Nestlé may be winning the corona crisis. The FMCG manufacturer is raising its expectations for 2020, after reporting comparable growth of 4.9% in the past quarter.
Coffee and pet food
Nestlé has so far withstood the coronary pandemic better than some of its competitors, thanks to strong growth in categories for home consumption, such as pet food, coffee and health products. In this way, the brand producer is compensating for the decline in sales on the go or on-trade (accounting for some 15% of sales), Reuters reports.
This was also the case in the past third quarter: outdoor sales fell by 26.4%, but the Nescafé and KitKat producer still managed to grow by a total of 4.9% on a comparable basis. By comparison, sector colleague Danone saw its comparable base decline by 2.5% and plans some divestments.
In the first nine months of the year, organic sales at Nestlé increased by 3.5%, while analysts expected an average 2.8% increase in sales. However, including currency effects, sales declined 9.4% to 61.9 billion Swiss francs (57.7 billion euros), partly due to the sale of the Herta processed meats brand and the impact of a strong Swiss franc. For the year as a whole, the FMCG giant itself had so far been expecting growth of between 2% and 3%, but is now raising that forecast to at least 3%.
