PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) continued its global agricultural accelerator initiative by granting funding to 14 business projects across 11 countries to address some of the challenges facing agriculture today. PepsiCo has called the initiative the Positive Agriculture Outcomes Fund (PAO).
Launched in August, 2021, the fund offers teams working with PepsiCo co-investment to jump-start Positive Agriculture projects. The intention behind the investments is risk mitigation for burgeoning initiatives while helping to grow development of innovative technologies and approaches that can help with the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.
“We’re in a race to reach the world’s 1.5 degree target and, to do our part, PepsiCo has set a range of ambitious PepsiCo Positive goals, including expanding regenerative agriculture practices and building the resilience of those in our agricultural supply chain by preparing them for a changing climate. Reaching PepsiCo’s – and our planet’s – goals will require fresh thinking and innovation from our agriculture teams and partners all over the world, which is why the PAO Fund was created to make it a bit easier for good ideas to get off the ground,” said Rob Meyers, vice president of Global Sustainable Agriculture.
The PAO Fund invested in projects across a range of commodities, supply chains, and time horizons in 2022. Each of these focus on testing a new regenerative technology or approach with climate resilience and new sustainable landscapes being the takeaways.
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Benefits of the Positive Agriculture Outcomes Fund
The fund brought PepsiCo investments into over 20 different projects in 2021 and 2022. The projects are expected to bring in an estimated revenue of over $27 million through 2026.
“With support from the PAO Fund, we’ve been able to generate much greater engagement and innovation both at the farm level and through closer collaboration with our global teams. This work is not only helping to advance our pep+ goals in the market, but it’s also meaningfully improving the lives of the farmers we’re working with,” said Haseeb Malik, senior manager of agriculture AMESA, PepsiCo.
The company has also put out a four-part digital video series about some of the PAO Fund’s projects. It’s called Growing Our Future and it’s about how the company helping farmers across the world deal with climate change.
Positive agriculture is one of the company’s agendas. PepsiCo intends to source and produce crops and ingredients in a way that helps regenerative agriculture and strengths farming communities. It’s goals include spreading the adoption of regenerative farming practices across 7 million acres by 2030. This ensures sustainable sourcing for the company’s ingredients while improving the plight of over 250,000 people in its supply chain.
