<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PHTV9K7" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">
Loading
Skip to Main Content
Product cover image for PepsiCo’s Poppi Acquisition: The Battle for Gut Health

PepsiCo’s Poppi Acquisition: The Battle for Gut Health

Tulsi Jayakumar, Meet Dave, Manik Chadha

Product #:W46321
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:General Management, Strategy
Setting:United States, 2025
Details:Case (PDF) • 16 pages • 2025-11-05

Subjects:

Communication strategyStrategy

Industries:

Goods, trade, and consumer services

Geography:

United StatesNorth America
Your Price:$9.71

Purchase this material with a free Educator Account and enjoy more benefits:

  • Free Educator Copy
  • Free Teaching Notes
  • Build your coursepack
  • Discounted academic price

On May 7, 2025, PepsiCo Inc. (PepsiCo) chief executive officer Ramon Laguarta faced shareholders amid mounting scrutiny over the firm’s US$1.95 billion acquisition of Poppi, a buzzy prebiotic soda brand, and declining stock performance. The case explores PepsiCo’s high-stakes bet on gut health beverages, just as the Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) launched a competing product, Simply Pop, using a brand extension strategy. Students must grapple with several dilemmas: Has PepsiCo overpaid for early-mover advantage in a nascent market? Should it pursue aggressive competition or help grow the category with its rival? And how should Laguarta defend PepsiCo’s strategy to a skeptical investor base amid rising expectations for health, growth, and accountability?

Learning Objectives

This case can be used in master of business administration and executive education programs, as either a standalone module or an integrative capstone, in courses such as competitive strategy, mergers and acquisitions, marketing strategy, and corporate finance.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:
  • Critically evaluate a corporate acquisition by integrating strategic and financial analysis.
  • Evaluate alternative strategies to enter a new or related market
  • Analyze the strategic trade-offs of a collaborative (positive-sum) versus zero-sum competitive behaviour in early-stage duopolistic markets and how these choices affect long-run profitability and market growth.
  • Understand how top leaders can communicate their strategy clearly to investors—especially when share prices are falling or a major acquisition needs to be explained.
Loading
Case Study: PepsiCo’s Poppi Acquisition: The Battle for Gut Health (English version) | Ivey Publishing