Nestlé confirms projected growth of 5 per cent for 2013

Nestlé has reported growth across all of its markets for the first nine months of 2013, with 1.1 per cent organic growth in developed markets and 8.8 per cent in emerging markets. This represented revenues of almost US$76 billion. The company has also confirmed its outlook for the full year, projecting around 5 per cent organic growth with an improvement in margins and underlying earnings per share in constant currencies. Highlights for the company’s coffee business include very strong growth for the Nescafé Dolce Gusto single-serve platform in Europe, as well as Brazil and Mexico. Nespresso also maintained its momentum, continuing to innovate with its new Grand Cru launches and investing in its geographic expansion. Nestlé has also announced it will achieve zero waste in all of its 150 European factories by 2020. The company says that no factory waste will go to landfill or be incinerated without energy being recovered from the process. “The decision to achieve zero waste illustrates Nestlé’s commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices,” said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé Executive Vice-President and Zone Director for Europe. Nestlé has achieved zero waste in all of its factories in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The first factory to reduce the waste generated was the KitKat and Aero confectionery factory in the UK city of York in 2011. By the end of 2012, Nestlé had achieved zero waste status in 39 of its 468 factories worldwide. Nestlé uses spent coffee grounds as a source of renewable energy in more than 20 of its Nescafé factories and aims to extend this practice to all Nescafé factories worldwide. Last month, Nestlé was named the leading food products company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index with a score of 88 per cent, double the industry average. The company also achieved the maximum score for the second year running in the CDP ‘Climate Disclosure Leadership Index’, and the CDP ‘Climate Performance Leadership Index’.