Pepsico Greenhouse Accelerator: MENA Sustainability Edition

The PepsiCo Greenhouse Accelerator: MENA Sustainability Edition will identify and support emerging and disruptive technologies and services focused on reducing, recycling, and reinventing packaging materials. Innovation concepts could be new products, technologies, or services that help to reduce, recycle, or reinvent packaging. These could include, but are not limited to: biodegradable or reusable materials, consumer behavior modification, applications or software, operations processes, tracking technologies, and more. Innovations can be either concepts or already active initiatives that require scaling.

Our focus

We’re looking for innovations across three focus areas:

Environmentally sustainable packaging alternatives:
Novel food or beverage packaging materials and/or products that are recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, or ultimately reduce packaging waste to increase diversion away from landfills.

Packaging reduction and recycling options:
Technologies or systems to support a circular economy in food or beverage packaging, enabling the delivery of great tasting products with less overall packaging or with the ability to accelerate package recycling rates and behaviors.

Sustainable recycling behaviors:
Devices, applications, or services, such as scales, wearables and monitoring methods, that enable better waste management by encouraging consumers to recycle, reduce, or reuse their food and beverage packaging.

How it works?

During the 6-month program, selected innovators will be paired with a PepsiCo mentorship team and receive an initial $20,000 USD grant to work on a new business initiative focused on reducing, recycling, and reinventing the packaging supply chain. Participants of the PepsiCo Greenhouse Accelerator: MENA Sustainability Edition program will have access to subject matter experts, resources, and a curriculum of business courses. PepsiCo experts will provide insights on research and development as well as perspectives on business models, product development, regulatory practices, market activation, and other areas. At the program’s closing event in July 2022, a panel of judges will award one participating company with a $100,000 USD prize to help advance and scale their innovation.

Timeline:

• November 21, 2021 – Call for applications
• November 21, 2021 – Virtual application launch event
• January 10, 2022 – Application submission deadline
• February 9, 2022 – In-person kick-off event and orientation
• April 16, 2022 – Virtual mid-term event
• July 20, 2022 – In-person graduation event and final prize winner announcement

Our requirements

Minimum requirements:

• Have generated between $250,000 to $5 million in sales in the last financial year OR have a validated prototype for use in the market within the next 6 months.
• Be a licensed business in one of the participating MENA region countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates).
• Agree to Terms and Conditions.
• Be willing to work with PepsiCo Greenhouse Accelerator mentors and public relations team throughout six-month Accelerator program and attend Accelerator events.

An external third party will review all submissions and our selection committee will choose finalists based on the following criteria:

• Must include the focus areas of environmentally sustainable packaging alternatives, packaging reduction and recycling options, sustainable recycling behavior modification, and/or purpose-driven solutions.
• Uniqueness in the market.
• A clear go-to-market strategy and plan for sustained in-market execution.
• Balanced gender and ethnic diversity of team.
• Scalable business model.