The Riyadh facility will develop new food products, flavours and packaging tailored to Middle Eastern consumers while strengthening local research and product development capabilities.
PepsiCo has opened a $10 million regional research and development hub in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, establishing a permanent base for product innovation in the Middle East. The facility, valued at SAR37.5 million, is designed to bring multiple stages of the product development process together in one location and support faster development of products for regional consumers.
The new centre will focus on developing food concepts, flavours and packaging suited to preferences across the Middle East. Its work will include locally inspired seasonings and product concepts positioned by PepsiCo as better-for-you options, allowing the company to develop products closer to the markets they are intended to serve.
Saudi scientists and engineers will work at the facility alongside PepsiCo’s regional teams and its wider global research and development network. The company’s international R&D network includes innovation centres in Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico and the United States, creating opportunities to combine regional consumer insights with global technical expertise.
The Riyadh hub includes a consumer immersion space equipped with 360-degree screens and climate controls that can recreate settings such as beaches, stadiums and cinemas. It also features a culinary kitchen and product development area, a focus group room, a 12-seat sensory panel and laboratories dedicated to quality testing, packaging development and seasoning research.
By bringing these functions under one roof, PepsiCo expects its teams to develop, test and refine products more efficiently. The facility is also intended to enable researchers to respond more quickly to consumer feedback and shorten the time between identifying a market preference and developing a corresponding product concept.
The investment further expands PepsiCo’s presence in Saudi Arabia, where the company has its Middle East regional headquarters in Riyadh and operates manufacturing and other facilities. The company said the new hub will also support local recruitment and the localisation of research, product development and parts of its supply chain activities.
The new facility builds on PepsiCo’s broader focus on local agriculture, manufacturing and innovation in the region. The company has previously highlighted its work with Saudi producers, including local potato sourcing and precision irrigation initiatives, while its Dammam snacks facility serves as a regional manufacturing and export hub.
The Riyadh R&D hub represents an expansion of PepsiCo’s product innovation capabilities in the Middle East, with the company seeking to combine local consumer insights, scientific expertise and product-development infrastructure to create food and beverage offerings tailored to regional markets.