The world’s largest packaged food company reported better-than-expected annual sales growth but warned of lower profit margins in 2025.
Sales at the Swiss food giant came in narrowly ahead of forecasts with volumes up by 0.8% compared with a 0.3% fall in the previous year.
Profit before tax was 13.2 billion Swiss francs (€13.96bn) for the full year, up from 12.7bn Swiss francs (€13.44) in the previous year.
Nestle has been hit by soaring key commodity prices including coffee and cocoa, and consumer demand has fallen as prices have risen.
Commenting on the results, Laurent Freixe, Nestlé Chief Executive officer said: “In a challenging macroeconomic context and soft consumer environment, we achieved a solid performance in 2024 in line with our latest guidance.
He added: “Organic growth was 2.2%, with a return to positive real internal growth of 0.8%, and both strengthened in the second half.”
The company said that growth had been driven by coffee, confectionery and pet care. By geography, performance was best in the emerging markets and Europe.
Freixe went on: “We have a clear roadmap to accelerate performance and transform for the future. Increasing investment to drive growth is central to our plan. This means delivering superior product taste and quality with unbeatable value, scaling our winning platforms and brands, accelerating the rollout of our innovation ‘big bets’ and addressing under performers.
“While there is macroeconomic uncertainty, we have lots of opportunities ahead of us, and we have the strategy, the resources and the people and team to deliver.”
