Company Focus
When the corporate bean-counters in Purchase, New York, look at South Africa, they see numbers on a spreadsheet. They see a sub-Saharan “sector head office” and a massive platform for regional expansion. But when South African consumers look at their breakfast bowls, they see something else entirely: a cultural heritage being systematically watered down—or, worse, re-engineered until it tastes like fish oil.
PepsiCo has been in the local news for all the wrong reasons lately. The multinational giant recently managed to deeply upset loyal consumers of ProNutro, a beloved legacy brand. The public backlash was severe enough that the product was temporarily pulled from shelves. Yet the formulation that returned somehow managed to taste even worse. When it was sampled in our household, my daughter’s reaction was immediate and visceral: “Is this food? It’s got a disgusting sort of fish oil type of taste that is not really edible.”
Under the Corporate Hood
To understand how a breakfast staple ends up tasting like a marine byproduct, one has to look under the corporate hood. The trouble really traces back to 2020, when PepsiCo executed one of its largest acquisitions outside the United States. Through its long-held local snack subsidiary, Simba (Pty) Ltd, the American global giant swallowed Pioneer Foods—a thriving, deeply rooted South African giant whose portfolio includes everything from Weet-Bix and Liqui-Fruit to Sasko and White Star maize meal.
It is highly unusual for a multinational focused primarily on chips and soft drinks to buy directly into such a broad-range, regional food manufacturer. But PepsiCo wanted a dominant local platform. The catch with a multi-billion-dollar international parent company is an uncompromising devotion to global “portfolio optimization.” If a product doesn’t perform to Wall Street standards, it is rationalized, modified, or simply culled.
Distressed social media followers have already noted the disappearance of Maltebella, the historic malted porridge, from supermarket shelves. A few years ago, the corporate axe similarly fell on Pecks Anchovette and Redro fish pastes. In that instance, local ingenuity stepped in to rescue the brands, making them widely available again. But the pattern is clear: PepsiCo appears intent on milking Pioneer’s historic brands while aggressively restructuring them.
In the case of ProNutro—which famously began its life as an infant cereal before capturing the hearts of adults and children alike—the strategy seems to be a forced march toward the mass market. By shifting the formulation to a heavily maize-based recipe, the company is chasing high-volume, lower-cost production. In doing so, they risk stripping away the premium appeal that made the brand a household name in the first place.
The Invisible Giant
The ultimate irony is that while PepsiCo reshapes what South Africans eat, local citizens have virtually no direct way to hold the company accountable or even invest in it locally. Because PepsiCo South Africa operates through private subsidiaries like Simba, it doesn’t publish standalone public financial statements on the JSE. Its local performance is folded into the massive, consolidated regional reporting of its US-listed parent company, PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP). Unless you happen to hold an offshore global stock portfolio, your only real touchpoint with the company is the choice you make at the checkout counter.
And in South Africa, that choice has historically been clear. When it comes to beverages, local palates have overwhelmingly preferred the taste of Coca-Cola. Pepsi has never managed to establish a dominant beverage foothold here; it famously exited the market decades ago, and its subsequent returns have lacked real fizz.
The Nimble Brigade
This corporate heavy-handedness is opening up a fascinating frontline in the breakfast and snack aisles. While a giant American corporation tries to standardize and centralize, smaller, nimbler local food manufacturers are stepping into the breach.
In KwaZulu-Natal, independent operators are gaining serious ground. Brands like Truda are producing fantastic breakfast cereals (MyLife is especially tasty) at a fraction of the cost of a box of ProNutro. In the crisp and snack market, local challengers Chrispy’s, Frimax and Truda (Spokies, Go-Slo) are rapidly improving their flavors while maintaining a price point well below PepsiCo’s Simba and Lay’s chips. Down at the high-volume end of the beverage market, independent labels like Kingsley and Jive are proving that agility and local relevance can outmaneuver global muscle.
The looming question is how many more classic South African brands will face the corporate chopping block. Consumers are understandably nervous about the long-term fates of Weet-Bix, Marmite, or their favorite cross-branded chutneys and sauces.
If these cultural flavor favorites no longer move the financial needle for a mega-corporation in New York, a better alternative exists. Rather than re-engineering recipes until they lose their soul, PepsiCo should sell them off to independent local manufacturers. Handing them over to smaller operators who possess the ingenuity, passion, and local insight to keep them alive would preserve South African heritage—and actually let these classic brands grow. Until then, we will have to keep our eyes and ears open, watching the shelves to see what the corporate culling claims next. ?
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Chesney Bradshaw is a business editor and journalist. For more insights on economic trends and business ethics, visit Idea Accelerator.
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