Super Bowl LX: PepsiCo's Recycling Programme in Action

Super Bowl LX saw the Seattle Seahawks defeat the New England Patriots, becoming the second most-watched Super Bowl of all time, with nearly 125 million viewers.

Held at Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, it had the potential to make a positive global impact, as one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar.

Food and beverage giant PepsiCo has worked in collaboration with Levi’s Stadium to enhance the sustainability of the event, focusing on recycling and community impact.

As part of the company’s pep+ (PepsiCo Positive) strategy, it has deployed multiple sustainability initiatives at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX.

PepsiCo’s recycling initiatives

Throughout the season, PepsiCo piloted a reusable cup initiative with the San Francisco 49ers at the Levi’s Stadium.

This prevented more than 32,000 disposable plastic cups from ending up in landfills.

At Super Bowl LX, the pilot was expanded, allowing fans in certain sections to have durable reusable cups, which could be returned to nearby bins to be collected, cleaned and reused.

PepsiCo also deployed more than 200 collapsible, reusable recycling bins across the event spaces.

At the NFL’s fan festival in San Francisco, Super Bowl Experience, PepsiCo used Oscar Sort AI units in collaboration with Intuitive AI.

Oscar Sort is used at bins to help fans identify the correct place to put their discarded packaging.

This process helps make recycling more effective and efficient, by having AI cameras that can identify if packaging is waste, recycling or compost.

Oscar Sort can also tell fans whether they need to dispose of liquids or remove lids to reduce contamination in the recycling process.

After attending the Super Bowl, Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer at PepsiCo, said on LinkedIn: “I was thrilled to be at Super Bowl LX and see our sustainable packaging efforts in action throughout the week – from expanding our reusable cups pilot in the stadium to deploying AI recycling units to help fans reduce waste.

“Advancing packaging circularity is a complex challenge that requires widespread collaboration, investments, enabling policies and systemic shifts, but initiatives like these can demonstrate what it takes to drive progress. 

“Sustainability is a team sport, and I’m incredibly proud and grateful to our teams who helped bring pep+ front and centre and made sustainable packaging a significant part of this year’s Super Bowl story!”

Jim Andrew has been recognised in Sustainability Magazine's Top 250 Sustainability Leaders 2026. Read the full list here.

Highlighting community impact

In addition to its environmental initiatives, PepsiCo worked on benefitting local communities during the Super Bowl.

Alongside student hunger charity GENYOUth and the PepsiCo Foundation, the company provided grants to 60 Bay Area schools to increase access to healthy meals and active play.

The aim of this project is to help set up students for a stronger future, showing that access to nutritious food can help set the foundation for learning and long-term success.

The organisations also worked together to surprise a local tutor and community assistant by giving her tickets to the Super Bowl from PepsiCo and the NFL.

This helped highlight the work being done in local communities to help end student hunger, as well as showcasing people whose impact reaches beyond the classroom.

Monica Bauer Mengelberg, Senior Vice President, Social Impact at PepsiCo, said on LinkedIn: “Super Bowl weekend is always memorable, but the moments that stay with me most are the ones grounded in purpose and community.

“This work and the people who bring it to life show that ending student hunger is within reach.

“I’m so proud of how PepsiCo shows up, on the field and far beyond it… and we’re just getting started!”

All sustainability, net zero and sustainable supply chain leaders should attend:

• Sustainability LIVE: The Net Zero Summit - QEII Centre, London, March 4-5
• Sustainability LIVE: The US Summit - Navy Pier, Chicago, April 21-22

Co-located with Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE, these events brings together CSOs, ESG leaders and senior decision-makers at a moment when sustainability, supply chains and commercial performance are increasingly interconnected.

Tickets can be booked online today for The Net Zero Summit and The US Summit. Group discounts available.

Celebrating farmers: Lay’s commercial

During the Super Bowl broadcast, PepsiCo also aimed to spotlight the work of the farmers in its value chain.

Its Lay’s commercial shows a father passing on his farm to his daughter, showcasing the real work from generations of farmers that grow its potatoes.

The commercial was inspired by a real family farm in Illinois which has worked with PepsiCo for decades, aiming to recognise the importance of farmers to the company’s business as well as global food systems.

As climate pressures are increasing and weather is becoming more extreme, farmers are facing risks to their livelihoods and their farms, which could impact food systems at scale.

PepsiCo is working on promoting regenerative agriculture across its network of farmers, with the aim of improving the impact of its farmers on the environment.

Through the commercial, the company aims to show the importance of collaboration in sustainability, highlighting how businesses, governments and NGOs can come together to support farmers and strengthen food security.

“Our Lay’s Super Bowl commercial spotlights a father and daughter passing down a way of life, a reminder that our food system is built by real families and multiple generations of farmers, not abstractions,” Jim writes on LinkedIn.

“At PepsiCo, we’re a company rooted in agriculture. The strength of our business depends on resilient farms that supply the crops we use to make our iconic products, like potatoes for Lay’s.

“It’s why we focus on scaling regenerative agriculture practices across millions of acres worldwide, collaborating with local farmers to support improved soil and watershed health, biodiversity and crop yields so farmers can keep farming and our business can continue to grow in the near- and long-term.”