THE PROCUREMENT INTERVIEW
“ Some suppliers, and this is a real story, they said, over my dead body, I will send something to PepsiCo. It’ s very transactional. We don’ t know what you guys are doing, so we have to change that”
Marcelo Stefani Global Head of Sourcing & Chief Procurement Officer PepsiCo the very beginning with marketing and with R & D, and we are helping you to do this. So I think this was a big difference that again, this wouldn’ t have happened if you don’ t change the way you operate with your key partners,” Marcelo says.
This shift has transitioned the function’ s focus:“ Don’ t get me wrong, cost is very important and we need to deliver efficiencies in the upstream supply chain in the day-to-day things. So this is not going to disappear. But we changed the world of productivity to the world of value creation.”
Sustainability as a shared goal Under the pep + framework, sustainability is a core requirement of every contract.
Marcelo is clear:“ I think now, from a sustainability point of view, in every agreement, in every building we do, we put the sustainability targets that we together with our suppliers need to deliver.”
This approach is best illustrated by PepsiCo’ s long-term partnerships with agricultural giants like Cargill and ADM. With Cargill, PepsiCo has established a common target for 2030 to have 10 million acres of regenerative agriculture in the US.“ We were working with the Iowa farmers together and the beauty is now we have healthier soils, more resilient farmers and a more secure supply chain, and you cannot do that in a selection.”
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