PepsiCo Inc (NASDAQ: PEP) Q3 2021 earnings call dated Oct. 05, 2021
Corporate Participants:
Ravi Pamnani — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hugh F. Johnston — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Dara Mohsenian — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Andrea Teixeira — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Lauren Lieberman — Barclays — Analyst
Bryan Spillane — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Laurent Grandet — Guggenheim — Analyst
Vivien Azer — Cowen & Co — Analyst
Kevin Grundy — Jefferies — Analyst
Wendy Nicholson — Citi — Analyst
Nik Modi — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst
Robert Ottenstein — Evercore — Analyst
Stephen Powers — Deutsche Bank — Analyst
Kaumil Gajrawala — Credit Suisse — Analyst
Sean King — UBS — Analyst
Christopher Carey — Wells Fargo Securities — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to PepsiCo’s 2021 Third Quarter Earnings Question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Today’s call is being recorded and will be archived at www.pepsico.com.
It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Ravi Pamnani, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Pamnani, you may begin.
Ravi Pamnani — Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you, operator. I hope everyone has had a chance this morning to review our press release and prepared remarks, both of which are available on our website.
Before we begin, please take note of our cautionary statement. We may make forward-looking statements on today’s call, including about our business plans and updated 2021 guidance and the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect our view as of today, October 5, 2021, and we are under no obligation to update. When discussing our results, we refer to non-GAAP measures which exclude certain items from reported results. Please refer to our Q3 2021 earnings release and Q3 2021 Form 10-Q available on pepsico.com for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and additional information regarding our results, including a discussion of factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from forward-looking statements.
Joining me today are PepsiCo’s Chairman and CEO, Ramon Laguarta; and PepsiCo’s Vice Chairman and CFO, Hugh Johnston. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question.
And with that, I will turn it over to the operator for the first questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley.
Dara Mohsenian — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. Obviously, very strong topline results again here in Q3 and for the full year, you now expect 8% organic sales growth, maybe the best result we’ve seen in recent history. So can you just discuss some of the key drivers behind the recent acceleration in topline growth? How sustainable they are as you look out longer term? And then also just near term, are you confident you can sustain mid single-digit organic sales growth in line with the long-term algorithm, particularly maybe you catch up on supply or as we look specifically at 2022, could there be some risk as you cycle these difficult comparisons from 2021, how you guys think about that conceptually would be helpful?
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, hi there, good morning. Yeah, listen, I think we’re very pleased with the — with the performance of the business overall. I think is driven by — categories are healthy, both our beverage and food categories, snacks categories are growing faster than food and beverage overall in the U.S., and globally. So I think we’re planning in categories that are doing very well I would say during pandemic, now as we are exiting the pandemic in many markets around the world itself, so that’s one thing.
The other component of our success is I think we’re becoming much more competitive across both our categories, in most of the markets where we operate. And that’s been a consequence of the investments we’ve been making in the brands, I think pretty good innovation. Obviously, investments we’ve made in go-to-market, capacity, new capabilities, talent, everything that we’ve be talking to you for the last couple of years. So we’re seeing the momentum across the business and we’re seeing that momentum continuing into the balance of the year. That’s why we are elevating our guidance for topline, and we think that that momentum will continue well into the year — into the 2022. [Speech Overlap]
Hugh F. Johnston — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Dara, specifically on ’22, and I know obviously there is always going to be lots of questions on that, and historically you’ve been with us for a long time. We typically don’t talk about the following year until we get to February, but given the level of question and given that the level of volatility, I think we thought it was prudent at least to give some indication of where we are on ’22. In short, we expect our organic revenue growth in our core constant-currency EPS growth to be in line with our long-term objectives in 2022. I know that’s going to sort of create a lot of additional questions and candidly we’re not ready to get into all of the details of that because frankly we’re still early in our planning process, but I think we can say with confidence that we expect both revenue and core constant currency EPS to be in line with the long-term objectives for ’22. So hopefully that gives everyone some level of comfort that as we emerge from Q4, we emerge with a lot of momentum in the topline as well as a business that has got its supply chain well managed and and on good footing to deliver another good year next year.
