PepsiCo

Quick Take

PepsiCo spends real money in Washington and its footprint is easy to measure, in part because the company itself publishes more of it than most of its size. It reported $3.92 million in federal lobbying during calendar 2024 and $4.43 million during calendar 2025, and OpenSecrets recorded $1,229,970 in contributions associated with the company across the entire 2024 election cycle. Its corporate PAC, the PepsiCo, Inc. Concerned Citizens Fund, accounts for only a small slice of that. On policy, the company has moved toward the administration on food ingredients while lobbying on the SNAP purchasing restrictions that would hit its own beverages. On workforce policy it moved in February 2025, sunsetting representation targets weeks after the inauguration. Abroad, it holds the longest running American commercial relationship with Moscow of any consumer company, one that began in 1959 and has not ended.

The Memo That Ended the Goals

On February 21, 2025, PepsiCo confirmed a memo from Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta announcing that the company would "sunset" its diversity, equity and inclusion workforce representation goals, stop maintaining a dedicated chief DEI officer, broaden its supplier diversity program to cover small businesses generally, discontinue single demographic category surveys, and evaluate sponsorships based on their contribution to business growth. Laguarta framed the shift as the natural end of a five-year strategy and announced a successor program called Inclusion for Growth.[1][2]

The specifics matter. In 2020 PepsiCo set a goal of raising its Black and Hispanic managerial populations in the United States to 10 percent each by 2025, a target the company described as bringing managerial representation in line with workforce availability.[3] That goal sat inside the Racial Equality Journey, a five year commitment the company valued at more than $570 million, announced in two parts: roughly $400 million aimed at Black communities and representation in June 2020, and more than $170 million aimed at Hispanic communities that October.[3][4] The chief global diversity, equity and inclusion officer role, filled in January 2024, was folded into a "broader role focused on associate engagement, leadership development" and the company's existing A Space to Be You program, which was recast as the flagship of the new approach.[2]

Anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck said publicly that PepsiCo made the changes after he told the company he planned to publish material about its policies. PepsiCo did not confirm that account.[1]

Pressure did not stop from that direction either. The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative group that holds PepsiCo stock, published a response the same week under the headline that Pepsi was not actually eliminating DEI, and said it would still bring its shareholder proposal asking the company to revisit its executive pay incentive guidelines and consider removing DEI goals from compensation.[5]

The reaction from the other direction came quickly. In an April 4, 2025 letter to Laguarta, the Reverend Al Sharpton threatened to lead a boycott through the National Action Network. PepsiCo agreed to meet, and Sharpton said he intended to press the company on what commitments it still held on employment and contracting.[6]

Where the Money Actually Goes

PepsiCo runs a corporate political action committee, the PepsiCo, Inc. Concerned Citizens Fund, registered with the Federal Election Commission as C00039321. In the 2023-2024 election cycle that committee raised $121,446 and contributed $136,387 to federal candidates, spending down a balance in the process.[7][8] It split that candidate money almost evenly, $65,887 to Democrats and $68,000 to Republicans, favoring Democrats among House candidates and Republicans among Senate candidates.[9]

That PAC is a small part of the picture. OpenSecrets recorded $1,229,970 in total contributions associated with PepsiCo for the 2024 cycle, which under the OpenSecrets two-year binning runs from January 1, 2023 through December 2024. The corporate PAC gave $136,387 of it to candidates. The remainder reflects how OpenSecrets builds organization totals, by adding itemized personal contributions above $200 from people who list the company as their employer, together with their immediate families. That money belongs to those individuals, not to PepsiCo. The company recorded no outside spending in the cycle.[7][9]

Lobbying is a separate accounting, filed by calendar year under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. PepsiCo reported $3,980,000 in 2023, $3,920,000 in 2024 and $4,430,000 in 2025.[10]

What that money is aimed at is unusually visible right now. During the first quarter of 2025, as states began seeking Agriculture Department waivers to bar soda and candy from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, PepsiCo disclosed lobbying on SNAP "purchasing restrictions." The American Beverage Association, the industry trade group, spent $790,000 lobbying in that quarter, reported as its largest single quarter since 2010.[11]

The Rules PepsiCo Writes for Its Own Political Money

PepsiCo publishes its own account of how it engages in politics, and it is more detailed than most companies of its size provide. The document is worth reading because it states the standard the company applies to itself.

