. Instead of fighting the ordinances city by city, it is turning to states, trying to pass laws preventing any local governments from taxing their products.

The reactions have been fierce.

Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association says, “We’ve seen some cynical moves to protect profits, but this soda tax ban is a new low.”   The American Heart Association issued a statement:

The bill—a last-minute, backroom deal negotiated and written in secret by beverage industry lobbyists and their allies—is a significant step backwards in the ongoing effort to reduce overconsumption of sugary drinks.

“This is one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen in more than 30 years spent fighting for better health for kids and families,” said Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association. “We could not be more disappointed to see this bill, taken straight from the tobacco industry playbook, pass.”

The LA Times said “Shame on California lawmakers for caving in to the soda industry.”

Salon explains:

There’s a lot at stake for America’s biggest soda companies. Carbonated soft drinks – such as Coke, Fanta, Sprite, and Fresca – make up two-thirds of Coca-Cola’s production, and U.S. soda sales earned the company more than $10 billion in 2015. And PepsiCo’s soda sales – including Pepsi, 7Up, and Mountain Dew – still account for one-quarter of the company’s $38 billion in North American sales, despite a shift toward healthier products. But soda consumption fell to its lowest point in 31 years in the U.S. in 2016, according to Fortune, and Coca-Cola concedes that sweetened beverage taxes “are hurting Coke’s business.”

I’ll end with this quote from the New York Times:

Bill Monning, the Senate majority leader, was one of a handful of Democrats who voted against the bill. He called its passage “unprecedented” and said it would stop cities and counties “from being able to take steps to protect the health of their residents”…“It’s a sad day for democracy in California,” he said. “But ever the optimist I think that the outrage of Big Soda blackmailing the state legislature and the people of California is going to boomerang.”

Let’s make sure that happens.

And while we are at it, don’t let this happen in your state.  If the soda industry threatens to mess with state elections, tell your representatives and governor to resist.  California public health advocates: keep the pressure on.  Advocate for bans on sodas everywhere you can: schools, hospitals, workplaces, government offices.  Expose what the industry is doing to protect its profits at the expense of public health.  Don’t give up.  Courage!

For the record, here’s where to find out more about this shameful episode.

• On Twitter, see #NoSodaShakedown
• The Assembly hearing (video)
• Joint statement from the American Heart Association and 20 other organizations opposing the soda industry’s actions
• Statement from the Public Health Institute
• Nancy Brown’s dinner invitation to Jerry Brown
• San Jose Mercury News: Big Soda’s Big Play 
• The American Beverage Association’s $450,000 contribution to an election committee
• Shaniece Alexander and Anna Lappé’s Big Food is the new Big Tobacco
• Larry Cohen in The Hill: alarm bells
• Latest development: California medical societies want soda tax on the ballot

Forbes has published a ranking of the top 2000 global companies (all kinds, not just food) by a composite score of revenue, profit, assets, and market value.

Forbes summarizes some of the information for food processing companies.  By its measure, Anheuser Busch, Nestlé, and PepsiCo are the top three.

Coca-Cola, however, ranks #209, a big drop from last year’s #86.  It did not have a good year last year.

You can sort the list by name or category.  I did that for four categories: Beverage, Food processing, Food retail, and Restaurants.

Walmart does not show up as a food retailer; Forbes considers it a Discount Store, even though food accounts for nearly half of Walmart’s revenues, nearly $200 billion a year.

Here are the food, beverage, retail, and restaurants that show up as among the top 250 companies, worldwide.  I only included sales and profits in this  table; you would have to add in assets and market value to understand the ranking system.

Food, beverage, retail, and restaurant companies among the biggest 250 companies worldwide.

*About 40% of sales are from food.

This is why Walmart is the elephant in the food-business room.