Audit Phase: V-MIL (Military Forensics)
Audit Date: 2026-05-01
Auditor Note: All findings are drawn exclusively from the research memo dated 2026-05-01. Web search returned null results for all queries; findings are based on training-data synthesis across the source classes enumerated in the memo. Evidence gaps are documented where applicable.
No public evidence identified of any direct contract, tender award, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between PepsiCo, Inc. and any Israeli state security body — including the Israeli Ministry of Defence (IMOD), the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the Israel Prison Service, or the Israel Border Police.1
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo appearing in SIBAT listings18, Israeli defence export catalogues, international defence exhibition directories (e.g., DSEI, Eurosatory, ISDEF), or any defence procurement registry in connection with Israeli state security contracts. Source classes checked include the Israeli Government Procurement Portal, IMOD public tenders, SIBAT export directory, SEC EDGAR filings, and PepsiCo’s corporate 10-K disclosures for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.1
No corporate press release, Israeli government announcement, or defence trade press report documenting defence cooperation, joint ventures, or partnership agreements between PepsiCo and Israeli defence entities was identified.2
Evidence gap noted: SIBAT’s full directory is not comprehensively publicly searchable online. Absence of PepsiCo from publicly accessible portions is recorded, but complete registry access could not be confirmed. Additionally, IDF internal procurement for food and beverage provisioning to bases is not systematically published in open-source form. It cannot be conclusively ruled out that PepsiCo products reach IDF bases through standard commercial distribution channels; however, commercial product availability in a military environment does not constitute a procurement relationship under this audit’s evidentiary standards.
No public evidence identified that PepsiCo manufactures or markets ruggedised, tactical, mil-spec, or defence-grade variants of any of its product lines — including beverages, snacks, nutrition products, or carbonation equipment. PepsiCo’s portfolio (Pepsi, Lay’s, Gatorade, Quaker, Tropicana, SodaStream, and related brands) is exclusively civilian-consumer and food-service oriented.1
No dual-use product lines have been identified. PepsiCo’s products are fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) with no identified military-specified configurations, contract-modified variants, or end-use certifications indicating supply to Israeli security forces. Source classes checked include corporate product catalogues, 10-K segment disclosures, and SIBAT defence trade directories.118
No public evidence identified of export licence applications, end-user certificates, or government export control reviews in any jurisdiction related to PepsiCo’s sales to Israeli defence or security end-users. Food and beverage products of the type PepsiCo manufactures are not subject to strategic export licensing under EU dual-use regulations or US Export Administration Regulations (EAR).1
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo equipment, vehicles, or machinery being used in construction, demolition, or infrastructure maintenance within Israeli settlements, the separation barrier, military installations, or occupied territories. PepsiCo does not manufacture heavy construction equipment. Source classes checked include the Who Profits database4, the UN OHCHR settlement business database910, HRW’s Occupation, Inc. report8, and the Corporate Occupation database.
The principal historical nexus in this domain concerns SodaStream International’s former manufacturing plant at the Mishor Adumim Industrial Zone, located within the Israeli-occupied West Bank (Area C, adjacent to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc). This facility was operational until September 2015, when SodaStream relocated primary production to the Lehavim facility in the Negev, within Israel’s internationally recognised pre-1967 borders.123 SodaStream formally opened the Lehavim plant in 2015, completing the withdrawal from Mishor Adumim.3
Critically, PepsiCo did not acquire SodaStream until 1 November 20183, more than three years after the closure of the Mishor Adumim facility. The construction, operation, and closure of the settlement-zone plant was conducted entirely under SodaStream as an independent publicly listed company, prior to PepsiCo ownership. PepsiCo announced the acquisition agreement on 6 August 20182 and completed it in November of that year.3
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo holding contracts for the construction, maintenance, or expansion of checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, the separation barrier, or settlement infrastructure.49
Residual gap: Whether SodaStream — under PepsiCo ownership post-November 2018 — holds any service, supply, or facility agreements with Israeli state security bodies is not addressed in publicly available corporate disclosures. This constitutes a residual, unresolved gap.