The board adopted a Political Contributions Policy in 2005 and assigns oversight to its Sustainability and Public Policy Committee, which reviews both corporate and PAC expenditures.[12][13] The stated test for backing a candidate is whether that candidate has, in the company's words, "responsible pro-business records and positions." Four other factors are weighed alongside it: the candidate's commitment to PepsiCo's long-term policy objectives, whether PepsiCo facilities or employees sit in the district or state, the candidate's committee assignments or leadership position, and the candidate's character and record of public service. The company says contributions are distributed in a non-partisan manner.[12]

One line in the ledger is blank for a legal reason rather than a discretionary one. Because PepsiCo does business with the federal government, it is barred from funding independent expenditures in federal elections, the vehicle most often used for large corporate political spending since 2010. It does make corporate contributions in some states and cities where that is permitted, and it publishes both its corporate and its PAC contribution lists annually, currently going back to 2021, alongside a roster of its registered lobbyists.[12]

The company names its own policy priorities. For 2025 it listed agriculture, selective taxation, ingredients, trade, commodities, food security, recycling, environmental sustainability and artificial intelligence, and put its federal lobbying spend at roughly $4 million.[12] Selective taxation is the industry term for beverage taxes.

On climate the disclosure is unusually direct. PepsiCo states that it does not question the science behind climate change and lists a record of support for the Paris Climate Agreement, the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and founding membership in the U.S. Climate Leadership Council. It also says it reviews the climate positions taken by its trade associations.[12]

Those trade associations are named rather than left implied. PepsiCo lists membership in the American Beverage Association, the Consumer Brands Association, SNAC International, the Consumer Goods Forum, the International Council of Beverage Associations, the International Food and Beverage Alliance, FoodDrinkEurope, Food Industry Asia, ConMexico, Business for Social Responsibility, the UN Global Compact, the U.S. Council for International Business, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum. It adds that it does not always agree with those groups, that it directs its dues toward general operating expenses and routine lobbying, and that any association wanting to use PepsiCo money for a political event or election-related activity must get the company's written approval first.[12]

Cleaning the Label While the Rules Change

On an April 24, 2025 earnings call, Laguarta said more than 60 percent of PepsiCo's United States food portfolio already contained no artificial colors, that Lay's and Tostitos would be free of them by the end of that year, and that the company expected to migrate the rest of the portfolio to natural colors or natural color options within a couple of years.[14]

The timing tracked federal action. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had announced a plan in April 2025 to phase petroleum-based synthetic dyes out of the food supply, and Kennedy publicly praised PepsiCo's announcement.[15] By late 2025 the company was marketing dye-free and flavor-free versions of major brands under names such as Simply Cheetos and Doritos Simply NKD, and had reformulated Lay's barbecue flavors to replace artificial dyes with natural ones.[16][17]

On the same April call, asked about the SNAP waivers, Laguarta acknowledged the exposure directly, saying "some of our categories could be exposed to some restrictions."[14] The states seeking or planning waivers at that point were reported to include Arkansas, Indiana, Utah, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Tennessee and Arizona.[14]

Read together, these are two different responses to the same administration. On ingredients, PepsiCo moved with the policy and was praised for it. On SNAP, it lobbied.

What Tariffs Cost in the Soda Aisle

PepsiCo's own filings put a number on trade policy. In its full-year 2025 results, released to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8-K, the company attributed part of the decline in PepsiCo Beverages North America operating profit to higher commodity costs, and disclosed that tariffs accounted for a 6 percentage point impact within that. In the fourth quarter alone the tariff impact within that segment was 11 percentage points.[16]

Consumer companies rarely put a figure on what a specific policy costs them. This one did, in a filed document rather than a press statement.

Cola Diplomacy: How Pepsi Got Behind the Iron Curtain

PepsiCo's presence in Russia did not begin as an ordinary business decision, and how it started explains a great deal about how it has ended.

