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Diversity

PepsiCo's DEI Rollback: Supplier Diversity and Goals Scaled Back

In February 2025 PepsiCo dropped its representation goals for managers and suppliers, while Coca-Cola reaffirmed its own. What the Laguarta memo changed.

By The WokeCorp Team Updated October 14, 2026
PepsiCo's headquarters in Purchase, New York, with flags out front
PepsiCo's headquarters in Purchase, New York. PepsiCo stopped setting minority representation goals for its managers and its supplier base in February 2025, the same week Coca-Cola restated its own goals. · Photo: Peter Bond from Philadelphia, USA via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

PepsiCo set goals for minority representation among its managers and in its supplier base. On February 21, 2025, it confirmed it was ending them.

In a memo to employees reported by the Associated Press, CEO Ramon Laguarta said the company would no longer set goals for minority representation in its managerial roles or supplier base. He wrote that inclusion remains important to PepsiCo. The same week, Coca-Cola went the other way.

Key findings

  • PepsiCo stopped setting minority representation goals for managers.
  • It stopped setting diversity goals for its supplier base.
  • Sponsorships will be aligned with events and groups that promote business growth.
  • The chief diversity officer moved into a broader role covering employee engagement, leadership development and an inclusive culture.
  • Coca-Cola, PepsiCo’s closest rival, reaffirmed its DEI goals in its annual report that month.

What did PepsiCo end?

The supplier goal is the part with money attached. A company of PepsiCo’s size buys ingredients, packaging, equipment, logistics and services at enormous volume, and a supplier diversity goal steers part of that spend toward diverse-owned businesses that rarely win large corporate contracts. Ending the goal changes who gets considered for that business, not only a line in a report.

The management goal is the internal half. It set a direction for how leadership representation should move and gave someone a number to answer for. Without it, the commitment rests on the general language about inclusion that Laguarta kept.

A warehouse aisle between tall shelves of boxed goods

Supplier diversity programs at large companies like PepsiCo can direct hundreds of millions of dollars annually toward minority-owned and women-owned businesses. Ending these requirements has direct financial impact on the suppliers who had qualified for them. Photo: Tiger Lily via Pexels. Pexels License.

Coca-Cola went the other way

The contrast arrived in the same week. In its annual report, Coca-Cola warned that its business could suffer if it could not attract employees who reflect its broad range of customers, and said a failure to maintain a culture of inclusion could disrupt its operations.

Coca-Cola has a goal of women holding 50% of senior leadership roles by 2030, and wants race and ethnicity representation at every level in the US to reflect national census data. Conservative activist Robby Starbuck praised PepsiCo’s move and said Coca-Cola should be very nervous about keeping its policies.

Two companies selling into the same aisles, recruiting from the same talent pool and facing the same legal environment made opposite choices within days of each other.

A Frito-Lay delivery truck with the company logo on its side

A Frito-Lay delivery truck. PepsiCo’s portfolio includes Pepsi, Lay’s, Gatorade, Quaker, and dozens of other brands. The company’s supplier base is correspondingly large, making its supplier diversity program a significant market-access vehicle for diverse-owned businesses. Photo: Dane Unknoen via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Why the consumer base matters less here

PepsiCo’s brands sell across every income bracket and political leaning. That makes it less exposed to the kind of concentrated customer backlash that hit Bud Light or Target, and suggests its move responded more to the legal environment and peer behavior than to shoppers. Coca-Cola’s opposite decision, under the same conditions, shows that pressure did not force one answer.

The WokeCorp assessment

The commitment. Representation goals for managers and suppliers, with a chief diversity officer to run them.

The rollback. The February 2025 memo ended both sets of goals, refocused sponsorships on business growth and folded the diversity role into a broader one, while keeping a general commitment to inclusion.

The pattern. PepsiCo had not faced a boycott on the scale of Bud Light or Target. It moved anyway, and its nearest rival did not. That makes this one of the clearest cases in the wave of a company choosing its position rather than being forced into it.

Glass bottles moving along an automated factory production line

Glass bottles moving along an automated factory production line. Photo: Vladimir Srajber via Pexels. Pexels License.

See The Great DEI Retreat: Corporate Rollbacks in 2024-2025 for the broader context.

Sources

  • Associated Press via News4JAX, “Differences bubble up between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola on diversity programs,” February 21, 2025. Read October 2026.