Dara Mohsenian — Morgan Stanley — Analyst
Thanks, very helpful.
Operator
And we will take our next question from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs.
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Hi, thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Bonnie.
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
I guess I have a bit of a follow-on question as it relates to topline and maybe specifically on innovation where we’re hearing from some of our industry contacts that your innovation pipeline for next year from what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, it looks very robust. So just love to hear some color for you in terms of — if you are in fact stepping up your innovation significantly versus prior years and do you think you’re going to need to also step up you’re A&M spend to really support that that pipeline and ensure that these innovations really get the support they need in the bottom market? Thanks.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Bonnie, what is good that you’re hearing from our customers that innovation is good, its always a good feedback. Listen, now more seriously, I think we’ve always seen innovation as a key driver of our competitive advantage in the marketplace and we’ve been investing a lot in R&D, we’ve investing a lot in insights and we’re connecting better. I think insights with R&D and the whole commercial execution to get the maximum return on those innovations. So I think the machine is ready and it keeps getting better year after year. So our pipeline is strong. I would say our pipeline in 2021 was very strong as well, and we’re seeing the return from that — from that innovation, across the world we’re trying to be much more local, much more mid-term and long term, much more incremental in the way we think of our innovation.
So yes, have when it comes to the investment behind the innovation, I think we have the right level of A&M money in our business to support innovation in a big way and is not only A&M, but as you know we have a very strong push system that allows us to give innovation a lot of visibility and separate it from the rest of the category and make sure that the trial levels are higher and the repeat levels are good. So I would say, yes, there will be a strong innovation across beverages and snacks. We think it’s going to be quite incremental and I would think we have the right level of resources to support that innovation within our current algorithm. So I would not expect a higher A&M next year.
Bonnie Herzog — Goldman Sachs — Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Andrea Teixeira with J.P. Morgan.
Andrea Teixeira — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Thank you, and good morning to all. I just wanted to go back to the balance of cost supply chain and labor. In the prepared remarks, Hugh, you did talk about those of, obviously it’s no surprise to anyone, but it was a 14 percentage point impact on EBIT and I understand that your cost inflation had been running around mid-single digits and as such I think like the EPS and you having the pricing coming through also in the fourth quarter strongly. So should we read the EPS floor of $1.47 a reflection of those of increase? And you said not necessarily for 2022, but perhaps you’re not going to flow all of the upside that we saw so far in the year into the EPS for the year just because of these investments, just said you’re pretty strong ’22, is that the way we should read?
Hugh F. Johnston — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Andrea, good question. I think I would think about it this way. Obviously, we’ve giving some pretty specific guidance in terms of where we expect EPS to land for Q4. You know that we forward by six to nine months those hedges that we had in the beginning of the year are starting to roll off, the new ones that are in place are higher cost. We had shared in the last call as well as in the prepared remarks today that we expect to be able to price through the the inflation that we’re facing, whether it be commodities inflation or other types of operating expense inflation. Some of that pricing occurred in the summer, much more of it is occurring in the fall in the beverage business and substantially all of it for 2021 in the snack-food business is occurring really as we speak during these weeks right now. You also know that we forward by that six to nine months out. So we will have a better handle on where exactly 2022 costs are going to land as we get into the first quarter of 2022, and I would expect us to price a bit more to be reflective of some of that sort of finalization of costs during the course of 2022. So Q4, some of the pricing coming through, the balance of it coming in Q1 of 2022, and the EPS guidance is reflective of all of that.
Andrea Teixeira — J.P. Morgan — Analyst
Great, thank you. I’ll pass it on.
Operator
We will take our next question from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.
