Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 2014. It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017. In 2023, the company was ranked 50th in the Forbes Global 2000.
Nestlé's products include coffee and tea, candy and confectionery, bottled water, infant formula and baby food, dairy products and ice cream, frozen foods, breakfast cereals, dry packaged foods and snacks, pet foods, and medical food. Twenty-nine of Nestlé's brands have annual sales of over 1 billion CHF, including Nespresso, Nescafé, Nestea, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer Corporation, Vittel, and Maggi., Nestlé has 337 factories, operates in 185 countries, and employs around 277,000 people. It is one of the main shareholders of L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics company.
Nestlé was formed in 1905 by the merger of Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, which was established in 1866 by brothers George Ham Page and Charles Page, and "Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé" founded in 1867 by Henri Nestlé. The company grew significantly during World War I and again following World War II, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. The company has made a number of corporate acquisitions including Findus in 1963, Libby's in 1971, Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, Klim in 1998, and Gerber in 2007.
Nestlé has faced longstanding criticism over its business practices. The company's promotion of infant formula in developing countries sparked a boycott in the 1970s for discouraging breastfeeding. It has also been accused of benefiting from child labor, forced labor, and deforestation in West African cocoa production, fined for price-fixing cartels and criticized for its water extraction practices.
History
1866–1900: Founding and early years
Nestlé's origin dates back to the 1860s, when two separate Swiss enterprises were founded that would later form Nestlé. In the following decades, the two competing enterprises expanded their businesses throughout Europe and the United States.Timeline
- 1866: Charles Page and George Ham Page, brothers from Lee County, Illinois, established the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Cham, Switzerland. The company's first British operation was opened at Chippenham, Wiltshire in 1873.
- 1867: In Vevey, Switzerland, Henri Nestlé developed milk-based baby food and soon began marketing it. The following year, Daniel Peter began seven years of work perfecting the milk chocolate manufacturing process. Nestlé had the solution, Peter needed to fix his problem of removing all the water from the milk added to his chocolate, thus preventing the product from developing mildew.
- 1875: Henri Nestlé retired; the company, under new ownership, retained his name as Société Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé.
- 1877: Anglo-Swiss added milk-based baby foods to its products; in the following year, the Nestlé Company added condensed milk to its portfolio, which made the firms direct rivals.
- 1879: Nestlé merged with milk chocolate inventor Daniel Peter.
- 1890: Henri Nestlé died.
1901–1989: Mergers
In 1905, Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss merged to become the Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, retaining that name until 1947 when the name 'Nestlé Alimentana SA' was taken as a result of the acquisition of Fabrique de Produits Maggi SA and its holding company, Alimentana SA, of Kempttal, Switzerland. The company's current name was adopted in 1977. By the early 1900s, the company was operating factories in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain. The First World War created a demand for dairy products in the form of government contracts, and by the end of the war, Nestlé's production had more than doubled.
In January 1919, Nestlé bought two condensed milk plants in Oregon from the company Geibisch and Joplin for $250,000. One was in Bandon, while the other was in Milwaukie. They expanded them considerably, processing 250,000 pounds of condensed milk daily in the Bandon plant.
After the World War I, government contracts dried up, and consumers switched back to fresh milk. However, Nestlé's management responded quickly, streamlining operations and reducing debt. The 1920s saw Nestlé's first expansion into new products, with chocolate-manufacture becoming the company's second most important activity; white chocolate was created in the following decade. Louis Dapples was CEO till 1937 when succeeded by Édouard Muller till his death in 1948.
Nestlé felt the effects of the Second World War immediately. Profits dropped from US$20 million in 1938 to US$6 million in 1939. Factories were established in developing countries, particularly in South America. Ironically, the war helped with the introduction of the company's newest product, Nescafé, which became a staple drink of the US military. Despite that, Nestlé actually supplied both sides in the war: the company had a contract to feed the German army. Nestlé's production and sales rose in the wartime economy.
