Food Frontiers Blog

Derek Yach was recently one of the plenary speakers at the recent Grantmakers In Health Annual Meeting in Baltimore. Grantmakers In Health (GIH) is an organization dedicated to helping foundations and corporate giving programs improve the health of all people. Derek spoke about Performance with Purpose, the company’s belief that what’s right for people and our planet leads a more successful future for PepsiCo. He noted that we have clear goals that address public health, ”such as aims to reduce salt, sugar, and saturated fats in products, and, at the same time, increase the proportion of healthier products in our portfolio.” He stressed that being guided by Performance with Purpose is important because societal needs are “deeply embedded, funded, and executed within the daily operations of [a] company [and are] linked to the way executives are compensated and the way companies report on their progress.” However, trade-offs still exist that... Read more

We are experimenting with several new irrigation techniques that will help expand the seasons that chickpeas can be grown in Ethiopia as a way to increase yields by planting more times during the year. Read more

Throughout Ethiopia, approximately three million small-scale farmers without access to many modern production methods account for more than 80 percent of total production of oilseeds and pulses crops. Read more

Chickpeas are a major pulse crop in Ethiopia, and are important for both the domestic and export market. Read more

See the difference here between a chickpea that come for the local seed, and a larger chickpea that comes from a new seed introduced by the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research. Read more

We are in pilot phase now and are testing a variety of methods – irrigation, fertilizer, seed spacing, seed variety – to see what combination provides best yield for farmers. Later in 2012, another crop will be planted, based on these new learnings. Read more

These chickpeas, in pod and on stem, are being grown on a farm in Shoa, Ethiopia about an hour from the capital city, Addis Ababa. The chickpea was originally found in what is now Turkey about 7,500 years ago. Read more

I’m with several of my PepsiCo colleagues at wintry Davos this week where the forum’s founder says he has never seen so much snow here in the event’s 42 years. Many conversations are predictably about the economic troubles in Europe and the influence of Asia – but my colleagues and I are particularly engaged in agriculture discussions this year. Read more

PepsiCo’s Derek Yach recently spoke with USAID about our unique, trilateral partnership with USAID and the United Nations World Food Program that was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2011 annual meeting in New York in September. A key achievement of the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative, this partnership will help build long-term economic stability for smallholder chickpea farmers in Ethiopia by involving them directly in PepsiCo’s product supply chain. In the interview, Derek explains Enterprise EthioPEA, “PepsiCo hopes to use chickpeas to address famine and malnourishment in the Horn of Africa, stimulate economic development in Ethiopia, and support PepsiCo’s business strategy for Africa more generally. Today, PepsiCo is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of chickpea-based hummus, a product that is experiencing rapid growth in demand. Chickpeas will play an important role in growing PepsiCo’s nutrition business to $30 billion in revenue by 2020. This is... Read more

Last Monday, PepsiCo’s Global Health and Agriculture Policy (GHAP) team hosted a breakfast event at the UN to highlight the important role of agriculture in health and nutrition efforts. Along with our co-hosts, the United Nations Foundation and Business Council for the UN, we were pleased to provide a platform for the release of a new report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, “Bringing Agriculture to the Table.” We were joined by a panel of distinguished speakers, each of whom shared important perspectives on the intersection of agriculture, food and health. Patrick Kelley, director of the Board on Global Health for the Institute of Medicine, moderated the event. Marshall Bouton, president of the Chicago Council, gave opening remarks. Rachel Nugent, the report’s author, walked the audience through the recommendations and findings. Of note were her comments on the use of a “value chain” to identify social,... Read more