Clinton Foundation partners PepsiCo to spur development

The partnership's inaugural project was launched in Maharashtra, India with an agriculture initiative to source vitamin-rich cashew fruit from smallholder farmers.

The arrangement is expected to create an important new ingredient supply for PepsiCo’s local juice business while simultaneously improving the livelihood of thousands of cashew growers in the region.

Through the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership model, founded by former President Bill Clinton and philanthropist Frank Giustra, this initiative will apply modern agricultural techniques to improve cashew farming practices, boost yield and productivity, and increase income for local smallholder farmers.

It will also scale up and strengthen India’s cashew supply chain to build the future potential of a domestic and export market.

Most cashew farmers in this area of India farm on less than one hectare of land and live below the poverty line. 

The Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership will use market-driven models to improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers by providing training, facilitating the purchase of their harvest, and handling their distribution and logistics.

The approach has been designed for replication in value chains throughout the world and is currently catalyzing similar supply chain enterprises in Latin America and Haiti.

Cashew fruit – which typically goes unused by most cashew nut farmers – is high in nutritional value.

It is rich in potassium and contains as much as five times the vitamin C as an orange and 50 times the vitamin C as an apple.

PepsiCo plans to use the cashew fruit juice as one of the ingredients in some of its blended fruit juice products in India.

“Committed partners like PepsiCo demonstrate the tremendous impact that social enterprises and the private sector can make when they work together to solve business problems that also advance social good,” said Clinton.

“This initiative embodies Performance with Purpose – PepsiCo’s recognition that our success is inextricably linked to society’s success,” said Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo’s Chairman and CEO.

Nooyi added, "“Sustainable agriculture is critical to PepsiCo’s supply chain and we have a long history of working with local farmers around the world in ways that strengthen our business and the communities in which we operate. This partnership is a great example of aligning business and societal priorities, and we see great potential in continued collaboration with the Clinton Foundation."

The program’s first India cashew harvest is currently underway.

The fruit will be sourced from more than 2,000 smallholder farmers in 2014, with plans to scale the opportunity to as many as 15,000 over the next five years.

PepsiCo India plans to begin incorporating the fruit into some of its blended juice products starting in Spring 2015.

“The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership’s unique approach has the potential to generate meaningful impact in the developing world.  We believe that by creating, scaling and replicating social enterprises in selected value chains we can help disadvantaged populations work themselves out of poverty,” said Frank Giustra.