The end of World War II was the beginning of a dynamic phase for Nestlé. Growth accelerated and numerous companies were acquired. In 1947 Nestlé merged with Maggi, a manufacturer of seasonings and soups. Crosse & Blackwell followed in 1960, as did Findus, Libby's, and Stouffer's. Diversification came under chairman & CEO Pierre Liotard-Vogt with a shareholding in L'Oreal in 1974 and the acquisition of Alcon Laboratories Inc. in 1977 for $280 million.
In the 1980s, Nestlé's improved bottom line allowed the company to launch further acquisitions. Carnation was acquired for US$3 billion in 1984 and brought the evaporated milk brand, as well as Coffee-Mate and Friskies, to Nestlé. In 1986, the company founded Nestlé Nespresso S.A. The British confectionery company Rowntree Mackintosh was acquired in 1988 for $4.5 billion, which brought brands such as Kit Kat, Rolo, Smarties, and Aero.
1990–2011: International growth
The first half of the 1990s proved to be favourable for Nestlé. Trade barriers crumbled, and world markets developed into more or less integrated trading areas. Late 1990s acquisitions included San Pellegrino, D'Onofrio, and Spillers Petfoods. In 1999, Nestlé sold the Findus brand to the Swedish firm EQT AB.In the early 2000s, acquisitions in North America included Ralston Purina, Dreyer's ice cream, and a acquisition of Chef America, the creator of Hot Pockets. In this period, Nestlé entered in a joint bid with Cadbury and came close to purchasing the American company Hershey's, one of its fiercest confectionery competitors, but the deal eventually fell through.
In December 2005, Nestlé bought the Greek company Delta Ice Cream for €240 million. In January 2006, it took full ownership of Dreyer's, thus becoming the world's largest ice cream maker, with a 17.5% market share. In June 2006, Nestlé purchased weight-loss company Jenny Craig for. In July 2007, completing a deal announced the year before, Nestlé acquired the Medical Nutrition division of Novartis Pharmaceutical for and also acquiring the milk-flavoring product known as Ovaltine, the "Boost" and "Resource" lines of nutritional supplements, and Optifast dieting products.
File:Nestlé1.jpg|thumb|The Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, inaugurates a factory in Feira de Santana, in February 2007.
In April 2007, returning to its roots, Nestlé bought US baby-food manufacturer Gerber for. In December 2007, Nestlé entered into a strategic partnership with a Belgian chocolate maker, Pierre Marcolini.
In late September 2008, the Hong Kong government found melamine in a Chinese-made Nestlé milk product. Six infants died from kidney damage, and a further 860 babies were hospitalised. The following June, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 was linked to Nestlé's refrigerated cookie dough originating in a plant in Danville, Virginia.
Nestlé agreed to sell its controlling stake in Alcon to Novartis on 4 January, 2010. The sale was to form part of a broader offer by Novartis, for full acquisition of the world's largest eye-care company. On March 2, 2010, Nestlé completed the purchase of Kraft Foods's North American frozen pizza business for, which included brands such as DiGiorno, Tombstone, and California Pizza Kitchen.
Since 2010, Nestlé has been working to transform itself into a nutrition, health and wellness company, in an effort to combat declining confectionery sales and the threat of expanding government regulation of such foods. This effort is being led through the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences under the direction of Ed Baetge. The institute aims to develop "a new industry between food and pharmaceuticals" by creating foodstuffs with preventive and corrective health properties that would replace pharmaceutical drugs from pill bottles. The Health Science branch has already produced several products, such as drinks and protein shakes meant to combat malnutrition, diabetes, digestive health, obesity, and other diseases.
It acquired British pharmaceutical company Vitaflo, which makes clinical nutritional products for people with genetic disorders, in August 2010. In July 2011, Nestlé SA agreed to buy 60 percent of Hsu Fu Chi International Ltd. for about. On 23 April 2012, Nestlé agreed to acquire Pfizer Inc.'s infant-nutrition, formerly Wyeth Nutrition, unit for, topping a joint bid from Danone and Mead Johnson.