Powering our growth strategy

The NCE approach is our key driver for accelerating efficiency and improving performance. Our focus is on reducing complexity and eliminating unnecessary activities that are not creating consumer value. We are aligning our goals across the entire organization, from senior management all the way to the factory floor. We ensure that the entire organization is aligned to our key business priorities and is executing on specific tasks that will drive performance.

Our procurement teams worldwide are enhancing sourcing flexibility and agility by leveraging our scale. We are continuously reviewing our specifications, both globally and locally, to drive simplification and efficiency.

Our commercial spend on promotional activities – such as discounts, rebates, in-store displays, merchandising and pricing – helps us gain a competitive edge in the retail landscape. Through increased automation and advanced analytics, we can more effectively determine the initiatives that yield returns and eliminate inefficiencies. In addition, our sales, marketing and finance functions are intensifying their collaboration to make more effective decisions on the best use of our capital, and we are also working with our partners to optimize our resources in this space.

Our aim is to expand winners, build new growth engines and address underperformers. We look to optimize our investments in our biggest global brands and in our most iconic regional brands. By focusing on consumer needs and wishes, with at least 60% consumer taste preference, we strive to continuously develop and expand these winning brands through innovation, new formats and launches in new geographies. 

Investments in our core brands happen alongside the continued optimization of our portfolio. We focus on products with the greatest growth potential that consumers find appealing. This allows us to simplify our value chain, free up resources and make better use of our assets.

When there are parts of our portfolio that are underperforming, we take steps to address the issues. We are reorganizing our waters business so that, as of 2025, our water and premium beverages activities will operate as a standalone business to better drive the specifics of this category. Under this new structure the management team will evaluate the strategy for this segment of our portfolio, including exploring partnership opportunities, to enable Nestlé’s leading water brands and growth platforms to achieve their full potential.

Our R&D teams are able to quickly adapt to trends and capture new opportunities. We are taking a more disciplined approach to innovation, scaling fewer, bigger and better high-quality innovations that we believe will have a powerful impact with consumers. We prioritize them for swift and broad rollout through a strategy underscored by governance, speed, scalability and execution excellence.

Our science and technology platforms enable us to capture high-growth opportunities to drive differentiation. Based on consumer research, data and internal capabilities, we have identified the following six high-growth opportunity areas: 

• Nutrition across life stages and for health concerns: We cater to people and pets throughout their lifespans and strive to address their health needs. Our proprietary Sinergity, for example, leverages our expertise on biotics to combine a specific probiotic with six human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) to support age-adapted infant development. We are also relaunching our Materna range to address the specific nutritional needs of pregnant women. For GLP-1 users and consumers focused on weight management, we are developing solutions that are high in protein and dense in nutrients for brands such as Boost and Vital Pursuit.
• Coffee shop experience: We continue to innovate for home baristas, developing trendy options with high growth potential, such as cold coffee with Nescafé Espresso Concentrate or Nespresso special cold editions.
• Mindful snacking and ready-to-eat/drink: We recognize consumers’ need for convenient nutrition on the go and offer easy, nutritious snacks, such as Maggi instant noodles or Milo Activ-Go with six vitamins and minerals.
• Affordable nutrition: We strive to make good nutrition affordable for consumers in all parts of the world. We provide micronutrient fortification with powdered milks from Bear Brand and Nido. We also develop new affordable protein options like Maggi Rindecarne, which provides a mix of soy and spices that doubles the amount of protein servings when combined with meat.
• New flavors and textures: People and pets increasingly want to enjoy new and elevated food experiences. With Purina Gourmet Revelations, for instance, cats can enjoy a variety of recipes in a pyramid-shaped delicate mousse covered with a tasty sauce. 
• Modern cooking: Taking advantage of the increasing popularity of air fryers, we have launched several products across different geographies, including air fryer seasonings by Maggi and Totole as well as Stouffer’s Melt-FULLS frozen sandwiches.

