PepsiCo Launches PepsiCo Rise Together Initiative in Pakistan to Help Rebuild Livelihoods for Flood-Affected Food Cart Vendors
Restoring Pakistan's Street Food Culture
For decades, Pakistan's street-food culture has been more than a culinary tradition—it has been a vital source of income for hundreds of thousands of micro-entrepreneurs whose carts bring flavor, familiarity, and vibrancy to city streets. These vendors form an essential part of both the country's culture and economy, serving communities across urban centers and contributing significantly to local economies.
However, the sector has faced unprecedented challenges in recent years. Rising inflation, declining consumer spending, and the devastating 2025 floods have pushed this vital industry to the edge, leaving many vendors without carts, savings, or the means to support their families. The floods, in particular, destroyed countless food carts and wiped out the working capital of vulnerable micro-entrepreneurs who had no safety net to fall back on.
200+
Street Food Vendors Supported
1,600+
Lives Positively Impacted
2 Years
Program Duration
A Comprehensive Economic Empowerment Program
Against this challenging backdrop, PepsiCo Pakistan and its iconic brand 7UP, with support from the PepsiCo Foundation, have stepped forward with a program that blends economic recovery with human dignity. The PepsiCo Rise Together Program is designed to provide comprehensive support that goes beyond immediate relief to enable long-term sustainable recovery.
Program Components Include:
- Modern Food Carts: Distribution of high-quality, hygienic food carts equipped with necessary equipment to help vendors restart their businesses with improved standards.
- Interest-Free Microfinancing: Access to working capital through interest-free loans, enabling vendors to purchase inventory and sustain operations during the critical rebuilding phase.
- Food Hygiene Training: Comprehensive training on food safety standards, proper handling, and hygiene practices to improve product quality and customer health outcomes.
- Financial Literacy Education: Workshops on money management, savings, budgeting, and basic accounting to help vendors build sustainable financial practices.
- Customer Service Skills: Training in customer interaction, service excellence, and business etiquette to enhance customer satisfaction and business growth.
- Business Planning Support: Guidance on business strategy, planning, and growth to help vendors think beyond day-to-day operations and build resilient enterprises.
Implemented by SeedOut, a leading nonprofit organization with deep expertise in micro-entrepreneurship development, the initiative combines global corporate standards with community-level knowledge. This partnership ensures that support reaches the households most affected by recent economic and environmental shocks, with a focus on creating lasting impact rather than temporary relief.
7UP's Leadership and Cultural Connection
7UP's leadership in this effort builds naturally on its long-standing connection to Pakistan's vibrant food culture. The brand has been an integral part of Pakistani street food culture for decades, with its refreshing beverages complementing the diverse flavors served by food cart vendors across the country.
As part of the initiative, 7UP will amplify the stories of participating vendors through a 360-degree storytelling campaign, spotlighting their resilience, their challenges, and their journey back to stability. This campaign aims to humanize the economic recovery process, celebrate the vendors' entrepreneurial spirit, and inspire broader community support for Pakistan's street food sector.
#InWithForPakistan Focus
The initiative reinforces PepsiCo Pakistan's broader #InWithForPakistan commitment, which focuses on uplifting communities and contributing to sustainable national recovery. This approach recognizes that corporate success is deeply intertwined with community prosperity, and that businesses have a responsibility to support the ecosystems in which they operate.
Leadership Perspectives
Street-food vendors are an essential part of both our culture and our economy. Helping them rebuild their livelihoods is the need of the hour, and this programme reflects our belief that corporations must play an active role in strengthening the communities they serve. Street food shapes the pulse of our youth and our culture, and with this program, PepsiCo together with 7UP is proud to help uplift the vendors who keep that heartbeat alive every day.
True recovery begins when families regain dignity and the ability to earn sustainably. Through the PepsiCo Rise Together Program, we are not only restoring livelihoods, but rebuilding confidence, resilience, and long-term economic stability at the community level. At SeedOut, we believe sustainable impact comes from empowering people with opportunity, not dependency.
This effort goes far beyond financial assistance—it is about restoring confidence, dignity, and opportunity.
Building Resilience Through Partnership
The PepsiCo Rise Together Program represents a collaborative approach to addressing complex social and economic challenges. By bringing together a multinational corporation, a global foundation, and a local nonprofit organization, the initiative leverages diverse expertise, resources, and networks to create comprehensive solutions.
The program's design reflects an understanding that sustainable economic recovery requires more than financial assistance. It requires building human capacity, restoring confidence, providing practical skills, and creating pathways for long-term growth. Each component of the program has been carefully crafted to address specific barriers that flood-affected vendors face in rebuilding their businesses.
Preserving Cultural Heritage While Building Modern Businesses
An important aspect of the PepsiCo Rise Together Program is its recognition that Pakistan's street food culture represents valuable cultural heritage that deserves to be preserved and strengthened. The program doesn't seek to transform vendors into something they're not, but rather to help them maintain their cultural identity while adopting modern business practices that enhance sustainability and growth.
The modern food carts provided through the program are designed to meet contemporary hygiene standards while remaining practical and affordable for vendors to operate. The training programs respect vendors' existing knowledge and experience while introducing new skills that can help them navigate an increasingly competitive and regulated business environment.
Long-Term Vision for Impact
The two-year duration of the program reflects a commitment to sustained engagement rather than short-term intervention. During this period, participating vendors will receive ongoing support, mentorship, and access to resources that can help them navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and build resilient businesses capable of weathering future economic or environmental shocks.
Beyond the direct beneficiaries, the program aims to create demonstration effects that can inspire similar initiatives, influence policy discussions about informal sector support, and contribute to broader conversations about corporate social responsibility in Pakistan.
A Model for Corporate Social Responsibility
The PepsiCo Rise Together Program offers important lessons for corporate social responsibility in Pakistan and beyond. It demonstrates how businesses can leverage their resources, expertise, and brand platforms to address pressing social challenges in ways that align with their core business values and market position.
By focusing on street food vendors—a sector closely connected to PepsiCo's beverage business—the company ensures that its social investment creates value for both communities and the business ecosystem it operates within. The program's emphasis on dignity, empowerment, and sustainable recovery reflects a sophisticated understanding of development that goes beyond charity to enable true economic transformation.
Looking Ahead
As the PepsiCo Rise Together Program begins its implementation, the focus will be on careful vendor selection, effective program delivery, and rigorous monitoring to ensure that intended impacts are achieved. SeedOut's experience in micro-entrepreneurship development will be crucial in adapting program components to meet vendors' specific needs and circumstances.
The initiative's success will be measured not just in the number of carts distributed or vendors trained, but in the sustained improvement in vendors' incomes, the quality and safety of food they serve, their confidence and business acumen, and their ability to weather future challenges. These outcomes will determine whether the program truly achieves its goal of rebuilding livelihoods with dignity and creating lasting community resilience.
The PepsiCo Rise Together Program is a testament to the power of collaborative, purpose-led action. By rebuilding one cart, one vendor, and one family at a time, the initiative aims to support sustainable economic recovery while helping preserve the flavors and traditions that define Pakistan's rich street-food heritage. In doing so, it offers hope not just to the 200 vendors it directly serves, but to countless others who depend on Pakistan's informal economy for their livelihoods and who deserve support in building resilient, dignified futures.
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