Lauren Lieberman — Barclays — Analyst
Great, thanks. Just to follow-up on that, I mean we hear your comments on, you forward by six to nine months until you have more visibility as you get into the first quarter onto the cost base. That suggests a lot of pricing and so I was hoping you could just comment on elasticity? Whether what you’re seeing in terms of your models? If you’re seeing less elasticity than traditionally because the innovation has been so strong, if it’s tough to really get a read because of all of the COVID comparisons that are flowing through consumer behavior right now, but curious on the elasticity piece because it does imply a lot of pricing? Thanks.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Lauren, I’ll take. I’ll take a first go at this and then maybe Hugh can add some more comments. What we’re seeing across the world is much lower elasticity on the pricing that we’ve seen historically, and that applies to developing markets, Western Europe and the U.S. So across the world consumer seems to be looking at pricing a little bit differently than before, it could be several hypotheses. I think in our case our brands are stronger and I think our innovation is stronger as you are saying, so that could be a factor. There could be also some behaviors as consumers are shopping faster in store and they might be paying less attention to pricing as a decision factor and they might be giving more relevance to the brands or brands that they feel more, I think closer to a more — yeah, I would say closer, more and more emotionally attached to as our brand. So we’re seeing less elasticity. We’re adjusting our models as we go and that’s obviously informing our decisions as we price balance of the year and into 2022.
Operator
And we will take our next question from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America.
Bryan Spillane — Bank of America Merrill Lynch — Analyst
Hey, good morning, everyone. My question — my question is around AMESA and APAC. And if we look at the year-to-date profit contribution from those two segments, it’s contributing about a quarter of the operating profit, just incremental dollars, right? If you look at it on a currency neutral basis, you’ve got a pretty healthy gap, right, on currency neutral operating profit growth versus what the currency neutral organic sales growth is. So I guess my question is, just are we at a point in those two segments where there is enough scale where you could really start to see a sustained margin improvement and profit contribution to the total going forward? Or is there something just sort of unusual in the near term that’s just driving those margins?
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I think Bryan that your two hypotheses are valid. I think there is a lapping effect. So, especially, AMESA last year suffered a lot given its geographies. So India, Pakistan, Middle East and Africa, clearly they were challenged last year, they’re coming back — is a very beverage focused business, clearly it was more impacted by the COVID mobility restrictions. So we’re seeing — we’re seeing those business coming back. And we have high scale and we have high share in many of those markets and our advertising and marketing is doing very well. So part of that is lapping.
Your second question on scale. Yes, scale is getting — obviously, every year you see the growth level on the topline. We’re getting to scale levels that are pretty good in many of the critical markets in that region and that’s giving us obviously the opportunity to do better in the marketplace and the flow-through is also stronger. So I think the two are relevant. If you think about the business going forward, those are very strategic markets for us going forward. And we continue to invest in everything from technologies so we can expand the portfolio, talent. Obviously, there is a war for talent in that part of the world. I think we’re a scale company that does a good job with developing talent in that part of the world and then obviously our go-to-market being very strong. We have very good markets [Phonetic] and wherever we have our own operations, especially in the food business, we are also investing in digitalization and everything that goes with being more precise and more agile. So hopefully I’m answering both the short-term, but also more especially for me the long-term of how we see that part of the world.
Operator
And we will take our next question from Laurent Grandet with Guggenheim.
