Thinking about working at PepsiCo? Here's the last five years, by the numbers.
No opinions below, just what happened between September 2021 and today.
The stock
Sept 2021: $154. Today: $129. Down 16%, sitting at a 52-week low, roughly 25% below its high of $171.
Coca-Cola over the same five years: about $54 → $88, up more than 60%. Same category, same shelf, same customers.
Procter & Gamble: about $142 → $148. Basically flat, and it still beat PEP.
S&P 500: up around 70% over the same stretch.
With dividends reinvested: Coke returned roughly +84% over five years, P&G about +16%, and PepsiCo roughly zero.
What that did to employee equity
PEP traded somewhere between roughly $130 and $180 at every annual grant window from 2021 through 2026. At $129, every stock option granted in that window is underwater. Five years of option grants, zero value.
RSUs granted in that window are worth 70–85 cents on the dollar. $100K of RSUs granted in Sept 2021 is about $84K today. The same $100K in KO stock would be about $164K.
If you were told "equity is a big part of your comp," you were paid in paper that went down while the market went up 70%.
Headcount and plants
Dec 2022: hundreds of HQ layoffs targeted at Chicago, Plano and Purchase.
2024: the Danville, IL Quaker plant closed permanently after a salmonella recall, with 510 employees laid off. The FDA later said the plant may have been contaminated with salmonella for four years. Bottling plants in Cincinnati, Harrisburg and Atlanta also shut that year, with roughly 300 people let go.
2025: the Liberty, NY Frito-Lay plant closed and all 287 workers were laid off. Two Orlando Frito-Lay facilities followed in November, 454 at the plant and another 46 at a warehouse.
Dec 2025: workers in the New York, Chicago and Texas offices were told to work remotely the week the cuts landed. Over 450 corporate roles were eliminated in that wave, and cuts continued into 2026.
2026: the Rancho Cucamonga distribution center closes by June 6, eliminating 248 jobs, and the corporate restructuring is still running.
Elliott Investment Management took a $4 billion stake in September 2025, and the company responded with a plan to cut 20% of U.S. SKUs and reduce costs starting in 2026. The stated goal is more than $1 billion a year in savings, with the job cuts concentrated in middle corporate layers.
In February 2026 PepsiCo cut prices up to 15% on Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos. Frito-Lay North America volume was still flat in Q2, and beverage volume fell about 4%.
Pepsi-Cola lost sole possession of the #2 U.S. soda spot to Dr Pepper in 2023.
2025 guidance was for core EPS to be roughly unchanged, and advertising spend fell $500 million that year. Management now describes the Frito-Lay recovery as "more gradual".
Bottom line
Coke and P&G lived through the same inflation, the same consumer, the same GLP-1 headlines. One went up 60%+, one held its ground, and PepsiCo went backwards while closing plants, cutting people, and cutting prices that didn't move volume. If you're an employee, your upside was the stock. The stock went the wrong way for five years