Nestlé divests rest of its ice cream operations

Nestlé said it planned to sell its remaining ice cream operations to its Froneri joint venture, in which it keeps a 50% stake, according to Yahoo Finance news. Nestlé set up Froneri with private-equity firm PAI Partners in 2016 to house some of its ice-cream brands.

Froneri already owns Häagen-Dazs, Drumstick, Oreo, Cadbury and other major ice cream brands around the globe. KitKat ice cream and Coffee Crisp are among the brands that Nestlé will move on from, and the sale will essentially serve as an extension of its prior partnership with Froneri. The sale will add ice cream operations in countries such as Canada, Chile, Peru, China, Malaysia and Thailand to the Froneri portfolio.

This move was announced at the first full year results update featuring the new chief executive Philipp Navratil. He also has to deal with the continuing fallout from the worldwide infant formula recall, of which Nestlé brands were involved in, in 60 countries, due to contamination of cereulide traced to arachidonic acid (ARA) oil.

Navratil also announced job cuts of 18,000 over the next 18 months, with plans to divest its waters business and mainstream vitamins and supplements arms as well.