Laurent Grandet — Guggenheim — Analyst
Hey, good morning, everyone, and congrats on the strong quarter and that’s very good at current environment. So talking about innovation, it’s great to see you leading the company, pushing the usual boundaries. So during the quarter you announced a partnership with the Boston Beer Company to introduce Hard Mountain Dew in the U.S. So the question is not so much about the potential of that initiative, but more on the route to market you decided to choose. So we’d like to understand why you decided to create your own distribution rather than rely on the Boston Beer wholesaler network? What is the end game here and by extension your strategy not only here in the U.S. and internationally? Thank you.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Laurent. We have a good partnership with the Boston Beer Company and they have the R&D and the knowledge in this space that we don’t. We have the brand as a Mountain Dew, I think will play very well in that space. It will be quite differentiated in terms of the flavor profile and the emotional connection. So that’s how we’re thinking about it in terms of the first step into this market. From the distribution point of view, we think we have an opportunity to create a distribution system in the U.S. that is quite unique in the sense that it would be an integrated distribution system that can make coordinated decisions across multiple states from one decision point, and that could be, I think competitively advantage. We’re starting with a number of states where we have the license to operate and we’ll take it from there. We feel optimistic. We think will be very incremental. It would help us with the drop size, it will help us with the economics of the routes eventually, and within the same as we’re doing with a chill distribution system that goes very popular and is unique and it covers the whole country, we think we could eventually vision a distribution system that can be quite popular and quite integrated on the low alcohol part of our portfolio as well.
Operator
We will take our next question from Vivien Azer from Cowen.
Vivien Azer — Cowen & Co — Analyst
Hi. Yeah, I was just hoping actually to follow-up on the hard seltzer questions please. Just curious your impressions of the overall category, it’s obviously been incredibly contingence the decelerating trend, and whether you had all discussed perhaps introducing Mountain Dew is the key and cocktail as opposed to hard seltzer because it does seem that that’s where the consumer is moving? Thank you.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, listen our view on the categories is very sizable, I think its almost $9 billion retail value now and growing 20% and with high good margins above the average of the categories are a clearly space where we should be playing and that’s how we’re thinking about this. We see consumer trends that favor that this category will continue to grow in its current form or with new innovation. So that’s why we decided to participate. Our first entries with Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew is going to be a flavored malt beverage, not a house [Indecipherable] I think will be a differentiated flavor with a very unique brands. So I think we can carve out our own space in that — in that relatively crowded market and we’ll take it from there. Obviously, we have a pipeline of ideas that we will be disclosing as we go.
Operator
We will take our next question from Kevin Grundy with Jefferies.
Kevin Grundy — Jefferies — Analyst
Hey, good morning, everyone, and congratulations on the strong results. Ramon, I wanted to ask you about the decision to sell the juice businesses and sort of overall satisfaction with the portfolio. So the drop business of course has been with the company for, not mistaken over two decades. You go back over the years, the Quaker business has had a nice balance. I think there has been some discussion in the marketplace about a potential divestiture there from time-to-time. Maybe you could just sort of walk us through the decision to sell the juice business? What went into it? Can you maybe comment on preliminary thoughts on uses of the proceeds when the deal closes? And then, Ramon, just broadly overall satisfaction in potential other areas of divestiture. Thank you.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Kevin, good morning. Listen, I think we’ve been looking obviously at our portfolio since I started with you and the team and we’ve added some assets to the company in high-growth spaces long-term. We’ve added assets in Africa, we’ve added assets in in China, we’ve added assets here in the U.S., that allow us to grow into new spaces, value-added dairy or energy or healthier snacks. We’ve made some decisions over the last few years to add assets that will give us accelerated growth. At the same time we’ve been looking at other parts of the portfolio where by the long-term growth and the long-term margin creation is less exciting and in that context is where we see the juice business, is a good business and that is probably not a business that we think we can grow at the speed with the margins that we’re going to grow PepsiCo overall, and that’s why we decided to make this decision. We found a great partner in PAI. They have very good experience with previous similar partnerships with one of the large food companies. We believe we have a way for this JV that we’re creating to continue to create synergies on the operational side for the juice business, continue to innovate and make sure that our brands, because we’re going to be 40% of that JV, continue to thrive and compete in a better way than they would probably do in our portfolio where we have a lot of choices where to invest and where to focus. So that’s the – that’s, Kevin, the logic behind this, that now Hugh can tell you about the financial part, which is also very attractive I would say.