On July 24, 1959, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev held the argument now known as the kitchen debate. Coca-Cola had declined an invitation to the exhibition. Pepsi had not, and Donald Kendall, then head of its international division, had asked Nixon in advance to get a cup into the Soviet leader's hand. Nixon steered Khrushchev to the Pepsi booth, Kendall handed him two cups, one bottled in Manhattan and one in Moscow, and the photograph of the Soviet premier drinking an American soft drink ran in newspapers around the world.[18]

Kendall became Pepsi's chief executive in 1963 and moved the company's legal business to Nixon's law firm. Once Nixon reached the White House, he lobbied Soviet officials to accept a trade delegation led by Kendall. The obstacle was money. The ruble could not be converted on international markets, so any deal had to be barter. In 1972 Pepsi became the first American soft drink sold in the Soviet Union, trading concentrated syrup for exclusive United States distribution rights to Stolichnaya vodka and Soviet and Eastern Bloc wines. The same agreement kept Coca-Cola out of the Soviet market until 1985.[18]

The Soviet half of the trade worked better than the American half. By the late 1980s Soviet consumers were drinking roughly a billion servings of Pepsi a year. Stolichnaya, which had taken about 70 percent of the United States imported vodka market by 1977, collapsed after the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan triggered a consumer boycott of Russian goods. Moscow needed something else to trade.[18]

What it had was surplus military hardware. In the spring of 1989, through a joint venture with a Norwegian firm, PepsiCo took 17 decommissioned submarines at about $150,000 each along with a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer, plus new Soviet oil tankers to lease or sell, in exchange for more than doubling the number of Pepsi bottling plants in the country. Contemporary press coverage of the warship portion was thin, resting largely on a May 1989 New York Times column, and it is later historical work that has documented it in detail. Kendall later joked to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, "We're disarming the Soviet Union faster than you are." The following year the company signed what was then the largest commercial agreement ever struck between an American company and the Soviet Union, valued at more than $3 billion over a decade. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the contract dissolved with it.[18]

That episode survives online as a claim that PepsiCo briefly commanded one of the world's largest navies. Readers will encounter it, and it is not true. The vessels were small, old and unseaworthy, they went to a Norwegian shipbreaker, and PepsiCo most likely never took physical possession of any of them, collecting the proceeds instead. The Foreign Policy analysis that examined the deal most closely grants that a country operating 17 attack submarines would have ranked alongside India at the time, then concludes that in any real sense the story does not hold up.[18]

Sixty Years Later, Still There

By 2019, Russia was PepsiCo's third largest market by net revenue, at $3.26 billion.[19]

On March 8, 2022, two weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, Laguarta announced the company would suspend sales of Pepsi-Cola, 7Up and Mirinda in Russia along with all capital investment, advertising and promotional activity. In the same statement he said PepsiCo had a responsibility to keep supplying what he called daily essentials, including milk and other dairy products, baby formula and baby food, and cited the livelihoods of 20,000 Russian employees and 40,000 agricultural workers in its supply chain.[20]

The suspension was partial and slower than announced. In September 2022, after Reuters reporters found Pepsi bottles in Russian stores carrying July and August production dates from Russian plants, the company confirmed it had stopped manufacturing Pepsi, 7Up and Mountain Dew there, roughly six months after the original announcement. Snack and dairy production continued.[21]

Construction of a third Russian snack plant, near Novosibirsk, had begun in September 2020, before the invasion, at a cost of about 12 billion rubles and a planned capacity above 60,000 tonnes of Lay's chips and local crisp breads.[19] Ukrainian and German outlets reported in 2024, citing the Russian state news agency TASS, that the first phase of that plant had started up. PepsiCo has not confirmed the startup publicly, and the reporting chain on that specific point is thinner than the rest of this section.[22]

A $4 Billion Investor and a Shrinking Lineup

In September 2025, Elliott Investment Management disclosed a roughly $4 billion stake and publicly criticized PepsiCo for an overly complex brand portfolio and a declining share of the beverage business.[23] PepsiCo and Elliott reached an agreement in December 2025 committing the company to cutting its United States product lineup by nearly 20 percent, closing plants, reducing headcount and targeting margin improvement over three years. Elliott received no board seats and no proxy contest followed.[17][23]

The company had already announced closures of Frito-Lay facilities in Orlando, Florida; Rancho Cucamonga, California; and Liberty, New York, affecting hundreds of workers, which Laguarta described as adjustments to reach the right cost structure.[17]

Who Runs It

Ramon Laguarta, born and raised in Barcelona, has led PepsiCo since 2018 and has held the Chairman and CEO titles simultaneously since February 2019. He sits on the board of Visa, joined the IBM board effective March 1, 2026, is a member of the Business Roundtable, and co-chairs the World Economic Forum's Food Systems Initiative.[24]

