just The Preview - PepsiCo Q1

PepsiCo will report its first quarter results on Thursday (18 April). Here, just-drinks takes a look at the group's highs and lows in the three months to the end of March.

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• In January, PepsiCo moved all its company-owned bottlers in India into two groups to simplify its management structure.
• In China, PepsiCo scored a hit over The Coca-Cola Co when it secured supplier status to Burger King outlets in China, replacing its soft drinks rival. It is not the first time PepsiCo has pushed its rival out of a restaurant. In May, it signed a deal with two US restaurants to end a shared provision with Coca-Cola.
• PepsiCo took its usual running jump at the Super Bowl, with an ad campaign for the prime marketing slot. There was a twist this year, however, as the company teamed up with brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev to launch joint promotions on its products. In China, PepsiCo once again focused on the important Chinese New Year holiday with a short web film.
• At the end of January, PepsiCo confirmed it would no longer use brominated vegetable oil in Gatorade after an online petition against the oil attracted 200,000 signatures. The company said it has no plans to remove the ingredient from its Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew brands.
• One of the biggest drinks announcements of the quarter was the launch of a Mountain Dew extension designed as an alternative to morning coffee. “Breakfast soda” Kickstart comes in Orange Citrus and Fruit Punch flavours, with 80 calories a can. 
• PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi's hints of category reinvention with an upcoming CSD sweetener innovation was met with excitement in February. However, not everyone was happy, with one analyst saying it had the potential to damage PepsiCo's low- and no-calorie beverage portfolio.
• Rumours that investor Nelson Peltz was building up a stake in PepsiCo with a view to merging it with Cadbury's maker Mondelez International hit the newswires in March. A PepsiCo spokesperson responded: “We do not see the need for any large scale M&A.”

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