Product Safety & Quality

PepsiCo has strong global quality and food safety standards. We use only approved ingredients and suppliers, and follow all applicable regulations issued by regulatory authorities. Our products are traceable, which enables us to quickly investigate and address any potential concerns in the marketplace. We ensure that product design is rigorously vetted, and that ingredients and materials are procured, and products are made and sold in full compliance to our standards. Given our large, diverse and ever-changing portfolio we have implemented a smart compliance strategy to ensure compliance. This strategy is based on four key pillars:

• Applying a risk-based approach to support innovation. Applying tools to assess project risk on an increased range of food safety & quality dimensions requirements and tailoring mitigation strategies. This has improved speed to market while enhancing diligence.
• Implementing data and digital technologies: We are driving enhanced product traceability and efficiency by connecting ingredient and product specifications across our systems.
• Leveraging external partnerships to align the supply chain and prevent duplication: Through external industry partnerships such as the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and AIB International certification, we have aligned food safety content, enhanced audit outputs and reduced the need for re-auditing.
• Actively participating in discussions with authorities towards science-supported, risk-based and harmonized standards: Engagement has helped to define new and enhanced food safety regulations in line with a risk-based and data-driven approach. PepsiCo participates in various external organizations to make certain we are aware of the food industry requirements and provide scientific input for regulatory discussions. PepsiCo is committed to learning from the US Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and EU Official Control requirements and we have incorporated these best practices into our global standards.

PepsiCo has robust global compliance programs and systems that mitigate food safety risks. These programs and systems are housed within the Technical Insights, Data & Compliance Function (TDC). The Compliance team includes Food Safety, Quality Assurance, Scientific Affairs, and Regulatory Affairs, supported with input from many other functions within PepsiCo. Food safety performance is reviewed in sector and global PepsiCo Executive Product Integrity Council (EPIC) meetings on a quarterly and annual basis, respectively.

PepsiCo has instituted a new unified global system that stores key quality and food safety data, provides insights and enables data-driven decisions. 

Our Compliance functions are leading efforts to address an increasingly challenging external environment, with increased regulatory expectations.

Continuing our digital journey is a key focus in 2020 to enable faster and more accurate traceability across the enterprise. 

Further embedding our food safety and quality standards across the enterprise is a key priority for 2020 especially in some of our new acquisitions. 

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

• Progress: We have made significant progress in defining and implementing harmonized standards while taking a risk-based approach.
• We have also made good progress in capturing and digitizing data to enable consistent metrics and governance and this journey will continue. As examples we have aligned our product incident program and food safety policy globally and finalized critical food safety standards to assure the safety of incoming ingredients and manufacturing of our products applied for our company owned and third-party manufacturing sites.
• Challenges: The dynamic regulatory environment, acquisition of existing business, acceleration of innovative, regionally driven consumer products and increasing analytical techniques requires constant horizon scanning and proactive quality and food safety action. Technology such as blockchain will require even greater accuracy and speed of traceability and our enterprise wide systems investments must ensure we can anticipate and meet future requirements by our regulators and customers.