Month: May 2024

Learn how Josh Parsons and his team are combining traditional breeding with modern tools to improve the quality, sustainability and taste of the potatoes PepsiCo raises.

“Harvest season has always been my absolute favorite time of year,” Josh Parsons says. He arrives before sunrise to walk through the fields at PepsiCo’s Rhinelander, Wisconsin, farm, filled with suspense about what’s beneath the soil. After a year of waiting, he’ll soon discover if his work is a success.

“The most exhilarating thing about potatoes is they grow underground,” Josh says. “You don’t know what you have until you dig them up.”

Josh, an R&D Sr. Principal Scientist, leads a team that cultivates never-before-seen varieties of potatoes destined to become the future of Lay’s potato chips. The annual harvest in Rhinelander yields bushels of new crops — and valuable information on the best ways to grow them.

There are more than 4,000 recognized potato varieties grown around the world, but fewer than 10 are the caliber for a Lay’s potato chip. Each one of those is proprietary to PepsiCo — carefully selected to maximize crop yield, disease resistance, nutrition content, cooking quality and taste. “But we’re always looking for better,” Josh says.

The techniques for discovering a new variety of potato combine traditional breeding with modern tools like data science and AI to select desirable plant traits. Josh and his team start with sets of “parent” potatoes, analyzing data to determine which would meet Lay’s standards for quality and sustainability. They add pollen from one plant to the flower of another to breed an entirely new seed with attributes from both parent plants — mimicking the same process that happens in nature.

“Each of those seeds is a unique individual, like siblings in a family,” Josh explains. Only instead of one or two offspring, each set of parent plants produce 200 to 400. Multiply that by dozens of cross-pollinations, and Josh’s team plants nearly 20,000 new seeds in Rhinelander each year. But only two or three of those seeds produce a potato variety that ever reaches a Frito-Lay kitchen.

“We’re incredibly selective,” Josh says. “We want to make sure the seeds we provide to growers benefit them, our business and the environment.” Josh and his team are also working to develop potato varieties that contain more flavor and need less seasoning — one way PepsiCo’s R&D and agriculture experts are innovating to support the company’s PepsiCo Positive (pep+) nutrition goals, which include a 15% sodium-reduction target for Lay’s Classic Potato Chips in the United States.

“We want to make sure the seeds we provide to growers benefit them, our business and the environment.”

To better predict future performance, the new potato breeds undergo complex statistical analysis of the seed’s genetics. “We don’t do any genetic modifications,” Josh says. “But we do use genetic information to forecast which crops have a chance to be successful and which don’t.”

Once Josh and his team have identified a successful crop, they send samples of the plant to partner farmers around the world so they can begin growing the new potatoes on their farms. The first variety Josh developed for PepsiCo was grown earlier this year and was recently cooked into a full batch of Lay’s — two key milestones in a development process that takes nine years to complete.

“I’m biased, but it was the best potato chip I ever tasted,” Josh says. There are still more hurdles the variety must clear before making it to store shelves but knowing that seedlings he bred could soon end up in Lay’s bags around the world instills a deep sense of pride.

“This job gives us a chance to leave a mark on an iconic brand,” Josh says. He keeps that thought at the forefront of his mind every day he goes to work. “Our team is small,” Josh explains. “But the work we do reaches farmers, kitchens, stores and consumers all over the world. It’s crucial that we act as owners, continuously seek ways we can improve and make sure the results of our efforts are felt far beyond the fields in Rhinelander.”

NEW YORK, May 23, 2024 /3BL/ – This week, Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose© (CECP) is bringing together nearly 300 senior social impact, corporate responsibility, and sustainability from the world’s leading global companies for the 21st annual CECP Summit: Purpose + Persistence.

The CECP Summit will feature leaders engaging and learning together about powerful insights on trends, partnerships, and finding the return on corporate purpose. The variety of session topics reflect the many complex issues companies are currently facing as responsible purpose-driven businesses including: using data to guide social impact programs, community investments in sustainability, best practices and predictions in DEI, measuring social investments, the future of volunteering, communicating sustainability, and more.

