How to save water - extract it from potatoes
Speaking to The Guardian, Walter Todd, Vice President of Operations, spoke in-depth about the impact of water scarcity on businesses in the UK and what PepsiCo are doing to reduce our water use - from extracting water from potatoes to efficiency savings.
27 May 2010
In the interview, Walter warned of the dramatic action required by companies to bring water consumption down to sustainable levels. Whilst the UK might not be at high a risk as other parts of the world currently are, areas such as East Anglia are already under stress and the problem is certain to get worse.
According to Walter, "Water is the poor second cousin of carbon - it is still an emerging issue."
"Three to five years ago it was not much talked about but that is changing rapidly. The unpredictability makes us nervous as a business. We are looking at it with a new lens around where we get all our key ingredients such as sunflower oil for our crisps, orange juice for our Tropicana brand and oats for Quaker Oats. There has been a risk assessment at a high level and we are now going through contingency planning."
From 2000-2008 we reduced water use by 45% and we are committed to further reductions. Within 10 years we aim to remove our four crisp factories from the water mains - instead running them entirely from the water extracted from our produce, such as potatoes.
Read the full interview at The Guardian.
Walter Todd is VP of Operations for PepsiCo UK & Ireland and also VP of Sustainability for PepsiCo's European operations.
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