Hugh F. Johnston — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Kevin, no change to what we had previously communicated on use of proceeds. Number one, we’ll use it to reduce debt. Obviously, we’re losing some EBITDA, so we’ll adjust our debt levels to reflect that. Number two, as we have been, we’ll use the funds to invest in organic capex back into the business. Obviously, it pegs a question and I can see where people might go and what does it mean for share repurchase in 2022. And the answer is, we’ll talk about share repurchase in February on all of that. To me that’s a broader question on guidance, so — but I know the question is out there, so wanted do at least say we’ll be with that when we get into ’22.
Operator
We’ll will take our next question from Wendy Nicholson with Citi.
Wendy Nicholson — Citi — Analyst
Hi, and my question is a follow-up, but not specifically on share repurchases. But this year, sensibly you said you wouldn’t be buying back as much stock because you wanted to invest in some of the acquired businesses and I have two questions on that. Number one, we haven’t as of the nine month seen capex actually pick up meaningfully, so I’m wondering what sort of the investments you are making? Is it still capex to come in some of those acquired businesses? But also you cited those acquired businesses as being a primary reason for your gross margin erosion in the quarter. And I’m wondering how long that will persist? Are those businesses just structurally lower gross margin? Do you think that’s going to be something in perpetuity or are there things you can do either pricing or restructuring wise to get the gross margins in those acquired businesses up?
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Wendy, I’ll address both of those questions. Regarding the investments, I think the indication was that we’re going to invest broadly back in the business, not just specifically into those acquired businesses as it relates to capex. Clearly they are a part of that mix, you’re absolutely right. But there was a broader comment about — around capex. And you know, capex is at a higher sustained level than it was perhaps a few years ago as we’re driving a faster rate of growth in the company and making our supply chain more resilient as well. So I think from that standpoint the numbers are pretty consistent with the strategic intent that we had articulated a bit earlier.
Regarding the balance of — oh, yeah, in terms of the international M&A piece. We through the the overlap period. The biggest driver on that obviously was pioneer, to some degree Be and Cheery as well, its the lower gross margin business. We really are through that as of the end of the second quarter. So that’s not an impact in mixing our margins down any further, that we’re past that as of the Q3 results.
Operator
We will take our next question from Nik Modi with RBC Capital Markets.
Nik Modi — RBC Capital Markets — Analyst
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everyone, Ramon, I was hoping you could comment on just general strength in packaged beverage. I mean, I think all of us have been pretty surprised by the strength, especially with all the pricing in the marketplace. So I was wondering just from a consumer insight standpoint what do you think is driving that despite the mobility improvement we’re seeing?
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Nick, listen. Yeah, clearly the category is very healthy across the world, obviously the U.S., Western Europe, but also developing markets. We’re seeing obviously the away from home business picking up. I think in Q3 our food — away from home business is a 90% index to ’19, it keeps going up with every month that goes by. So clearly that’s a very positive sign. Now our convenience store business continues to do very well as consumers are having higher mobility. But the remarkable thing is that the in-home consumption continues to be quite high. So consumers are not — are still using the home as a hub and continue to entertain at home and continue to do more things at home, and that’s driving additional consumption at home versus the previous ’19 levels. So I think we’re in a very good place where consumption at home is higher, consumption on the go is increasing and most of the channels in our foodservice business are picking up. So pretty good momentum.
We expect those trends to continue for a while and we think that consumers have changed some of their habits from what we’re reading in our insights and we think that the beverage category is in a very positive situation for the upcoming future. We see the same with snacks, by the way. So the snack business, which is obviously a big part of our growth in sales and profits, we see that category very, very consistent across the world and it was during the pandemic, it is now growing a very fast pace as consumers are gaining mobility as well. So I think, as I said at the beginning, our two categories where we operate are growing significantly higher than the food and beverage categories overall. And that is an advantage that we have as a company as we play in two categories there. From the consumer point of view, a very preferred.
Operator
Our next question comes from Robert Ottenstein with Evercore.
