Maddison Capel English Dr. Paul Anderson April 24, 2013 Investigative report

The drink that made Pepsico what it is now, was formulated in the 1880's by a pharmacist by the name of Caleb Bradham who named the drink Pepsi-Cola. Once the drink gained more popularity he founded the Pepsi-Cola company in In 1965 the Pepsi-Cola company merged with Frito-Lay to become PepsiCo. The PepsiCo headquarters are now in Purchase, New York and there they manufacture, market, and distribute their many products. PepsiCo has expanded its products to include Tropicana, Gatorade, and Quaker Oats. As of January 2012 PepsiCo has generated sales of more than one billion dollars per product line, which includes 22 different lines.

PepsiCo is the second largest food and beverage corporation in the world. Their products are distributed worldwide, and loved by many. They not only make soft drinks, they also provide the world with juices, snacks, and bottled water. PepsiCo even owned the fast-food restaurants Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut at one time, but later sold them to concentrate on their beverage and snack food endeavors. However, a lasting result of this was lifetime contracts to sell PepsiCo products exclusively in all of those establishments.

The reason I chose PepsiCo as the corporation to write my report on is because Pepsi has a very large presence at Salt Lake Community College, more than any other, and I wanted to find out why. The question is why Salt Lake Community College is so heavily sponsored by Pepsi and what did Pepsi do, or what did Salt Lake Community College do, to get this sponsorship. The individuals who are affected by the decision to sell only Pepsi products are the students, professors, visitors, and employees. It affects them because there are no other products to choose from. All of the vending machines have only Pepsi beverages and snacks. There is a student cafe that sells more of a selection, but it still consists of mainly Pepsi products.

Now the decision to sell only Pepsi products was made by school administrators and PepsiCo itself. Those who are frequently at school are heavily limited in their selection and therefore usually end up choosing Pepsi. Especially if they don't have time to run down to the student cafe to pick another product. This topic should be reported because I think it would be interesting for my fellow students as well as myself to understand why Pepsi has such a presence here, and what Salt Lake Community College did to get it.

In pursuit of an answer to this question I ed the purchasing services department at Salt Lake Community College, and received the following response. "The contract award to Pepsi was the result of a competitive Request for Proposal. Two beverage companies responded to the RFP with proposals: Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The proposal evaluation committee included administration, faculty, staff, and student representation. The proposal evaluation committee determined the most advantageous proposal was from Pepsi." The person that responded to my request was Lois Wiesemann and she is head of the purchasing department.

Alright, so I am sure we all figured that money would be the answer to the question of why Pepsi. Now that we have established that, I would like to pose another question. Since we have such an exclusive contract with Pepsi, and the corporation clearly knows that they are selling to students, why wouldn't they take into consideration the average budget for a college student, and adjust their costs accordingly. I believe the cost of Pepsi products on campus are grossly overpriced, considering the exclusivity.

After doing some research on the cost of Pepsi products at Salt Lake Community College, and the cost at other retailers like 7-11, it appears as though we are not getting much of a deal. For example, at my place of business our vending machines have both Coca-Cola and Pepsi products, both of which are sold at a whopping price of $0.25 each. For that inquiry to be addressed I would have to take that up with Pepsi, since they stamp the price tags, however I figured that to be a waste of time since I would have to go up against a huge corporation who most likely will disregard my concerns, after all, that's just the way it is.

Those that have a chance of losing something by not selling Pepsi products so exclusively to Salt Lake Community College students, are those that possibly work for the school and also have some stocks in PepsiCo, as well as the corporation PepsiCo itself. I think that if Pepsi wants to keep Salt Lake Community College students buying their products so much they should lower the prices, especially since our school doesn't sell anything but Pepsi products. Since Pepsi is such a large corporation I believe they should sell their products much cheaper to students and schools, especially when we deal exclusively with Pepsi.

Works Cited PepsiCo. PepsiCo corporate. n.d. 29 March Wiesemann, Lois. "Questions regarding PepsiCo." Lois Wiesemann, C.P.M., Director. Salt Lake City: Purchasing Services, 14 April Wikipedia. PepsiCo. n.d. 29 March 2013.