PepsiCo expands in Egyptian market, seeks to expand in North Africa

CAIRO – 28 June 2020: "PepsiCo has been expanding strongly in the local market since 2018 by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars in expanding production lines and adding new storage spaces, while it seeks to increase its exports to countries of the region and set its eyes on Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia," Chairman of PepsiCo Egypt Mohamed Shelbaya said Sunday.

Shelbaya added that the Egyptian unit succeeded in returning to profitability in 2019 after incurring losses in 2017 and 2018, following the liberalization of the exchange rate. He also expected profits in 2020 despite the coronavirus crisis that affected sales in schools, cafes, restaurants and clubs’ sectors, according to Reuters.

The company's activities are focused on the manufacture and export of crackers and soft drinks.

Shelbaya said that PepsiCo Egypt invested $100 million in 2020 as part of a plan worth $515 million that it embarked on since 2018 and continues until 2021, explaining that the investments were aimed at increasing production and storage capacity to absorb growth.

"We informed (PepsiCo) Global that we will turn to profitability by 2020, but we managed to achieve that in 2019 and we will keep achieving profits this year, despite the repercussions of the corona crisis,” he stated.

He declined to go into details about the company's earnings or revenue numbers in Egypt.

PepsiCo operates in Egypt through eight factories, has about 34 distribution centers, employs about 14,000 employees and workers, and manufactures about nine products in the beverage sector and about seven products in crackers.

"Corona will not change our plans in Egypt," Shelbaya said.

Egypt has implemented measures since March to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus, which included a night curfew and an early closure of many stores, but it eased those measures starting from June 27 to allow stores to work until 9 p.m., restaurants and cafes until 10 p.m., but by 25 percent of its capacity, while reducing the curfew to just four hours.

Shelbaya said that PepsiCo is working to establish a regional service center in Egypt for the first time to serve Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Arabic-speaking countries in general in terms of human resources, sales and export.