PepsiCo Acquires Biscuit Manufacturer in Brazil

PURCHASE, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) today announced it has acquired Mabel, a leading producer of cookies, crackers and snacks in Brazil. The acquisition is expected to further strengthen PepsiCo's business in a key emerging growth market.

Biscuits are the largest segment within Brazil's growing snacks category, present in more than 98 percent of Brazilian households. Brazil is the second largest cookie and cracker producer in the world. The addition of Mabel – whose brands include Mabel, Elbi's, Kelly and Skiny – complements PepsiCo's existing food and beverage portfolio and creates new opportunities for future growth and expansion.  Mabel joins a strong portfolio of popular PepsiCo brands in Brazil including Elma Chips, Quaker, Toddy Chocolate Powder and Toddynho Chocolate Milk.

"PepsiCo continues to build its global macro-snacks portfolio and make strategic investments that will drive our business performance and unlock long-term growth opportunities," said John Compton, chief executive officer of PepsiCo Americas Foods and Global Snacks Group. "Brazil is an extremely important market for PepsiCo and this acquisition well positions us in a key segment in the snack category there."

"Mabel is an important part of our plans for Brazil. It's a company with a long history of providing Brazilian consumers with great-tasting products and trusted brands they know and love, and we're excited for them to become part of the PepsiCo family," added Olivier Weber, president of PepsiCo South America, Caribbean and Central America Foods.

With the acquisition, PepsiCo will employ approximately 12,000 people in Brazil and operate 19 food and beverage manufacturing facilities across the country.  

The transaction is subject to a post-closing review by Brazil's Council for Economic Defense.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

PepsiCo continues to take steps to grow its business and invest in markets throughout the Latin America region. For example:

• In September of this year, PepsiCo opened a new manufacturing plant in Feira de Santana, in the Northeast of Brazil, and will generate about 400 direct and indirect jobs.

• PepsiCo recently acquired Dilexis, a traditional manufacturer of cookies and crackers in Argentina.

• In April 2011, Burger King Corporation announced that it had signed a multi-year agreement with PepsiCo to be the exclusive soft drink supplier in more than 1,000 restaurants throughout the company's Latin America and Caribbean region.

• In March 2011, the PepsiCo Foundation contributed $5 million USD to the Inter-American Development Bank's AquaFund. The grant will fund safe water and improved sanitation projects for at least 500,000 people in Latin America.

• In August 2010, PepsiCo announced an investment of $3 million USD to create the Agricultural Development Center of Peru.  The Center, which is the first of its kind in Latin America, will focus on advanced farming techniques for potatoes and other tubers and roots that are used as ingredients in PepsiCo products around the world.

About Mabel

Mabel is a leading cookie manufacturer in Brazil. With five manufacturing plants strategically located throughout Brazil, it has the infrastructure to produce more than 1 million cookie packages per day, which are sold through more than 165,000 points of sale across the country. Today, the company offers more than 200 products, including crackers, cookies and wafers.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo offers the world's largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands, including 19 different product lines that generate more than $1 billion in annual retail sales each. Our main businesses -- Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay, and Pepsi Cola -- also make hundreds of other enjoyable foods and beverages that are respected household names throughout the world. With net revenues of approximately $60 billion, PepsiCo's people are united by our unique commitment to sustainable growth by investing in a healthier future for people and our planet, which we believe also means a more successful future for PepsiCo. We call this commitment Performance with Purpose: PepsiCo's promise to provide a wide range of foods and beverages for local tastes; to find innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment, including by conserving energy and water usage, and reducing packaging volume; to provide a great workplace for our associates; and to respect, support, and invest in the local communities where we operate. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.

Cautionary Statement

Statements in this communication that are "forward-looking statements" are based on currently available information, operating plans and projections about future events and trends. They inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted in such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: changes in demand for PepsiCo's products, as a result of changes in consumer preferences and tastes or otherwise; damage to PepsiCo's reputation; PepsiCo's ability to grow its business in developing and emerging markets or unstable political conditions, civil unrest or other developments and risks in the countries where PepsiCo operates; trade consolidation or the loss of any key customer; changes in the legal and regulatory environment; PepsiCo's ability to build and sustain proper information technology infrastructure, successfully implement its ongoing business transformation initiative or outsource certain functions effectively; unfavorable economic conditions in the countries in which PepsiCo operates; fluctuations in foreign exchange rates; PepsiCo's ability to compete effectively; increased costs, disruption of supply or shortages of raw materials and other supplies; disruption of PepsiCo's supply chain; climate change, or legal, regulatory or market measures to address climate change; PepsiCo's ability to hire or retain key employees or a highly skilled and diverse workforce; failure to successfully renew collective bargaining agreements or strikes or work stoppages; and failure to successfully complete or integrate acquisitions and joint ventures into PepsiCo's existing operations.

For additional information on these and other factors that could cause

PepsiCo's actual results to materially differ from those set forth herein, please see PepsiCo's filings with the SEC, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. PepsiCo undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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SOURCE PepsiCo, Inc.