The modern pantry is being rewritten around moments

The modern pantry is being rewritten around moments

By Jane Wakely, executive vice president, chief consumer and marketing officer and chief growth officer, International Foods

One of the biggest opportunities in our industry starts with a simple observation: People don't organize their lives the way companies organize their portfolios.

People's routines are constantly evolving and with them, the way they eat, drink and shop.

Take grocery shopping. For years, shoppers followed a familiar list: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Today, people are shopping for something else: moments. Something quick before the gym. A bite between meetings. A convenient afternoon pick-me-up. Hydration on the go. Those occasions can cut across traditional mealtimes and often blend considerations around convenience, nutrition, hydration and taste.

In other words, the modern pantry is becoming less about stocking up by category and more about choosing flexible options that earn their place across the week.

You can see this in the numbers. PepsiCo research shows hydration, performance and functionality are becoming more central to everyday routines: Seventy-eight percent of people now say they want salty snacks to have protein, and 77%¹ believe snacks can help increase fiber intake.

But behind those numbers is something bigger. Consumer expectations are changing. People still want great taste. That will never change. But increasingly they're also looking for products that deliver more functionality, more nutritional value and more flexibility in how they fit into everyday life. And they're making those choices across more occasions than ever before.

This is precisely where the opportunity lies. At PepsiCo, transformation starts with people. As the boundaries between meals and snacks continue to blur, people are eating and drinking in more places, at more times and in more ways throughout the day. New behaviors create new occasions, and new occasions give us an opportunity to create better solutions around them.

That means evolving the foods and beverages people already love while offering more choice. It means thinking beyond traditional definitions of categories and considering the full range of consumer preferences and occasions we can serve. Too often, organizations define themselves by the products they sell. The best organizations define themselves by the needs they serve.

So, my advice to leaders in our industry is simple: Don't start with the category. Start with the consumer. Start with empathy. Start with a deep understanding of how people are actually living, working, eating and drinking, and then build around them.

The future of food and beverage will be shaped by the preferences, behaviors and occasions we are bold enough to anticipate next.

The opportunity is to stay close to consumers, understand where they're going and evolve with them. The companies that do that best will create more choice, unlock new occasions and build brands that earn a meaningful role in people's lives, wherever and whenever they need them.

¹ _{According to a PepsiCo Foods survey of 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults, conducted online by RepData from Jan. 5-21, 2026. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.}

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