“The leaders assembling at this week’s CECP Summit serve as bridges within their organizations and in their communities, connecting a company’s corporate purpose with business success to increase customer loyalty, build employee engagement, improve brand trust, attract top talent, and connect with strategic investors and other stakeholders,” said Kari Niedfeldt-Thomas, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, CECP. “CECP and its network empowers these leaders to both enhance the business’ bottom line, and also create positive impacts as responsible businesses in society.”

The Summit includes the presentation of the Charles H. Moore Award for Leadership in Corporate Community Engagement. The 2024 “Charlie Award” was awarded to Sandy Nessing, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, American Electric Power. The award is named in honor of CECP’s founding Executive Director and is presented to senior leaders who exemplify perseverance in the pursuit of societal advancement, the trait for which Charlie Moore was best known.

“I’m truly honored to be receiving the Charles H. Moore Award, as Charlie demonstrated the power of the positive social impact that industry can have on society,” said Sandy Nessing, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, American Electric Power (AEP). “CECP has been a valuable partner as AEP transforms to meet the changing needs of our stakeholders.”

With nearly three decades of communications and sustainability experience in the utility industry, Sandy Nessing leads AEP’s ESG/Sustainability strategy and disclosure, stakeholder engagement, and strategic initiatives. This includes overseeing corporate initiatives on climate change, environmental and social justice, and Just Transition; and regularly engaging with investors and customers on AEP’s sustainability efforts and energy transition strategy. Sandy chairs AEP’s Corporate ESG Steering Committee and Climate Change Executive Group. She is also a member of Datamaran’s Board of Directors and serves on the Board of the Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System. In 2023, she was named to Sustainability Magazine’s Top 100 Women in Sustainability, recognizing her positive influence within this space.

CECP will also share with attendees’ the first look at data from the 2024 Giving in NumbersTM Survey. Giving in Numbers is the unrivaled leader in benchmarking on corporate social investments, in partnership with companies. As the premier industry survey and research, Giving in Numbers provides standard-setting criteria in a go-to guide that has defined the field and advanced the movement. CECP tracks trends in the industry through the data, shared by more than 600 multi-billion-dollar companies, representing more than $439 billion in total community investments. See the new 2024 infographic.

The CECP Summit offers an unparalleled line up of speakers including:

