A staff member is seen at a Taco Bell restaurant in London.
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PepsiCo and Taco Bell have renewed their longtime partnership through 2036, the food and beverage company announced Thursday.
This announcement comes a week after Taco Bell’s sister chain KFC announced it would move to Coca-Cola as a beverage supplier in the United States. While it is unusual for major restaurant chains to change beverage suppliers, the move is not unprecedented as Coca-Cola and Pepsi try to win business through perks and other incentives.
Coca-Cola’s victory over Pepsi was more symbolic, representing another example of how the Atlanta-based company beat its rival in the soda category.
Pepsi’s relationship with Taco Bell and KFC’s parent company Yum Brands spans decades, to when the beverage giant owned the restaurant chains before spinning them off as a separate public company in 1997. Despite KFC’s defection to the United States, Pepsi remains an important partner for Yum and the chain’s international markets, KFC U.S. President Catherine Tan-Gillespie wrote in an Oct. 15 memo obtained by CNBC.
Through its partnership with Pepsi, Taco Bell has long offered exclusive menu items using Pepsi products, such as Mountain Dew Baja Blast and Doritos Locos Tacos, at its restaurants.
The renewed deal also means that Taco Bell’s international markets such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Thailand will serve Pepsi products.
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