PepsiCo's New Food Manufacturing Plant Aims to Capture Growth in China

The new plant that PepsiCo, Inc. (IW 1000/50) opened earlier this week in Wuhan, China is the company's sixth food manufacturing site in China.

"PepsiCo has a strong and growing food and beverage business in China, and we're making investments to drive sustainable long-term growth," Nooyi said. "The Wuhan plant is a crucial piece of our growth strategy, as it opens new opportunities for PepsiCo in central and western China and will allow more Chinese consumers to enjoy Lay's and other great PepsiCo brands. It also continues our commitment to sustainable development, which we believe is a key driver of both China's and PepsiCo's future success."

The company first entered the Chinese market in 1981.

The PepsiCo plant in Wuhan, which includes 25,000 square meters of production space has the capacity to produce approximately 15,000 tons of Lay's potato chips annually. Lay's is the world's largest food brand and China's top-selling chip brand, according to the company.

The Wuhan plant is the first foods facility built by PepsiCo in China in line with the criteria established by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the world's leading green building standard. The plant is expected to use 30% less water and 20% less energy compared to the 2006 baseline for PepsiCo China Foods manufacturing plants.

Three existing plants in PepsiCo's manufacturing network in China are LEED-certified: Pepsi bottling plants in Chongqing, Nanchang and Kunming.

China is expected to become the world's largest beverage market by 2015. Earlier this year, PepsiCo completed a strategic beverage alliance with Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp. (Tingyi), one of the leading food and beverage companies in China.