PepsiCo was created in 1965 by the merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay.
The merger combined a soft-drink company with a major snack-food producer. Pepsi-Cola traced its history to the nineteenth century, while Frito-Lay had become a significant packaged-snack business through the combination of Frito Company and H.W. Lay & Company.
The new company could sell beverages and snacks through complementary distribution networks. That combination later became central to PepsiCo’s identity and helped it compete across multiple food and drink categories.
PepsiCo is often confused with Pepsi, the beverage brand. Pepsi is one of the company’s brands; PepsiCo is the corporate group that also includes snack and food brands. The merger date is therefore a corporate-history fact, not the invention date of the Pepsi drink.