The potential - and perils - of PepsiCo's health kick Dairy, fruit and veg

Just Food - 14.10.10
The potential - and perils - of PepsiCo's health kick Dairy, fruit and veg. On the face of it, these products seem a world away from the carbonated soft drinks and crisps that have long been core to PepsiCo's business. However, the US food and beverage giant is set to make a serious move to grow its presence in the healthier areas of the market.

Last week, the group unveiled plans to set up a business unit focusing squarely
on nutrition and targeting sectors that are relatively untouched territory for PepsiCo.
Demand for high-sugar fizzy drinks and salty snacks is waning in the West and consumers in emerging markets, particularly in the key middle-class demographic, are also showing signs
of wanting healthier variants. For instance, research from just-food shows that India and China will be drivers of the global market for healthier snacks during this decade.
By positioning PepsiCo to focus more on health and wellness, Nooyi has a better chance of securing the long-term prosperity of the company. That said, the "nutrition" element of PepsiCo's stable is already a substantial business in its own right. The company claims its nutrition operations, home to brands like Quaker and Tropicana, already generate US$10m
in annual sales. PepsiCo's ambition is to triple those revenues in ten years.

Quaker and Tropicana are likely to be key planks in PepsiCo's plan. When PepsiCo announced the creation of the "global nutrition unit" last week, the company's ambitions in dairy, fruit and veg caught the eye. However, the group also included "grains" in its plans and, in Quaker,
they have a global brand upon which to build.

In the UK, Quaker is driving PepsiCo's growth as we speak. Speaking
to the BBC last week, Richard Evans, the head of PepsiCo's operations
in the UK and Ireland, said the brand was among the fastest parts of
its business. "If you look at that business the fastest growing parts of it are
actually juice and grain and Quaker Oats," Evans said.

PepsiCo's announcement last week was just the latest
in a series the company has made in the last 12 months,
from the establishment of an R&D facility in the US to
"fundamentally improve" the nutritional profi le of its
products to the creation of new targets to lower the amount
of salt, saturated fat and added sugar worldwide.
The company's UK arm made its own announcement this
spring that fi t the group's overall strategy. "In March, we
published a health report that said the kind of business we
wanted to be by 2020, which is one primarily based around
fruit, veg and grain," Evans said. "The reason we're doing
that is because consumers want healthier choices."
Of course, any moves to develop a business is a risk -
even in what could be deemed to be a company's area of
expertise. Last month, PepsiCo UK and Ireland said it
had pulled Pepsi Raw, a product that had been billed as
a "natural" alternative to Pepsi cola. The
company blamed a poor performance in the
UK supermarket channel.

There is an inherent risk to innovation and,
as PepsiCo looks to build its nutrition business,
some products will inevitably fail. But,
as Evans told the BBC, perseverance is vital.
"It's about trying. There are loads of products
that lots of companies have brought
to market and haven't worked. The trick is
[to ask] what did you learn from that? We
learned that it wasn't differentiated enough
versus what we sell every day, so consumers
told us in unequivocal terms that that wasn't
quite what they were looking for. It's about
going back and trying again."