PEPSI JOINS HANDS WITH NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION OF INDIA AND SWIGGY TO SUPPORT THE RESTAURANT COMMUNITY

Kolkata : Beverage brand Pepsi®️ today announced #PepsiSaveOurRestaurants, a fund-raising initiative in association with the leading restaurant industry association, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) and leading online food delivery aggregator Swiggy. With cause at the heart of it, the initiative aims at providing approximately 2.5 million meals to the workers of the restaurant community who are in distress.

 As part of the initiative, whenever any consumer adds any soft drink to his/her meal order on Swiggy from June 25, 2020 – July 19, 2020, Pepsi will contribute part of the proceeds  in respect of each soft drink ordered to the NRAI COVID-19 Relief Corpus. This fund will be further used to provide meals (dry ration) to restaurant workers who have served us and are suffering due to these challenging times. The offer is valid on any packaged soft drinks ordered from restaurants listed on Swiggy platform which includes carbonated soft drinks, packaged iced tea, packaged juices & packaged juice-based drinks and is not restricted to just the purchase of Pepsi®️.

 Speaking about the initiative, PepsiCo India spokesperson said, “The environment that we operate in, matters to us. The restaurant  industry is an integral part of our ecosystem and has been severely impacted by the ongoing health challenge. Both restaurants and restaurant workers are struggling. Hence, in our endeavor to find various meaningful ways to provide support to the ecosystem, we found that mobilizing a movement with  consumers & providing food security support to our restaurant workers & their families who are in distress is a timely intervention and need of the hour. Through #PepsiSaveOurRestaurants, we are committed to supporting the ones in need and are extremely thankful to Swiggy and NRAI for their support and partnership for this initiative.”

 Srivats TS, VP - Marketing, Swiggy, said “During these times when the hospitality sector is facing major setbacks in adjusting to the ‘new normal’ and sustaining themselves, Swiggy is focused towards supporting the restaurant community in every way possible. As several restaurants evaluate their next course of action to remobilize their operations, we are happy to support #PepsiSaveOurRestaurants initiative along with NRAI towards striving to ensure that restaurant workers and their families don’t stay hungry. With this initiative, we hope to help the restaurant workers with an intent to stabilize their lives in these challenging times.”

Anurag Katriar, President of NRAI; CEO & Executive Director of deGustibus Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., further added, “While the current pandemic has impacted every sector, it has perhaps manifested itself more sharply on the workforce in the restaurant sector because of the sheer volumes; after all we are the second largest employers of human capital in India after agriculture. In light of the magnitude of this problem, the initiative of Pepsi India to help the employees of the sector in distress is highly applaudable. On behalf of NRAI, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Pepsi India and thank them for their beautiful gesture and benevolent contribution. This contribution will help us provide food to families of thousands of marginalised workers in the industry and will further cement our relationship with Pepsi.”