Animal Welfare

Approach

PepsiCo understands the concerns around pesticides and takes them seriously. In recognition of these concerns, evolving regulations and the importance of responsible pesticide use to our business and stakeholders, we established a cross-functional Global Pesticide Council (GPC) comprised of senior leaders across key functions to evaluate pesticide issues and direct the Company’s policies and programs. The work is structured around five key areas: 

1. Pesticide usage in sourced crops
2. Risk assessment
3. Compliance with global regulations
4. External engagement
5. Internal governance & communication

The GPC's mission is to ensure global compliance, anticipate changes in the marketplace and take proactive steps to minimize pesticide-related risks. These include environmental and human health risks associated with the application of pesticides in agricultural production as well as food safety risks associated with our raw materials. We take into account the fact that pesticides are highly regulated and routinely evaluated by expert government agencies in markets around the world, to address both environmental and human health risks.

Sustainable agriculture and integrated pest management (IPM)

Our Global Sustainable Agriculture Policy sets standards of performance and expectations for growers across our diverse, global supply chains, including compliance with governmental laws, regulations and industry standards, including appropriate use of pesticides. Our aim is to support sustainable practices that substitute and promote natural controls for some agrochemicals, foster ecosystem balance, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate crop losses. Our policy also recognizes the risk of water pollution from pesticides and the need to responsibly manage water runoff from farms.

To implement our policy, we set specific performance goals on regenerative agriculture and sustainable sourcing of major agricultural raw materials, backed by our global Sustainable Farming Program (SFP) or an equivalent program. The SFP is a comprehensive framework to gauge environmental, social and economic impacts associated with our agricultural supply chain.

PepsiCo has a strong heritage of partnering with experienced farmers who are responsible stewards of natural resources. The SFP has been fully implemented and independently verified across 35 countries and with more than 4,800 verified farmers, from large agribusinesses to smallholder farms. Crops addressed through the program include key ingredients we source directly such as corn, oats and potatoes, among others. The assessments completed on our direct supply chain alone represent 92% of our total agricultural supply chain by volume. For more on our sourcing progress with the SFP, see Agriculture.

The SFP’s framework contains nine environmental, four social and three economic sustainability topics, with detailed criteria and global standards for each. Under the environmental pillar, agrochemicals are one of the nine topics, providing a means through which PepsiCo gathers information on implementation of our principles of pesticide management. The SFP includes seven principles, split between required, fundamental principles and encouraged, progressive principles.