Following a recent campaign fronted by longtime ambassador George Clooney, chief brand officer Anna Lundstrom says she wants to deepen the brand's product range and reinforce its purpose to build upon a Covid bump.
Despite strong organic sales growth and market share gains in the first quarter, Nestlé’s CEO warned market analysts yesterday against “excessive margin growth expectations,” and cautioned the company could raise prices later this year or early next to offset pandemic-related inflation.
The company posted April 22 organic growth of 7.7% with 6.4% real internal growth during the first three months of the year – its largest increase in quarterly sales in almost a decade and almost double analyst expectations of 3.3%.
The jump was driven primarily by increased demand by consumers still stuck at home during the pandemic for coffee, including Nespresso pods, Nescafe instant coffee and Starbucks-branded products, as well as a double-digit increase in dairy based on elevated demand for home-baking products and fortified milk, according to the company, which also called out increased demand for pet food.
Nestle has committed to focus on plant-based product localisation, sustainability and affordability as key focus areas for its Asia Pacific businesses on the back of the region posting near flat-growth as a result of poor performance in China.
The firm revealed in its 2020 Full Year Results announcement that its businesses in Zone Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa (AOA) had seen overall organic growth of just 0.5%, with sales decreasing by CHF 1.4bn (US$1.6bn) to CHF 20.7bn (US$23.1bn) in 2020, from CHF22.1bn (US$24.6bn) in 2019.
“Growth numbers in APAC were mostly impacted only by China, where we faced some specific issues such as our exceptionally high exposure in that market to the Out-Of-Home category which was severely hit by COVID-19, as well as Chinese consumers not stockpiling food supplies at home in contrast to what was seen in most other markets,” Nestle CFO Francois-Xavier Roger said in response to queries from