The annual meeting on May 6, 2026 shows where organized pressure is now coming from. Shareholders elected all thirteen directors, ratified KPMG with about 92.6 percent of votes cast, and approved executive pay on an advisory basis with about 89 percent. Three shareholder proposals were voted down. A proposal to require an independent board chair drew 255,870,502 votes for against 735,873,528 opposed, roughly 25.8 percent support, and Laguarta said the board believes a combined chairman and chief executive role paired with a strong independent presiding director provides effective leadership.[25][26] A proposal seeking a report on the effectiveness of the company's human rights due diligence, filed by Mercy Investment Services alongside other faith-based and institutional investors, drew about 16.5 percent.[25][26][27] A proposal asking for a report on the treatment of animals in the supply chain, submitted by PETA on behalf of shareholder Kerry Masters after PETA sued the company to get it onto the ballot, drew about 8.8 percent.[25][26][28]

What PepsiCo Sells

PepsiCo reported $93.9 billion in net revenue for fiscal 2025, up 2.3 percent, with operating profit of $11.5 billion, down 11 percent from $12.9 billion, and net income attributable to the company of $8.2 billion. Diluted earnings per share fell 14 percent to $6.00, weighed down by $1.99 billion in intangible asset impairments driven primarily by the Rockstar brand.[16]

The portfolio spans convenient foods and beverages: Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, Tostitos and Quaker on the food side; Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade and, since 2025, the prebiotic soda brand poppi on the beverage side, along with partnerships including Celsius and Siete.[16][17] The food side is the larger business, which is part of why ingredient rules and food stamp eligibility matter more to PepsiCo than the soda label suggests.

Recent News

In February 2026 the company raised its annualized dividend 4 percent to $5.92 per share, its 54th consecutive annual increase, and announced a new $10 billion share repurchase program running through February 2030.[16] It said it would cut prices on some chips, including Tostitos and Doritos, to improve competitiveness. Through the first half of fiscal 2026 net revenue rose 7.3 percent with organic revenue up 2.5 percent, and the company affirmed its full-year guidance.[29]

Where to Find Them

PepsiCo products are sold in more than 200 countries and territories through grocery, mass, convenience and foodservice channels. Corporate headquarters are at 700 Anderson Hill Road in Purchase, New York. The company trades on Nasdaq under PEP and files annual reports on Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Company information is at pepsico.com.[16]

Footnotes

[1] Reuters reporting via Yahoo Finance, "DEI retreat widens as Citigroup and PepsiCo roll back diversity policies," February 22, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dei-retreat-widens-as-citigroup-and-pepsico-roll-back-diversity-policies-154956511.html

[2] Retail Brew, "PepsiCo joins Target, Walmart in rolling back DEI policies," February 24, 2025. https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2025/02/24/pepsico-joins-target-walmart-in-rolling-back-dei-policies

[3] PepsiCo, Inc., "PepsiCo 2020 DE&I Report Illustrates Company's Progressive Journey from Commitment to Action," July 21, 2021, distributed via PR Newswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pepsico-2020-dei-report-illustrates-companys-progressive-journey-from-commitment-to-action-301338546.html

[4] Food Dive, "How PepsiCo plans to increase gender, racial diversity in management by 2025," November 2, 2020. https://www.fooddive.com/news/how-pepsico-plans-to-increase-gender-racial-diversity-in-management-by-202/588132/

[5] National Legal and Policy Center, "Don't Believe It: Pepsi Isn't Eliminating DEI," February 21, 2025. https://nlpc.org/corporate-integrity-project/dont-believe-it-pepsi-isnt-eliminating-dei/

[6] Associated Press, "PepsiCo agrees to meet with Al Sharpton over DEI cuts, potential boycott," April 14, 2025. https://seekingalpha.com/pr/20066457-pepsico-agrees-to-meet-with-al-sharpton-over-dei-cuts-potential-boycott

[7] OpenSecrets, "PepsiCo Inc Profile: Summary," organization ID D000000200, accessed August 4, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/pepsico-inc/summary?id=D000000200

[8] OpenSecrets, "PAC Profile: PepsiCo Inc," committee C00039321, 2024 cycle, accessed August 4, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/pepsico-inc/C00039321/summary/2024

[9] OpenSecrets, "PepsiCo Inc PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates," 2024 cycle, accessed August 5, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/pepsico-inc/C00039321/candidate-recipients/2024

[10] OpenSecrets, "PepsiCo Inc Lobbying Profile," client ID D000000200, accessed August 4, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?id=D000000200

