PepsiCo buys from tens of thousands of suppliers, from glycol and aluminum to logistics, packaging design, IT staffing, and the trucking that moves Gatorade and Frito-Lay. If you sell something a $90-billion food and beverage company needs, there's a path to selling it to them. The path is real. It's also slower and quieter than most owners expect.
Here's the honest version, including the part where registering is the easy 10% and the follow-up is the other 90%.
Start with the question PepsiCo asks first: do you fit a category?Before you touch a portal, be blunt with yourself about whether PepsiCo actually buys what you sell, in the volume and form they buy it. A company this size sources through category teams. Indirect spend covers things like marketing services, facilities, professional services, and IT. Direct spend covers ingredients, packaging, and the materials that go into the product.
If you're a regional marketing agency, an industrial parts distributor, a commercial cleaning company, or a co-packer, there's a category that maps to you. If you're a single-location retailer or a consumer brand hoping to get on shelves, that's a different conversation (retail and distribution), not supplier registration. Knowing which side of the house you belong to saves you from a registration that goes nowhere.
Step 1: Register in PepsiCo's STARS portalPepsiCo's public front door for new suppliers is the STARS system, at pepsico.starssmp.com. The initial registration form asks for the basics a procurement team needs to find and vet you:
- Federal Tax ID (EIN) and legal company information
- NAICS or SIC codes for what you actually do
- Any diversity or SBA status and the certifications that back it up
- References
- Primary and secondary contacts plus corporate headquarters details
Read the disclaimer on that form and take it at face value. STARS states plainly that registering does not guarantee a contract, does not classify you as an approved or preferred supplier, and does not automatically put you into any RFQ or RFP. It puts your profile in a database that sourcing teams can search. That's the function. Treat it as getting listed, not getting hired.
One operational note that matters more than it sounds: STARS warns that expired certifications can be removed from the database without notice. If your minority-owned or women-owned certification lapses, your diversity status can quietly drop off your profile. Keep your certifications current and update the portal when they renew.
PepsiCo also runs separate systems for suppliers already in the fold: SupplierNet, an Ariba-powered eSourcing environment for active bids, Trust Your Supplier for onboarding and compliance data, and a vendor query portal for accounts-payable questions once you're transacting. You don't need those on day one. STARS is where new suppliers begin.
Step 2: Understand what the supplier diversity program is, and isn'tPepsiCo has run a Supplier Diversity Program since 1982, one of the older corporate programs in the country. At its 40th anniversary in 2022, PepsiCo reported growing that effort from $5 million in 1982 to nearly $30 billion spent over four decades, and said it was spending more than $1 billion a year with certified diverse suppliers. The same announcement committed to more than $400 million annually with Black- and Hispanic-owned suppliers specifically.
The program has historically counted businesses owned by women, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and LGBTQ+ owners, plus people with disabilities and U.S. veterans. In practice that means PepsiCo recognizes the standard third-party certifications behind each group:
- NMSDC (MBE) for minority-owned businesses
- WBENC (WBE) for women-owned businesses
- NGLCC (LGBTBE) for LGBTQ+-owned businesses
- Disability:IN (DOBE) for disability-owned businesses
- NaVOBA or the VA for veteran- and service-disabled-veteran-owned businesses
A self-declared diversity status carries far less weight than a certification from one of these bodies. The certification is what lets a corporate buyer count your spend toward a diversity goal and report it cleanly, which is the entire reason the program exists on their side. If you're choosing where to certify, our supplier directory and the corporate programs directory show which buyers recognize which certifications, so you certify once for the doors you actually want to open.
One caveat worth stating directly. Corporate supplier-diversity messaging shifted across 2025 and 2026 as many large companies revised or renamed their public commitments. PepsiCo's specific program scope, dollar pledges, and public pages may have changed since the 2022 figures above. The mechanism, certified diverse suppliers getting found and bought through procurement, has stayed in place at most large buyers even where the marketing language changed. Confirm the current program details on PepsiCo's own site before you build a plan around a specific number.
Step 3: Get certified before you expect a callbackIf diverse-supplier status is part of your pitch, certify first. A pending application doesn't count. PepsiCo has acknowledged how hard certification is for small owners; in 2022 it brought on Pink Patch Group, a Black-woman-owned certification consultancy, specifically to help diverse suppliers get through the process, citing research that only about 1% of eligible diverse companies actually complete certification.
That gap is the real barrier, and it's the one inside your control. Certification through NMSDC or WBENC typically runs a few hundred dollars and takes weeks of document gathering: tax returns, proof of ownership, formation documents, and often a site visit or interview. If you're pursuing more than one certification, CertifyAll compiles your business information and documents once and files across the bodies that fit, so you're not rebuilding the same packet five times.
Step 4: Do the follow-up that registration doesn't do for youThis is the step most owners skip, and it's the one that separates a profile in a database from an actual purchase order.
- Find the category, then the buyer. Identify which procurement category covers what you sell and aim your outreach there, not at a generic inbox.
- Show up where PepsiCo recruits. Large buyers source heavily through NMSDC and WBENC matchmaking events, regional council meetings, and industry conferences. PepsiCo has long partnered with NMSDC. A 15-minute matchmaker conversation moves you further than a hundred cold emails.
- Have a one-page capability statement ready. Named NAICS codes, certifications, a few relevant clients, and the specific problem you solve. Buyers screen fast.
- Aim for Tier 2 if direct is a long shot. If PepsiCo isn't buying from you directly, its existing prime suppliers may be required to subcontract a share of their PepsiCo work to certified diverse businesses. Selling to a PepsiCo prime as a Tier 2 supplier is often a faster, more realistic first win than landing PepsiCo as a direct account.
- Stay current. Renew certifications on time and keep your STARS profile and contacts accurate so a buyer who searches you finds a live, complete record.
Registration takes an afternoon. Becoming a supplier PepsiCo buys from is usually a year-plus relationship: certify, register, get in front of the right category through a council or matchmaker, win a small first order or a Tier 2 subcontract, deliver, and grow from there. Owners who treat the STARS form as the finish line wait by a phone that doesn't ring. Owners who treat it as one step in a longer sales motion are the ones who get the order.
PepsiCo is one of dozens of large buyers running this same playbook. The certification you earn for them works at most of the others too. To see which corporate programs match what you sell and which certifications each one recognizes, start with our corporate programs directory. And if you want the mechanics of getting into these programs in general, not just PepsiCo, read how to get into corporate supplier diversity programs.
