PepsiCo headquarters worry over Gujarat potato farmers after receiving backlash, says report

After facing backlash in social media for taking legal action against farmers in Gujarat, PepsiCo's executives and its Asia-Pacific office have asked its Indian unit to resolve the issue at the earliest and work as a team, reported The Economic Times.

PepsiCo officials have conveyed their concern over the Indian unit’s decision to take legal action against the farmers for growing a variety of potato following social media hostility and calls for a boycott of the company’s products, the daily said.

Meanwhile, a PepsiCo India spokesperson told the paper that the local unit is free to make its own decisions.

The company said in its statement that it was “compelled to take the judicial recourse as a last resort to safeguard the larger interest of thousands of farmers that are engaged with its collaborative potato farming programme”.