Ethical Business Practices

Today we will evaluate the PepsiCo past performance marketing their product using the six pillars of the marketing code of ethics—honesty, responsibility, caring, respect, fairness, and citizenship. I will also outline how PepsiCo could make further progress as a good corporate citizen when it comes to consumption of its products, such as green initiatives and philanthropic commitments. Code of Ethics According to â€Å"World’s Most Ethical Companies† (2011), PepsiCo made the list for most ethical company’s in the world. So you may be asking yourself were can there be room for improvement. Let me be the first to fill you in on a little secret, no matter how good you are room for improvement will always be there. The PepsiCo include soft drink brands include Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Mug. Cola is not the company's only beverage: Pepsi sells Tropicana orange juice brands, Gatorade sports drink, SoBe tea, and Aquafina water. The company also owns Frito-Lay, the world's #1 snack maker with offerings such as Lay's, Ruffles, Doritos, and Fritos. Its Quaker Foods unit offers breakfast cereals (Life, Quaker Oats), rice (Rice-A-Roni), and side dishes (Near East). Pepsi's products are available in more than 200 countries. In 2010 the company acquired its two largest bottlers: Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas. Responsibly and Caring PepsiCo takes pride in their quest of providing more food and beverage choices made with wholesome ingredients that contribute to healthier eating and drinking. This means increasing the amount of whole grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and low-fat dairy in our global product portfolio. It also means reducing the average amount of sodium per serving in key global food brands, in key countries, by 25 percent by 2015 reducing the average amount of saturated fat per serving in key global food brands, in key countries, by 15 percent by 2020) reducing the average amount of added sugar per serving in key global beverage brands, in key countries, by 25 percent by 2020 (â€Å"Human Sustainability†, 2012). Honesty According to â€Å"Nutritional Labeling† (2012), PepsiCo is committed to providing safe products and to protecting equity in our brands, trademarks and goodwill. In addition, we're working to ensure that by 2012, basic nutritional information is available to consumers on packages (where feasible to print on the packaging and where permissible by local regulations) for all of our food and beverage products in key markets. In countries where we've already met this standard, we're also working toward an additional goal displaying calorie or energy counts on the fronts of packages. We have already implemented front-of-pack labeling on many products in the U. K. and many other European countries, as well as in Australia. And we are rapidly expanding implementation in a number of countries around the globe, including the U. S. , Canada, Mexico and Brazil (â€Å"Nutritional Labeling†, 2012). Improvements PepsiCo could make a few changes to improve their ethical ranking with the people and media. The first improvement would be triple checking are product for quality and safeness. Nothing worst then having case of sodas sitting in the warehouse with rats around dropping waste everywhere. Or giving you kid oatmeal and it has a dead bug on the inside that kind of stuff will change a person life. I know you can’t catch everything, but they need to minimize to the fullest. The second improvement would be lower some of the sugar levels in a lot of their products. With America youth being obese parents would take notice that this company is stepping the proper steps to help with their kid’s future. I’m sure America’s youth consumer over a billions sodas year and with the lack of working out kids are getting obese it is not just because they drink soda, however soda doesn’t help. While we all know it hard having a good reputation it’s even harder trying to maintain it. PepsiCo has been during ok for many years and I’m sure that will not change for some time to come. The code of ethics is just a stepping stone for companies to follow it is total up to them to go above and beyond the call of their ethical duties to improve the quality of their employees and consumers alike. So in closing I feel PepsiCo has room for improvement and I’m sure they will close that window soon enough.