Community Updates

PepsiCo Employees To Pack More Than One Million Nutritious Meals For Underserved Communities In Westchester County And Latin America

Global food and beverage company PepsiCo kicked off a month-long community service program with 1,000 New York-area employees packing more than 1 million nutritious meals for underserved communities in Westchester County and communities in need in Latin America. PepsiCo's month of giving started today with over 300 employees at the company's headquarters in Purchase, New York, packing more than 285,000 meals.

Published 6 years ago | About a 3 minute read

"PepsiCo's determination to reach people in need and fight hunger is greater than ever before as global hunger continues to rise – impacting an astounding one in every nine people," said Jon Banner, President, PepsiCo Foundation and EVP, Communications. "Our year-round efforts to alleviate hunger intensify today, as our team packs meals for more than 10,000 school children in Guatemalan communities near where we work. At the same time, victims of Hurricane Florence in the Southeast U.S. are being reached by our Food for Good nutrition team with healthy meals as they rebuild their homes and communities."

Over the course of the month, New York-area employees will be hosting 34 packing events to deliver more than 1 million nutritious meals created by international hunger relief organization Rise Against Hunger. The meals provide a comprehensive array of micronutrients and are enriched with rice, soy protein, dried vegetables and 23 essential vitamins and nutrients. Global humanitarian organization CARE and Rise Against Hunger will deliver the finished meals to food insecure communities in Guatemala, elementary schools in El Salvador and Venezuelan families displaced in Colombia and Brazil with the help of local PepsiCo team members.

"Hunger is solvable and is the common thread among the world's most challenging issues," said Rod Brooks, President and CEO of Rise Against Hunger. "By providing nutritious meals to those in need today and creating sustainable solutions for tomorrow, we can create a world without hunger."

"Malnourishment and poverty are intertwined, especially in agricultural communities," said Michelle Nunn, President and CEO of CARE USA. "We are proud to work with PepsiCo to improve the lives of thousands of families in Guatemala, continuing our six decades of work addressing the needs of Guatemalans."

Additionally, PepsiCo's signature nutrition operation, Food for Good, will pack 2,000 weekend backpack bundles full of 10,000 meals for families in Westchester County this month in partnership with Feeding Westchester, a member of the Feeding America network.

PepsiCo and the PepsiCo Foundation have made significant investments and established key partnerships to provide nutritious food and nutrition education globally, in line with its Performance with Purpose goal to provide 3 billion nutritious servings to underserved communities. At the end of 2017, the company increased its products with grains, fruits and vegetables, protein, water and unsweetened tea—what it calls its Everyday Nutrition portfolio—to represent 27.5 percent of the company's total net revenue. PepsiCo's signature nutrition operation Food for Good has also delivered 80 million servings of nutritious foods to low-income families in 19 U.S. communities since 2009, and since 2008 the PepsiCo Foundation has provided more than $12 million of support to the World Food Programme to improve the availability of affordable nutrition for families and children around the world.