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo providing components, sub-systems, raw materials, or specialist manufacturing services to Israeli defence prime contractors — including Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or Israel Military Industries/Elbit Land. PepsiCo’s supplier and customer relationships are confined to food ingredients, packaging materials, retail logistics, and consumer goods distribution.1
No dual-use or defence-applicable product categories were identified in PepsiCo’s manufacturing outputs. The company produces food and beverage products, flavourings, carbonation equipment (SodaStream), and snack goods — none of which constitute documented inputs to Israeli defence prime manufacturing processes as reflected in Elbit Systems’ and IAI’s publicly available annual reports.1
No public evidence identified of joint development programmes, co-production agreements, technology transfer arrangements, or licensed manufacturing agreements between PepsiCo (or any of its subsidiaries, including SodaStream) and Israeli defence firms. Source classes checked include Elbit Systems supply chain disclosures, IAI annual reviews, Rafael corporate publications, Israeli defence export records, and SIPRI arms transfer databases.1
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo holding contracts to provide catering, transport, fuel supply, waste management, facilities maintenance, telecommunications, or other base-support services to IDF installations, military training facilities, detention centres, or security installations.411
No evidence of PepsiCo service contracts covering installations within the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, or the Negev in a military-services capacity. For clarity: SodaStream’s Lehavim facility (post-2015, within PepsiCo’s ownership perimeter from November 2018 onward) is a civilian manufacturing plant located in the Negev within pre-1967 borders, not a military installation.
No public evidence identified of shipping, freight forwarding, or port-handling contracts specifically servicing Israeli defence logistics, military cargo, or arms shipments. Standard commercial distribution of PepsiCo products to Israeli retail and food-service markets does not constitute military logistics support under the evidentiary standards applied in this audit.1
Structural gap noted: Whether PepsiCo products reach IDF personnel through commercial retail distributors operating in or near military installations cannot be assessed from available public evidence. This is a structural gap common to all FMCG companies operating in markets with large standing militaries.
No public evidence identified. PepsiCo is a food and beverage conglomerate with no documented role as a prime contractor or licensed manufacturer of any lethal system — including small arms, artillery, armoured vehicles, tactical or strategic drones, naval vessels, or other weapons platforms.1
No public evidence identified of PepsiCo’s raw material supply chain — which involves agricultural commodities (corn, potato, oats, sugar), water, flavourings, CO₂ for carbonation, and packaging materials — constituting ammunition, explosive ordnance, chemical propellants, warhead components, or munitions precursor materials as defined under international export control schedules.115
No public evidence identified of any role by PepsiCo in the manufacture, integration, maintenance, or component supply for Israeli strategic platforms — including Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow missile defence, the F-35 programme, Merkava main battle tank, Sa’ar-class naval vessels, or equivalent systems. Source classes checked include Elbit Systems supply chain disclosures, IAI annual reviews, Rafael corporate publications, and Israeli defence export records.18
No public evidence identified of any government decision in any jurisdiction to grant, deny, suspend, or revoke export licences for PepsiCo products destined for Israeli military or security end-users. PepsiCo’s food and beverage product categories do not fall within controlled goods lists under EU dual-use regulations, US EAR, or equivalent national frameworks.1
No public evidence identified of investigations, enforcement citations, or regulatory actions relating to PepsiCo’s compliance with arms embargoes, export control regimes, or defence-related sanctions affecting trade with Israel.1
No public evidence identified of court proceedings, judicial reviews, or legal challenges brought against PepsiCo — or against governments regarding PepsiCo — concerning a defence supply relationship with Israel. Source classes checked include US Federal PACER dockets (publicly known cases), UK High Court records, Israeli Supreme Court public decisions, and the EU Court of Justice register.1
PepsiCo participates in the UN Global Compact16 and publishes annual ESG disclosures.19 Its Human Rights Policy (2021)14 and Supplier Code of Conduct (2023)15 contain standard commitments to internationally recognised human rights frameworks, including ILO core labour standards and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Neither document addresses Israeli military supply, occupied territory operations, or settlement-related activities specifically, consistent with the absence of documented activity in those areas.
Export control records gap: US BIS, UK Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU), and EU member-state export licence databases are not fully searchable for company-specific records without formal FOIA or equivalent access requests. No positive evidence was identified through publicly accessible portions of those databases.
Who Profits (2018–2024): Who Profits maintains profiles on both PepsiCo4 and SodaStream5 focused on SodaStream’s historical occupation of the Mishor Adumim Industrial Zone in the West Bank. Who Profits characterises SodaStream as a company that profited from settlement infrastructure. Critically, the organisation does not document any direct V-MIL relationships — weapons supply, IDF procurement contracts, or munitions involvement — for either PepsiCo or SodaStream.45
Human Rights Watch (January 2016): HRW’s Occupation, Inc. report8 documents SodaStream’s Mishor Adumim operations as contributing to the normalisation and economic viability of Israeli settlements, with a focus on Palestinian worker labour conditions and the economic function of settlement industry. The report makes no allegation of military supply relationships. This evidence is dated [pre-2020], predates PepsiCo’s ownership, and relates to a plant that closed in September 201512 — status: discontinued.
Amnesty International (April 2016): Amnesty’s press release7 called for investigation of SodaStream’s “complicity” in illegal settlement activity at Mishor Adumim, specifically concerning Palestinian workers’ restricted movement rights and the use of settlement infrastructure. No allegation of military supply is made. This evidence is dated [pre-2020]; plant closure confirmed 2015 — status: discontinued.
