Approach

Through our operations, authorized bottlers, contract manufacturers and other third parties, we make, market, distribute and sell a wide variety of beverages and foods, serving customers and consumers in more than 200 countries and territories.

Fundamental to our mission is our promise to deliver trusted brands and consumer smiles with consistent safety and high quality.

Food safety is a top priority for PepsiCo. The PepsiCo Global Food Safety Policy outlines our commitments to deliver on this priority.

PepsiCo's comprehensive Food Safety and Quality Management System enables us to pursue our policy commitments through an effective global framework for partnering with stakeholders and safeguarding our consumers.

Roles and responsibilities

Design and management of systems relating to food safety and quality programs are housed within the Research and Development (R&D) function. The Compliance team includes representatives from Food Safety and Quality Assurance, Scientific Affairs and Regulatory Affairs, supported with input from many other functions. Its remit is to oversee compliance with both regulation and internal standards.

Execution of programs that make, move and sell products are led by the Supply Chain function. Supply Chain’s Quality Control team leads food safety and quality execution and improvement activities within operations. Supply Chain groups are embedded in our Sector organizations.

Governance structure

A comprehensive governance structure supports connectivity across sector and global functional stakeholders, with the mission of ensuring strong food safety and quality oversight and controls are in place across our enterprise.

• All our employees, including frontline and site management, play an important role ensuring compliance with standards and policies.
• Management reviews of performance trends, escalations and priorities take place regularly in each sector and globally two times each year.
• Targeted horizon scanning task forces are established to identify and manage core issues.
• Senior executives review policy compliance, strategic priorities and mitigation of potential risks through participation in sector and global Executive Product Integrity Council meetings two times each year.
• PepsiCo tracks and reviews food safety strategy and performance with its PepsiCo Risk Committee and with its Board of Directors at least annually.

These ongoing reviews and assessments help to identify key areas of intervention in our operations to drive continued product safety and quality across the entire manufacturing process. Based on these, PepsiCo has identified key food safety focal points, including allergens, microbiological risks, chemical contaminants and foreign materials. We mitigate these risks with robust systems and processes, designed in alignment with stringent internal and external food safety standards.

Food quality and safety standards

PepsiCo has established strong global quality and food safety standards. We use qualified ingredients, approved suppliers and follow all applicable regulations issued by regulatory authorities. Our manufacturing locations have traceability systems to trace incoming materials, primary packaging and products, which enables us to quickly investigate and address any potential concerns in the marketplace.

Consumer complaints

PepsiCo maintains a comprehensive management system for tracking, reporting and remediating consumer complaints. We make channels available for consumer contact, including on-pack phone, email or website information. This directs complaints either to PepsiCo or to our third-party franchisees and partners as relevant. On the rare occasions when incidents occur, we take quick action, conduct robust investigations, implement corrective actions and share learnings across the system.

Product development

Product development follows our technical stage-gate process to ensure that the design is rigorously vetted and products are made and sold in compliance with regulations and stringent internal standards.

Metrics framework

PepsiCo has established verification systems to monitor performance, including quality control evaluations, audits (internal and third-party) and food safety and quality programs. We evaluate product safety and quality at key points in the product lifecycle, namely design, manufacture, trade and consumption. PepsiCo aims to remediate any identified deficiencies and use the learnings to improve our processes, performance and culture.

Training and capability development

Capability-building solutions are delivered in support of our strategies and objectives. These tailored training sessions are available to all workers whose roles impact the safety and quality of our products, including the R&D function, plant managers, quality and food safety managers, lab personnel and frontline employees. This includes company-owned and third-party manufacturing site employees. They are delivered through both virtual and in-person platforms. 

Smart Compliance

Our compliance team is leading efforts to address an increasingly challenging and dynamic external environment, with increased consumer and regulatory expectations. Our Smart Compliance framework enables us to navigate this environment while working to ensure compliance across our large, diverse and ever-changing portfolio.

