Pepsico (PEP)

Increasing commodity costs continue to squeeze profit magins. In the latest quarter gross margins decreased from 55.4% to 54% as prices for everything from corn to vegetable oils and grains rose. The company now sees worldwide commodity costs rising by 9% to 10% up from a February estimate of a 6% increase.^[1]

Though PepsiCo has lead the industry in non-carbonated innovations, a sizable percentage of its beverage sales still come from carbonated soft drinks. PEP could be harmed by continued decline in demand for CSD.

While they did get a cute "orange" cap, the foul up shows that top management not limited to Indra and the BOD cannot manage brands well.

Take a look at KO's china performance and brand invention with coconut chunk milk; they harnessed viral videos to get millions of hits in China.

Contrast this to the mis-design and colossal waste involving Tropicana's generic re design.

How did this get approved? That plus the uglyfied logo shows me that management does not get design.

The only life i've seen lately is the super hot dorito (1st, 2nd degree) and the cool down pepsi.

That and real sugar throw back pepsi.

Foob

North America which is suffering from a sharp pullback in consumer spending (especially in the U.S.) accounts for about 68% of Pepsi's operating income. Pepsi has seen a market deterioration in this critical market over the past couple quarters. In the third quarter of fiscal 2008, Pepsi's American beverage business saw a 11% drop in operating profit amid a 2.5% volume decline. Quaker Foods' North America volume slumped 9%.