PepsiCo to launch 'affordable' snack

17 November 2008

Food and beverage maker PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd is planning to launch a Rs1/2 ''affordable'' nutritious food product.

The initiative is in line with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. At least 6,000 Indian children below the age of five die every day due to malnourishment or lack of basic micronutrients, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) conducted between December 2005 and August 2006.

This step by PepsiCo, besides reducing malnutrition, will strengthen the company's business in India's rural and semi-urban markets.

''The product has to be affordable for the bottom of the pyramid, those who are poor and suffer from malnutrition. So, we have ball-parked a range of Re1 or Rs2,'' Sanjeev Chadha, chairman of PepsiCo India.

Chadha did not specify the nature of the product, nor is the price yet final. ''It should take another 18-24 months for the product to come out in the market,'' he claimed.

PepsiCo is planning this initiative for quite some time now and, during her visit to India in September, Indra Nooyi, chairperson and chief executive of PepsiCo Inc., had mentioned this.