PepsiCo Signs Fertilizer Deal with YaraPepsiCo Signs Fertilizer Deal with Yara

The agreement will help PepsiCo secure lower-emission nutrients.

Kristen Kazarian, Managing Editor

July 16, 2024

2 Min Read
Yara will give PepsiCo Europe farmers crop nutrition and the tools they need.
Yara will equip PepsiCo Europe farmers with best-in-class crop nutrition products and advice as well as precision farming digital tools. JackF/iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

PepsiCo Europe has signed an agreement with European fertilizer giant Yara International ASA to secure lower-emission crop nutrients for farmers it buys from in Europe.

As part of the partnership, which spans multiple countries, participating PepsiCo Europe farmers will be equipped with best-in-class crop nutrition products and advice as well as precision farming digital tools. This will allow the food and beverage giant to increase nutrient use efficiency (NUE), boost yields, and reduce the carbon footprint of their crops. Yara will supply PepsiCo with the products and services.

Yara will initially supply PepsiCo farmers with traditional products made using natural gas, but plans to boost volumes of fertilizer manufactured with either renewable ammonia or ammonia produced via carbon capture and storage by 2030. The fertilizer company will deliver up to 165,000 tons of fertilizer per year to PepsiCo, covering around 25% of their crop fertilizer needs in Europe.

The partnership, which will help drive the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices, will include approximately 1,000 farms, covering around 128,000 hectares across the European Union and the UK. PepsiCo said that efforts will initially focus on potatoes, and then expand to other crops such as oats and corn.

“This partnership with Yara aligns with our end-to-end transformation known as PepsiCo Positive (pep+) and will be critical as we transition towards the net-zero food system of the future. Targeting Scope 3 emissions is central to our pep+ agenda, but it can be one of the most challenging areas to directly influence. Providing our farmers with fertilizers that have a lower carbon footprint and supporting them to improve crop nutrition end-to-end will allow us to make a significant step towards our target of achieving net zero by 2040,” said Archana Jagannathan, chief sustainability officer at PepsiCo Europe.

Fertilizers are the biggest opportunity to reduce emissions as fertilizer production and in-field emissions account for half of PepsiCo’s average potato carbon footprint in Europe. 29% is related to fertilizer production emissions and 25% to fertilizer in-field emissions. 

This partnership will also further scale up sustainable nutrient management practices across the PepsiCo farmer groups. This will include full season crop and soil data capture and monitoring using PepsiCo’s CropTrak and ML Analytics tool, and will be complemented by Yara's digital solutions offering, for example digital satellite imagery via the AtFarm platform and the MegaLab soil analysis.

The collaboration underlines the companies’ shared commitment to building a more sustainable food system in line with the European Union’s climate targets.

About the Author

Kristen Kazarian

Managing Editor

Kristen Kazarian has been a writer and editor for more than three decades. She has worked at several consumer magazines and B2B publications in the fields of food and beverage, packaging, processing, women's interest, local news, health and nutrition, fashion and beauty, automotive, and IT.

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