PepsiCo’s Ahmed El Sheikh on why the next big snack could be invented in Riyadh
With a $10m research and development hub in Riyadh, PepsiCo is looking to make Saudi Arabia a centre for the next wave of regional snack innovation, rather than simply adapting products developed elsewhere. CEO Ahmed El Sheikh explains why
25 September, 2026
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PepsiCo has just opened a new research and development hub in Riyadh. The $10m hub brings consumer research, culinary development, sensory testing, packaging and laboratory work together under one roof, and is designed to let the company create new snacks for the region rather than simply adapt global ones.
For a company that has been in Saudi Arabia for around 70 years, it is a significant next step. Ahmed El Sheikh, CEO of Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan Foods at PepsiCo, spoke to Gulf Business about why the company chose Riyadh, how the hub works, the tastes shaping its products, and how it fits with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goals for science and talent.
Why Riyadh
The choice of base, El Sheikh says, followed naturally from history. “Saudi Arabia has been our largest and most established market in the region for over seven decades, so it made sense to build here.” The timing matters too. “The kingdom is investing heavily in homegrown science and a new generation of skilled talent, and we wanted to be part of that and support it.”
There is a product logic as well as a strategic one. Saudi Arabia has “a rich and distinctive food culture,” he notes, alongside “a young population whose tastes are evolving quickly.” Crucially, the hub was not designed to serve one market. “We built the hub with the whole of MENAPAK in mind, so what our teams learn in Riyadh will feed into how we develop snacks across the wider region.”
For El Sheikh, it all sits within a longer arc: “PepsiCo has been part of Saudi Arabia for around 70 years, and our presence has evolved alongside the kingdom. The R&D Hub represents the next chapter.”
From first reaction to tested prototype
The practical appeal of the hub is speed, and it comes from putting every stage of development in the same place. “It means we can take an idea from a person’s first reaction to a tested prototype without stepping outside the building,” El Sheikh says. Development, seasoning, packaging and quality labs now handle work that once relied on outside partners, “so steps that took weeks can now happen on site.”
That compression changes how the teams work. “We can taste, adjust and retest in the same day,” he says. “A chef can change a recipe based on live feedback, and the seasoning lab can test that change immediately, rather than running it through several rounds of external trials.”
The pipeline coming out of Riyadh is being shaped by two consumer pulls at once. “People want flavours that feel familiar and local, alongside more choice in better-for-you formats,” El Sheikh says, “and both trends are shaping our pipeline.”
To read those tastes accurately, the hub leans on context. Its immersion space lets teams test recipes in a real setting, “such as a family gathering, a stadium, or a night out.” That is the point, he explains: “Context changes how something tastes and whether people reach for it again.” Health is a steady thread through it all. “We’re also seeing steady interest in reduced sugar and sodium without losing the taste people expect,” he says, “and the hub lets us adjust that balance in real time.”
Asked whether the facility will mostly tailor global products for local palates or generate ideas of its own, El Sheikh is clear that it is both, with the emphasis firmly on originating. “Riyadh gives us the ability to innovate locally rather than simply adapt what already exists elsewhere.”
The hub is wired into PepsiCo’s global network, with teams “working alongside colleagues in Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico and the US, so insight moves in both directions.” The ambition, over time, is for the flow to run outward. “We’d like Riyadh to be a source of thinking that shapes how we approach innovation elsewhere in our network.”
Building Saudi capability
For El Sheikh, the hub is as much about people as products. It “employs Saudi scientists and chefs working directly alongside our regional and global R&D teams,” he says, giving them exposure to an international network by design. “We want this hub to help build world-class research and development capability in the kingdom, in line with the Human Capability Development priorities under Vision 2030.”
Its Riyadh location also puts it closer to academic and industry partners, relationships he expects to build over time. “Supporting the next generation of Saudi scientists and engineers is a large part of the hub’s role.”
So how will PepsiCo judge whether the $10m has worked? The first test, El Sheikh says, is speed and relevance. “We’ll look at how quickly ideas move from insight to launch, and how well they reflect what people across the region want. That, for us, is the clearest sign the hub is doing its job.” Broader goals sit alongside it, “including a broader range of better-for-you options and progress on more sustainable packaging.”
The final measure is human. “Just as important is the growth of our Saudi team and the expertise they build here,” he says. “Creating lasting opportunities for local talent is how the hub generates value in the kingdom’s R&D sector.” Seven decades into its Saudi story, in other words, PepsiCo is betting the next chapter will be written by Saudi scientists, in Riyadh, for the region and beyond.
