International Business

The Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. announces three executive appointments predicted to strengthen the company's global management team.

The combined investments are expected to create thousands of new jobs in China, where PepsiCo and its bottling partners already directly employ more than 22,000 people.

Food safety and quality will be a major focus of this new R&D Center.

The focus includes improving the profitability of the coffeehouses, rationalizing the cost structure and aligning the current real estate portfolio, among other initiatives.

Spitz International Inc., a Canadian sunflower and pumpkin seed maker, will operate as part of Frito-Lay North America.

The global enterprise agreement is predicted to drive scale and innovation.

The implementation of a new system will establish an enterprise-wide PLM backbone for all product, packaging and process information.

An unsolicited bid for flash memory card maker SanDisk Corp was dropped, citing growing uncertainties in SanDisk's business.