Nestlé stays on track
Nestle is also on track to meet full year expectations, having posted nine-month sales up 9% and strong organic growth of 7.2%.
The Swiss group enjoyed sales of CHF 78.7bn (€47 bn).
In its Milk Products and Ice Cream business unit, nine month sales totalled CHF 15.7 billion (€9.4 bn), up 1.8% in terms of real internal growth and 6.5% in organic growth terms. This category saw the strongest price increases to mitigate input cost pressures, and its performance was driven by higher value segments and innovation. Nido, the world leader in children’s milk powder, experienced double-digit organic growth, with products containing added probiotics and what Nestle calls “branded active benefits”. Ice cream grew strongly in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe, thanks to higher impulse sales and strong innovation, including products with an improved nutritional profile, whereas higher prices in North America and a cool summer in Western Europe softened sales volumes there.
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and CEO of Nestle, says‚ “The Group’s strong organic growth continued over the third quarter, reflecting good performances across most product categories. In spite of increasing input cost pressures, I remain confident that Nestle will achieve above-target organic growth and a sustainable margin improvement for 2007 as a whole, once again demonstrating the strength of the Nestle model.”
Brabeck-Letmathe also announced the establishment of Nestle Professional, a new globally-managed business unit dedicated to the out-of-home food and beverage market. The unit replaces Nestle’s FoodService Strategic Business Division.
“Finally,” said Brabeck-Letmathe, “the appointment of Paul Polman as new head of Zone Americas and Jim Singh as new CFO, together with the other changes to the Executive Board, creates a strong management team under the leadership of the newly designated CEO, Paul Bulcke, which will extend and broaden the successful developments achieved over the past years.”