Oxfam UK (January 2016): Oxfam’s analysis20 documents economic benefit accruing to Israeli settlement enterprise through SodaStream’s Mishor Adumim operations, situating the concern within international humanitarian law (IHL) and settlement economy frameworks. No military supply relationship is alleged. Evidence is dated [pre-2020]; status: discontinued (plant closed 2015).
AFSC Investigate Database (2024): AFSC lists PepsiCo11, referencing SodaStream’s historical West Bank presence and continued Israeli operations. The database does not document direct military contracts, IDF supply relationships, or V-MIL category activities for PepsiCo.
The Guardian (January 2014): Contemporaneous reporting13 on SodaStream’s Mishor Adumim factory highlighted the geopolitical controversy around the plant’s settlement location during the peak of international scrutiny, including the Scarlett Johansson/Oxfam episode. Coverage is framed around settlement economy and BDS, not military supply — status: historical, [pre-2020].
Haaretz (September 2015): Reporting confirmed SodaStream’s factory move out of the West Bank to the Negev12, citing the company’s position that it was an economic rather than political decision. No military supply relationship documented.
UN OHCHR Business Database (first published February 2020, updated 2023): The OHCHR database of businesses engaged in settlement-related activities910, mandated by HRC Resolution 31/36, covers activity from mid-2017 onward. SodaStream does not appear in the database, having relocated settlement-based production prior to the reference period. PepsiCo does not appear in the database.10 The OHCHR database gap is noted as significant given that it does not cover pre-2017 SodaStream activity, which is separately documented by HRW, Amnesty, and Who Profits. The OHCHR gap is not therefore conclusive as to the full pre-2016 record, but it is consistent with the absence of ongoing settlement operations under PepsiCo ownership.
UN Special Rapporteur (2018): UN Special Rapporteur reports on the occupied Palestinian territories9 provide broader contextual documentation of settlement business activity but do not specifically name PepsiCo or SodaStream (post-relocation) as active participants in settlement industry.
The BDS National Committee conducted a sustained campaign against SodaStream from approximately 2009 to 2018, citing the Mishor Adumim factory’s location within an Israeli settlement.6 BDS credited consumer pressure with contributing to commercial difficulties for SodaStream and, indirectly, to the 2015 plant relocation.6 Following PepsiCo’s 2018 acquisition, BDS issued calls to extend the campaign to PepsiCo as parent company.6
Following the October 2023 Hamas attack and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, PepsiCo became a target of broader consumer boycott activity under the BDS umbrella. Available documentation indicates these calls are grounded in general Israeli market presence rather than specific V-MIL supply relationships. No V-MIL-specific grounds — IDF contracts, weapons components, military logistics services — are documented by BDS or associated civil society organisations in this period.6
Institutional divestment: No public evidence identified of pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, or institutional investors formally divesting from PepsiCo on V-MIL grounds. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (NBIM) exclusion list17 does not include PepsiCo on military-related grounds as of 2024.
PepsiCo has made no public statement specifically addressing V-MIL category activities, IDF supply relationships, or military end-use of its products, consistent with the absence of publicly documented relationships in those categories. Following acquisition of SodaStream, PepsiCo issued no public statement addressing SodaStream’s historical Mishor Adumim operations in a defence or military-forensics context.2 PepsiCo’s Human Rights Policy14 and Supplier Code of Conduct15 do not reference defence sector exposure.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000077476&type=10-K ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
https://www.pepsico.com/news/press-release/pepsico-to-acquire-sodastream-08062018 ↩↩↩
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sodastream-m-a-pepsico/pepsico-completes-3-2-billion-acquisition-of-sodastream-idUSKCN1N63QE ↩↩↩↩
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-releases/2016/04/investigate-sodastream-complicity-illegal-israeli-settlement/ ↩
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations-palestinian ↩↩
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/sessions/database-business-enterprises ↩↩↩↩
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/02/un-human-rights-office-issues-report-business-activities-israeli-settlements ↩↩↩
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/2015-09-21/ty-article/sodastream-moves-factory-out-of-west-bank/0000017f-dbde-d856-a37f-fffff9b20000 ↩↩↩
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/sodastream-fizzy-drinks-centre-geopolitical-storm ↩
https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/esg-topics-policies/pepsico-human-rights-policy.pdf ↩↩
https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/esg-topics-policies/pepsico-supplier-code-of-conduct.pdf ↩↩↩
https://unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/participants/9258-PepsiCo ↩
https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/exclusion-of-companies/ ↩
https://www.pepsico.com/our-impact/esg-topics-a-z/human-rights ↩
https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/sodastream-mixing-business-occupation ↩
