Nestlé S.A. ([3] ) 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.[4][5][6] It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017.[7] In 2023, the company was ranked 50th in the Forbes Global 2000.[8]
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 (about US$1.1billion),[9] including Nespresso, Nescafé, Nestea, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer Corporation, Vittel, and Maggi. As of 2025, Nestlé has 335 factories, operates in 185 countries, and employs around 271,000 people.[10] It is one of the main shareholders of L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics company.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13]
Timeline
- 1866: Charles Page (US consul to Switzerland) 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.[14]
Corporate affairs and governance
Nestlé is the biggest food company in the world, with a market capitalisation of roughly 203 billion Swiss francs as of December 2025.[108] Nestlé has a primary listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange and is a constituent of the Swiss Market Index. It previously had a secondary listing on Euronext.
In 2025, consolidated sales were CHF 89.49 billion and net profit was CHF 9.03billion. Research and development investment was CHF 1.61billion.[10]
According to a 2015 global survey of online consumers by the Reputation Institute, Nestlé has a reputation score of 74.5 on a scale of 1 to 100.[109]
- Sales per category in CHF[10]
Brands
Nestlé currently has over 2,000 brands[123][124] with a wide range of products across a number of markets, including coffee, bottled water, milkshakes and other beverages, breakfast cereals, infant foods, performance and healthcare nutrition, seasonings, soups and sauces, frozen and refrigerated foods, and pet food.[125] In 2019, the company entered the plant-based food production business with its Incredible and Awesome Burgers (under the Garden Gourmet and Sweet Earth brands). In 2020, Nestlé announced additional plant-based products including soy-based bratwurst and chorizo-like sausages.[126]
Sponsorships
Music and entertainment
In 1993, plans were made to update and modernise the overall tone of Walt Disney's EPCOT Center, including a major refurbishment of The Land pavilion. Kraft Foods withdrew its sponsorship on 26 September 1993, with Nestlé taking its place. Co-financed by Nestlé and the Walt Disney World Resort, a gradual refurbishment of the pavilion began on 27 September 1993.[127] In 2003, Nestlé renewed its sponsorship of The Land; however, it was under agreement that Nestlé would oversee its own refurbishment to both the interior and exterior of the pavilion. Between 2004 and 2005, the pavilion underwent its second major refurbishment. Nestlé stopped sponsoring The Land in 2009.[128]
On 5 August 2010, Nestlé and the Beijing Music Festival signed an agreement to extend by three years Nestlé's sponsorship of this international music festival. Nestlé has been an extended sponsor of the Beijing Music Festival for 11 years since 2000. The new agreement will continue the partnership through 2013.[129]
Corporate initiatives
In March 2011, Nestlé became the first infant formula company to meet the FTSE4Good Index criteria in full.[138]
In 2021, recycling startup, Carbios, released a press release that showed a prototype of a food-grade PET plastic bottle made from enzymatically recycled plastic. The press release said Nestle (along with other companies) could manufacture these bottles using the Carbios technology. As of September 2024, however, it is unclear whether Nestle ever transitioned to these recycled materials beyond the prototype.[139][140]
Nestlé created the Creating Shared Value Prize, which is awarded every other year with the aim of rewarding the best examples of CSV initiatives worldwide and to encourage other companies to adopt a shared value approach. These initiatives should take a business-oriented approach in addressing challenges in nutrition, water or rural development. The winner can win up to CHF 500,000. Nestlé was an early mover in the shared value space and hosts a global forum, the Creating Shared Value Global Forum.[141][142]
Awards
Controversies
The company has been associated with various controversies, facing criticism and boycotts over its marketing of baby formula as an alternative to breastfeeding in developing countries (where clean water may be scarce), its reliance on suppliers that use child labour in cocoa production, and its production and promotion of bottled water.
Nestlé is involved in many significant controversies due to its reported involvement with
- incidents of contaminated and infested food products,
- actively spreading disinformation about recycling,
- illegal water-pumping from drought-stricken Native American reservations,
- preventing access to non-bottled water in impoverished countries,
- price fixing,
- slave labor,
- child labor,
- extensive union-busting activity, and
- deforestation.
Baby formula marketing
See also
Competitors
- Big Chocolate
- Controversies of Nestle
- Farfel the Dog
- List of Nestlé brands
- Nestlé Smarties Book Prize
- Nestlé Tower
- Ultra-processed food
Explanatory notes
External links
References
- Financial Statements 2025 Nestlé, 18 February 2026, retrieved 3 March 2026^
- Management Nestlé, retrieved 29 May 2017^
- 1978 Milky Bar commercial YouTube, 1978, retrieved 7 May 2022^