In line with our Nutrition, Health and Wellness strategy, we are committed to helping people enjoy tasty, balanced diets. Through our innovation and renovation efforts, we continue to reduce sugars, salt and saturated fats. At the same time, we know that people consume food and beverages not only for nutrition but also for enjoyment. Nestlé aims to offer the right products for these occasions as part of a balanced diet and provides on-pack portion guidance.

We are committed to growing the nutritional value of our global portfolio and we provide complete transparency. In 2024, Nestlé products with a Health Star Rating (HSR) of 3.5 stars or more – together with specialized nutrition products, such as baby foods, vitamin and mineral supplements, and medical nutrition – accounted for close to 59% of our food (excluding pet food) and beverage sales.

We are accelerating our digital agenda to become a more intelligent enterprise from end to end – connected from farm to fork – empowered by real-time data and artificial intelligence (AI). We want data to be transmitted across our entire value chain so that we can react faster in our decisions about procurement, manufacturing and distribution – avoiding wasteful spending and lost opportunities. To optimize our digital investments, we are also upskilling our people to take full advantage of new technologies.

Our digital transformation will support enterprise business planning by providing consistent, real-time data across all functions, which will help to improve forecasting accuracy. Our Brazilian market, for example, already has the end-to-end connectivity we strive for globally. Using predictive sales analytics, the Brazil team can predict the sell-out of a product over a 12-week period with 94% accuracy. More accurate forecasting enables us to quickly intervene if we see a gap, for example, by ramping up supply or production. It helps us to better predict changes in the market and recognize consumer needs faster. With this data we can also offer the right promotions at the right time, tailor our communication to different consumer groups and target them on the channels they use most.

Investments to enhance the resilience of our food producers and stabilize food systems are essential to ensuring the long-term success of our business. We continue our journey towards net zero emissions while being mindful of natural resources. Protecting our access to high-quality raw materials in sufficient quantities through regenerative practices helps drive competitive advantages.

In 2024, Nestlé achieved a 20.38% net reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions versus 2018 baseline, meeting one year ahead of time Nestlé Net Zero SBTi milestone of 20% by 2025. Reductions are due to the decarbonization of our own operations and our raw materials. We increased our use of renewable energy and improved the agricultural practices within our supply chains. We are actively pursuing further reductions to reach our goal of a 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030.

We want all our raw materials to be traceable to the point of origin and farmed using methods aligned to our Responsible Sourcing Core Requirements, delivering benefits to people, nature and climate. In 2024, 44.5% of 14 priority raw materials were responsibly sourced as outlined by the requirements in our Nestlé Responsible Sourcing Framework. 

One of our biggest strengths is that we have superior in-market knowledge and capabilities. We are on the ground, close to consumers and customers. We know how to engage with them to improve our connections. Our goal is to increase our share of voice by making our products highly visible through prime shelf space and higher levels of advertising and marketing.

Investment in advertising and marketing is being stepped up to 9% of sales by the end of 2025 to support growth. In 2024, over 70% of our media budget was spent digitally, utilizing over 340 million first-party data records. Our 45 content studios and integrated marketing operation centers use AI and machine learning to create bespoke digital content for diverse media platforms.

Nestlé’s content engine also supports online sales. Our e-commerce sales continue to grow, now accounting for more than 25% of our total sales in eight markets, including our top two markets: the United States and China.

High standards of food safety and quality are fundamental in our engagement with consumers. Without them, gaining market share is impossible. Quality is embedded in our purpose and values – integral to our Corporate Business Principles. Our end-to-end approach to food safety and quality applies to design, delivery and consumption. We apply international standards, and help raise the bar in our industry using rigorous processes and leading scientific techniques.

We update our food safety and quality systems to respond to changes, such as revised regulations, changes to suppliers or ingredients, introduction of regenerative agriculture practices, new packaging and geopolitical developments.