The Xchange Platform Agricultural Market Viewpoint with Wandile Sihlobo

A conversation with Eugene Willemsen of PepsiCo

Loading player...
This past week I sat down with Eugene Willemsen. Eugen is the Chief Executive Officer for Africa, Middle East and South Asia (AMESA) at PepsiCo. With a rich career spanning over 27 years in PepsiCo, Eugene has risen through the ranks to steer the AMESA region valued at $6.1B in annual net revenue (as of 2021) and supporting over 26,000 jobs across 74 markets.

We talked briefly about PepsiCo’s views on climate change, its programmes and work in Africa, and some exciting work PepsiCo is doing on food security programmes, regenerative agriculture, and support programmes for smallholder framers. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
13 Mar 2023 English South Africa Investing · Food

Other recent episodes

South Africa’s agricultural outlook for 2026 remains positive

We are in another favourable agricultural season in South Africa, with favourable rains that enabled the farmers to plant and supported the grazing veld for the livestock industry. This builds on a better agricultural performance in 2025, a year of La Niña rains that supported the sector. The only significant…
10 Jan 10 min

SA farmers are upbeat about business conditions in the sector

After falling for two consecutive quarters, the Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) increased by 5 points to 67 in Q4 2025. Favourable weather conditions, strong exports throughout the year on the back of ample grains, oilseeds, and horticulture harvests, as well as better port efficiencies, are among the key drivers…
7 Dec 2025 11 min

SA agricultural conditions

We continue to receive encouraging notes about the prospects of La Niña in the 2025-26 summer season. The La Niña-induced rains will help support field crops, horticulture, and grazing veld for livestock. The farmers are optimistic and plan to increase area plantings, primarily of field crops. One aspect of the…
30 Nov 2025 8 min

The G20 places a spotlight on the global hunger problem

About 720 million people continued to experience hunger in 2024, and 2.6 billion people were unable to afford healthy diets. It is this reality that compelled the G20 Leaders' Declaration in Johannesburg to shine a spotlight on global food insecurity challenges correctly. Countries can explore many interventions to resolve this…
23 Nov 2025 9 min
All episodes