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“I remember going to Boston for an investor… just took me to the cleaners, said ‘Who are you, Mother Teresa? We are American. We eat chips and drink soda!” she told David Bradley.

Interviewed by Bradley, who chairs Atlantic Media Company, at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, Nooyi spoke of the challenges her role involved, as a woman leading a company with 300,000 staff and almost $30bn in revenues. She even cracked a joke about using drones to deliver Pepsi to peoples homes.

“What’s new in what we like in beverages and food?” Bradley’s open-ended question saw Nooyi reflect on the shifting soda and snack landscape.

“Clearly there’s a health and wellness trends and…focus for all consumers,” she said.

“but what health and wellness means is what’s a really confusing aspect today.”

If you’d asked Nooyi 5-7 years ago she would have said that people were focusing on zero-calorie and lower calorie products.

But over the past couple of years people had taken industry by surprise, ditching diet products because they don’t like artificial sweeteners, she added.

The surprising return of real sugar – Public ditches artificial sweeteners

“I don’t know why because nothing has been written about them not being safe. They’re just fine. But people are not consuming products with artificial sweeteners. They’re going back to consuming real sugar products,” Nooyi said.

“So that’s a surprising shift. Another shift we’re seeing is people going to portion control. Smaller cans, smaller servings, and they’re reading nutrition labels.”

Before the interview Nooyi said she saw a woman read the nutritional label on a can of EZEE.

“People are looking for natural organic labeling, and they’re looking for non-GMO labellings,” she said.