Progress

In 2023, we continued to deliver strongly against our Smart Compliance framework as follows:

• Scan the horizon: PepsiCo continues to leverage a diverse cross functional team that provides formal governance to assess and escalate new science and potential regulations that should be acted upon.
• Promote science-supported regulations: Engagement with external organizations has helped define new and enhance existing food safety regulations and standards. PepsiCo is committed to learning from the United States Food Safety Modernization Act and European Union Official Control Requirements. We have incorporated these best practices into our global standards, where appropriate.
• Implement digital technologies: We continue to invest in new IT systems to connect ingredient and product specifications across our system, enhancing product traceability. We have implemented a robust centralized digital system that details past and current results and performance in recalls, regulatory violations, Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and other assurance programs. In 2023, we launched our global Corrective Action and Preventative Action tool that is enabling continual improvements and strengthening our culture of "fix it forever" outcomes.
• Strengthen our food safety and quality management system: In 2023, we further strengthened our framework by establishing PepsiCo's Food Safety and Quality Management System Handbook to supplement our pre-existing corporate standard on this matter. The handbook is being deployed within our global network, including company-owned and third-party manufacturing facilities.
• Make every data point count: We continue to assess new opportunities to enhance testing capability and efficiency that delivers consumer centric products that are safe and follow all applicable regulations issued by regulatory authorities.
• Align the supply chain: Through external industry partnerships such as GFSI and AIB International certifications, we have aligned food safety content, enhanced audit outputs and reduced the need for re-auditing.

In working to ensure the safety and quality of our products, we celebrate our progress while remaining focused on overcoming the challenges we face.

It is our aim for PepsiCo-owned manufacturing facilities globally to achieve GFSI-recognized certification. As of the end of 2023, 99% of company-owned facilities achieved certification from a GFSI-recognized certification program.

We ask that suppliers of ingredients achieve certification to a GFSI recognized standard, including Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for agricultural commodities, or to demonstrate equivalence through a PepsiCo pre-approval audit scheme. We continue to work with suppliers to increase the proportion of GFSI certifications worldwide.

PepsiCo has established systems and processes to effectively manage and track food safety related regulatory inspections activities globally. In 2023, zero facilities globally had regulatory violations, defined as U.S. FDA warning letter or equivalent.

During the same period, we produced more than 90 million metric tons of beverages and convenient foods globally, of which we recalled 108,000 metric tons, all voluntarily. One product recall was classified as notable as defined in the SASB Processed Food standard because the recall affected a significant amount of product. However, the incident did not cause serious illness or fatality.

In 2023, PepsiCo’s food safety and quality trainings were delivered to employees across all sectors to build the knowledge and skills they require. Training modules were provided to both company-owned and third-party partners at different levels; across these modules, training is tailored to reflect the specific requirements of our employees and their roles. In addition to targeted company and third-party employees, food safety was a specific feature in our company wide Code of Conduct training, reaching over 87,000 employees in 2023.

Strategic partnerships

In line with our Smart Compliance framework, we will continue to leverage external partnerships. For example:

• Auditing bodies: PepsiCo is an active participant in GFSI, AIB International and the Corporate Audit Forum. We also partner with GFSI-recognized certification program owners, FSSC 22000, British Retail Consortium (BRC-GS), the International Featured Standard (IFS) and Safe Quality Food (SQF) to help us track and trace data more effectively and efficiently.
• Trade associations: PepsiCo is an active member of many associations working on quality and food safety issues, including GS1, Consumer Brands Association, International Society of Beverage Technologists, American Beverage Association and FoodDrinkEurope.

What's next?

We continue to work with third-party manufacturers and suppliers to expand the use of GFSI-recognized certifications and to invest in intelligent food safety systems that provide objective evidence and improve our decision making. We are also increasing our focus on food safety and quality culture and engagement from the executive to the front line.

We plan to continue to strengthen PepsiCo's Food Safety and Quality Management System framework, making further investments in information and communications technology, enter into strategic external partnerships and actively engage with regulators, NGOs and other bodies to enable science and risk-based regulation. Our enterprise-wide systems investments must meet future requirements by our regulators and customers for accuracy and speed.