Robert Ottenstein — Evercore — Analyst
Great, thank you very much, and apologies if somebody asked this, my phone dropped for a few minutes. But, so wondering if you can give us any kind of update in terms of your shelf space in North America on beverages? There was obviously, resets we’re delayed in 2020. We’ve had some this year and particularly on the C-store side where I think you were really focused on improving your position there with the energy drink off, right. Thank you.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Right. Yes, listen, I won’t go into a lot of specifics, its widely available information. I would say that we’re gaining space both in convenience as you were saying, it was a focus and we invested to gain additional space not only for our energy business but for making sure that our innovation was incremental in space, as that’s what really makes a difference in the overall output of the company.
We have, if you think about the other variable which is secondary displays or overall inventory on the floor. Because we’ve had some supply chain constraints in some of our product, we’ve pulled back on some of the inventory on the perimeter during the summer voluntarily I would say, just to make sure that we were able to service the customers at the right level, that’s something temporary that obviously we will — we will push back as improve our reliability of the supply chain. That clearly is a a positive element, I would say of our of our mix, of our topline growth, the additional space that we are — we’re driving for both our beverages and snacks across all the channels. That’s where we see the value of our push model or DSD is really helping us to execute with precision and not just muscle, but we’re putting more and more intelligence in where we drive this space, how do we execute that space and how the positive feedback loop that we created with our people on the ground, our associates on the ground to make that a differentiation for our company.
Operator
We will take our next question from Stephen Powers with Deutsche Bank.
Stephen Powers — Deutsche Bank — Analyst
Yeah, hey, thanks. Going back to the topline, Ramon, as you look across the strength across your emerging market businesses, I wonder if there’s anything you could speak to in terms of where that strength is coming from a channel perspective? Whether it’s balanced, whether you’re seeing outsized strength perhaps in places where you may have not expected when the year began. And I guess if that answer varies if at all by key market, those insights would be helpful as well? Thanks.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Steve, a couple of things I would say, especially particularly to developing markets. We’re seeing a higher mobility that we were expecting earlier in the year. So we’ve seen — maybe we’re a bit conservative as we were planning the year in terms of how COVID would impact some of the developing markets. Clearly, the consumers have found ways to increase our mobility and going back to their routines of work or school or whatever — that’s helped us.
The other thing we’ve seen positive as I mentioned earlier is that the elasticity to pricing has been better than we had initially in our models as well. So we’re seeing consumers staying with our brands better. I think that’s a consequence of the investments we’ve been putting in our brands and the way we’re executing our pricing decisions are much more informed by data and granularity and we’re able to execute different strategies by channel, by brand in very — in very nuance way. I think those two elements are reducing the elasticity impact on our — on our business and making our international business I think more competitive and thriving in the majority of the market. So those two will be the elements. Steve, if I had to single out what’s been differential versus our original estimations.
Hugh F. Johnston — Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
And Steve, just to add to Ramon’s to answer with a few numbers. Overall D&E markets were up 19%. So we saw a good strong growth across D&E and then some of the biggest markets for us, Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico were all up either in the teens or 20%. So very broad-based growth across all of the big key D&E markets for us.
Operator
And we will take our next question from Kaumil Gajrawala [Phonetic] with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Kaumil Gajrawala — Credit Suisse — Analyst
Everybody, good morning. Can we have — would you guys mind giving us an update on SodaStream, you’ve obviously owned it for a good period of time, you’re mentioning in a bit more now. It feels like this pandemic could have been a moment that really very structurally changed what the future of this business might look like. So maybe just starting with how big is it now? What’s household penetration looking like and perhaps some of your plans there? I think that the useful. Thank you.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Kaumil, let me take, we’re going to specifics of size, but this is clearly the business as we continue to invest in that business, it’s very successful and is a key strategic driver of our future growth as a company. In terms of the performance, I would say we keep gaining penetration in what are the core markets, core markets being Central Europe, Northern Europe, Canada and the U.S., and parts of the U.S., penetrate — household penetration is increase in retention of those — of those households is improving. There is a few things we’re doing structurally with that business that I think will even accelerate its growth. One is we’re building a direct-to-consumer business with SodaStream that is very relevant as it gives us a lot of first-party data and it allows us to have a lot of individual connection with consumers and understand their behaviors. And with that, we can — we can ideate new products and we can also increase the — which are the lifetime value of those consumers. So that’s one big driver.