Anthony Daniels, Jr., Minority Leader, Alabama House of RepresentativesCarly Keller, Manager, Leadership Activation and Nonprofit Capacity Building, The Allstate Foundation Sandy Nessing, Vice President & Chief Sustainability Officer, American Electric PowerConnie Montana, Philanthropic Giving Program Manager, Bank of America Andrea Avtjoglou, Director of Data Product Management, Corporate Impact, BlackbaudJaha Cummings, Founder, Blanchard House Institute Jason Cone, President & Co-Founder, BlueCheck Ukraine Murphy Poindexter, Co-Founder, BlueCheck Charitable FoundationLiev Schreiber, Co-Founder and Board member, BlueCheck Ukraine Livia Konkel, CVP, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Corporate Citizenship, Charles River Laboratories Charu Adesnik, Executive Director, Cisco Foundation Director, Social Impact Office, Cisco Systems, Inc. Shannon McNary, Manager, Public Affairs and Corporate Citizenship, CITGO Petroleum Corporation Collette Divitto, CEO/ Founder, Collettey’s Cookie Corp & Collettey’s Leadership Org Gwyneth Gaul, Vice President Strategic Partnerships and Philanthropy, Comcast NBCUniversal Cari Williams, Global Social Responsibility Leader, DPR ConstructionTonia Ries, Executive Director, Trust Barometer, Edelman Christine Jordan, Senior Lead Program Specialist, Corporate Social Responsibility, Entergy Corporation Rev. Luis Cortés, Founder / CEO, Esperanza Kim Rice, Community Engagement Manager, Exelon Justin Joyner, Sustainability Lead, Freshpet Victoria Glazar, Managing Director, GE HealthCare Foundation Heidi Magyar, Executive Director of Corporate Giving, General MotorsLori Lampman, Chief Human Resources Officer, HARMAN InternationalJames D. White, Board Chair, The Honest Company Justina Nixon-Saintil, Chief Impact Officer, IBM Molly Kohrs, Director, Data Citizens with Purpose, KPMG Joe Scantlebury, President and CEO, Living Cities Pritha Mittal, Regional Head of Foundation for the Americas, Macquarie Group FoundationAlex Amouyel, President and CEO, Newman’s Own Foundation Shelly Lazarus, Chairman Emeritus, Ogilvy Megan Lee, CEO/Chairwoman, Panasonic North AmericaTyler Spalding, Senior Director, Corporate Affairs & Global Head of Social Innovation, PayPalCaitlyn Brazill, Chief Revenue Officer, Per ScholasHeather Meloy, Director, PwC Lyndsay Harris-Kyei, Senior Director, ESG Social Strategy, ServiceNow Kim Dabbs, Global VP, ESG + Social Innovation, Steelcase Jackie Albano, ESG, Tapestry Balaji Ganapathy, Chief Social Responsibility Officer, Tata Consultancy Services Lynette Bell, President, Truist FoundationMarion Phillips, III, Sr. VP Community Development & DEI, U.S. News & World Report Gayatri Agnew, Senior Director and Head of Accessibility Center of Excellence, Walmart Aldustus Jordan, Head of Community Stewardship, Vanguard Jil Littlejohn Bostick, Vice President, Corporate Responsibility & Inclusion, Winnebago Industries Monica Moradkhan, VP Community Relations, Wynn Resorts, LimitedBrian Sozzi, Executive Editor, Yahoo Finance 

CECP thanks its sponsors for their generous support of 25th anniversary year: Visa Foundation, Bank of America, Exelon, Panasonic, RHR International, StateFarm, Tata Consultancy Services, Vanguard, and Wynn Resorts.

“25 years ago, Paul Newman and I undertook a program of encouraging public corporations to be more of a force for good, embracing a program that Lawrence A. Wien had personally pursued for 5 years in which he attended about 100 shareholder meetings as a shareholder to urge the corporations to increase their philanthropic giving,” said Peter Malkin, Chairman Emeritus, Empire State Realty Trust and Co-Founder, CECP. “Today, over 200 CEOs of such corporations are paying members of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose and their annual support of programs for “good” is more than $47 billion. CECP has come a long way!”

CECP also congratulates the 2023-2024 Company Spotlight honorees: Discovery Education, IBM Corporation, Lincoln Financial Group, MGM Resorts, 3M, Coupa, Tapestry, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Starbucks, Adobe, Bristol Meyers Squibb Foundation, and Metlife Foundation. On a quarterly basis, CECP selects companies for the sought-after Company Spotlight through a thoughtful information-sharing and communications-support process. Company Spotlights are shared with CECP’s nearly 2,000 affiliated corporate contacts, posted on the CECP website as case studies, and recognized at the CECP Summit.

Following the conclusion of the 2024 CECP Summit, CECP will be posting on its website photos, videos, guest blogs, and an Executive Summary.

The application process for the 2025 Charlie Award is open. Nominate a peer senior leader in corporate responsibility today. The deadline is August 30. The application can be accessed on the CECP homepage or by emailing CECP.

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About Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP) 
Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose® (CECP) is the only business counsel and network dedicated to driving measurable returns on purpose. We promote responsible purpose-driven business as it increases customer loyalty, builds employee engagement, improves brand trust, attracts top talent, connects with strategic investors, and contributes to the bottom line.

More than 200 of the world’s leading companies seek to improve their return on purpose through access to CECP’s solutions in research and insights, strategy and benchmarking, and convening and communications. With our companies, we harness the power of purpose for business, stakeholders, and society.

For more information, visit http://cecp.co.

CECP Media Contact

Katie Leasor

kleasor@cecp.co