Pepsico (PEP) CEO Nooyi Tackles Tiger, Obesity, and Twitter -Cramer

Pepsico (NYSE: PEP) shares are higher today after Jim Cramer spoke with CEO Indra Nooyi on Friday. The shares are up about 2% to $60.68 in afternoon trading on just about normal volume.

Nooyi was asked about the obesity epidemic in the U.S., and her response focused mainly on the healthier products that Pepsi was rolling out and that obesity is a societal problem that cannot be traced directly to one specific product.

She stated that the company is doing a lot for the community, which helps the company to attract and retain the best and brightest from around the globe. To that end, Nooyi alludes to her employees enjoying work because they get a healthy work environment, ability to grow their nest egg, and have the ability to have a social life out of work.

When asked about Tiger Woods and his sponsorship, Nooyi said that "Tiger is a great golfer," and didn't go much further. She went on to say that Gatorade sponsors all of the best athletes, and doesn't focus on one in particular. [Ed. note: Of course, we all must have already forgotten about Tiger being the only athlete to have his own line of beverages from Gatorade. Doublespeak? Maybe.]

Nooyi said that spinning off both Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) and bottlers made sense at the time, but changes in the marketplace has made it rather challenging to reacquire the bottling units.

On social media as a tool to encourage soda purchases, Nooyi said that social media works great when used correctly, but can spread like "wildfire" when something goes wrong.

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