The other thing we’re doing, especially in Europe, we’re putting our brands in the SodaStream model. So we’re giving consumers the opportunity not only to drink sparkling water by choosing sparkling water, where they best prefer flavors and the best brands or their favorite brands, be it bubly, bet it Pepsi, bet it Mountain Dew, 7up whatever in our international markets. So that’s a big driver of the — how we think we can increase the lifetime value of those households and generate additional value. If you think about the — our big positive commitments and how we think we can change the the footprint environmental, footprint of our categories, SodaStream is a big driver of that — of that future consumption model.
Operator
We will take our next question from Sean King with UBS.
Sean King — UBS — Analyst
Hey, thanks for the question. Just a question about energy drinks. I guess you mentioned in the 10 Q seeing double-digit volume growth, it’s not necessarily what we’re seeing in the Nielsen data. Is that how you’re defining the category or just channels that were not — that we’re not capturing in the [Indecipherable] later?
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Sean, I think it’s the latter. It’s more channels that where you’re not capturing in the Nielsen data. Obviously, energy is big in the unmeasured C&G channel and given the DSD strength that we have, we probably over index in those channels. So you’re just not seeing the data relative to what we have.
Sean King — UBS — Analyst
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator
And our final question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo.
Christopher Carey — Wells Fargo Securities — Analyst
Hi, thanks so much. Just a bit of a higher level question that relates to a prior answer. Can you just maybe discuss how Pep Positive is going to shape this portfolio over the longer-term? I mean, clearly Tropicana had financial aspects as you noted, but there is other concepts such as [Indecipherable] that is very are clearly relevant. There is clearly a desire to see our businesses with no single use packaging, but obviously that’s counter too much of your business today. I imagine this purchase innovation streams even more to health and wellness. So I guess the question is just how Pep Positive is going to shape this portfolio over the longer-term beyond just what are obvious financial considerations of some of your recent transactions? Thanks so much.
Ramon L. Laguarta — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean there is three pillars to Pep Positive. One of them is precisely on the portfolio of positive choices. And I think you could visualize this as multiple vectors. One is, yes, we want to make sure that our products — current products are much better. So imagine a Lays — let’s say mistake Lays, for example, you should imagine Lays continuing to have the same great taste but having the lower sodium levels in the market and being cooked with the best cooking oils. I mean, that is our commitment, when it continue to give you the best tasting products in better — in better, let’s say nutritional forms.
Now you should also imagine new consumption models. I would say Gatorade in powders or in tablets, that’s clearly better for the planet and probably easier for consumers as well. You should think about SodaStream as a consumption model or you should think about SodaStream professional in the offices, so we moved consumption with refillable, reusable modules. And then you should also think about innovation in a way that we bring to the consumer products that are better for the consumer and better for the planet. For example, more like legumes. We’re adding legumes to our snacks portfolio. Legumes are — can be used –can be used to cover crops that clearly impact better agriculture, but at the same time are more nutritional to consumer, chickpeas and others. You should think about innovations like — we are working on with our beyond meat partnership, where we’re going to have protein solutions that are none from animals and therefore will be better for consumers and better for the planet. So multiple levers of how we’re planning to evolve the portfolio with a lot of emphasis on making our current portfolio which is beautiful, more — say more nutritious, innovating in new consumption models and also innovating in new platforms that will be better for consumers and better for the planet. That’s how you should visualize the evolution of the portfolio in the coming years.
So thank you to everybody for your good questions, on your engagement and for your confidence that you’ve placed in us with your investments, and we wish you all to stay safe and healthy and look forward to our next interactions. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]