[11] NOTUS via Undark, "A Possible SNAP Soda Ban Gains Momentum from MAHA," May 13, 2025. https://undark.org/2025/05/13/maha-snap-soda-ban/

[12] PepsiCo, Inc., "Public policy engagement, political activities and contributions guidelines," company disclosure, last updated March 27, 2026. https://www.pepsico.com/en/esg-topics/public-policy-engagement-political-activities-and-contribution-guidelines

[13] PepsiCo, Inc., 2025 Proxy Statement, Form DEF 14A, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/77476/000130817925000289/pep4354281-def14a.htm

[14] Food Business News, "PepsiCo to accelerate phaseout of artificial ingredients," April 28, 2025. https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/28167-pepsico-to-accelerate-phaseout-of-artificial-ingredients

[15] Fox News, "PepsiCo to remove artificial ingredients from popular food items by end of 2025," April 28, 2025. https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/pepsico-remove-artificial-ingredients-popular-food-items-end-2025

[16] PepsiCo, Inc., "PepsiCo Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results," February 3, 2026, furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8-K. https://investors.pepsico.com/docs/pepsico-5v9wci20/media/Files/investors/q4-2025-earnings-release.pdf

[17] Food Ingredients First, "PepsiCo formalizes restructuring plan as key investor pushes SKU cuts and price reductions," December 12, 2025. https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/pepsico-elliott-restructuring-sku-cuts.html

[18] Christopher Klein, "Pepsi's Cold War Trade With the USSR: Cola for Submarines?" HISTORY, August 5, 2025, quoting historian Kristy Ironside of McGill University and a Foreign Policy analysis by Paul Musgrave. https://www.history.com/articles/pepsi-navy-soviet-submarines. The underlying analysis is Paul Musgrave, "The Doomed Voyage of Pepsi's Soviet Navy," Foreign Policy, November 27, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/27/pepsi-navy-soviet-ussr/

[19] Just Food, "PepsiCo starts snacks plant build in Russia," September 16, 2020. https://www.just-food.com/news/pepsico-starts-snacks-plant-build-in-russia/

[20] Just Food, "PepsiCo suspends drink sales in Russia; supply of dairy essentials continues," March 9, 2022. https://www.just-food.com/ukraine-crisis/pepsico-suspends-drink-sales-in-russia-supply-of-food-essentials-continues/

[21] Forbes, "Pepsi Reportedly Stops Manufacturing Sodas In Russia," September 20, 2022, reporting on a Reuters investigation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/09/20/pepsi-reportedly-stops-manufacturing-sodas-in-russia-joining-global-food-giants-leaving-amid-ukraine-invasion/

[22] Odessa Journal, "PepsiCo has opened a new savory snacks plant in Russia," April 1, 2024, citing Deutsche Welle and TASS. https://odessa-journal.com/pepsico-has-opened-a-new-savory-snacks-plant-in-russia

[23] Transport Topics, "PepsiCo Plans Layoffs as It Looks to Finish Elliott Talks," December 8, 2025. https://www.ttnews.com/article/pepsi-supply-chains-elliott

[24] IBM, "IBM Elects Ramon L. Laguarta to its Board of Directors," January 30, 2026. https://newsroom.ibm.com/2026-01-30-IBM-Elects-Ramon-L-Laguarta-to-its-Board-of-Directors

[25] PepsiCo, Inc., Form 8-K, Item 5.07, results of the 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders held May 6, 2026, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000077476/000007747626000024/pep-20260506.htm

[26] Ticker Report via Yahoo Finance, "PepsiCo AGM: Shareholders Re-Elect 13 Directors, Back Pay, Reject Governance and ESG Proposals," May 6, 2026. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/pepsico-agm-shareholders-elect-13-021647423.html

[27] Mercy Investment Services, exempt solicitation in support of Proposal 5 at the PepsiCo 2026 annual meeting, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form PX14A6G, April 2026. https://www.stocktitan.net/sec-filings/PEP/px14a6g-pepsico-inc-sec-filing-223ebad84b9d.html

[28] PETA, "Victory! PepsiCo to Allow Shareholder Vote on Bull-Abuse Concerns After Lawsuit," February 24, 2026. https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/victory-pepsico-to-allow-shareholder-vote-on-bull-abuse-concerns-after-lawsuit/

[29] PepsiCo, Inc., "PepsiCo Reports Second-Quarter 2026 Results," July 9, 2026, furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8-K. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000077476/000007747626000037/q220268-kxexhibit991.htm