Nestlé: organic growth in the first half within the guidance for 2018

Real internal growth (RIG) was 2.5% and remained at the high end of the food and beverage industry. Pricing contributed 0.3%, reflecting the challenging environment in Europe and lower inflation in some emerging markets. Organic growth in the first half improved materially in North America and China. All categories reported positive growth, led by coffee, petcare, and Nestlé Health Science. Infant nutrition sales growth accelerated, with a broad-based improvement across all geographies, helped by recent product launches, including HMOs (Human Milk Oligosaccharides) infant formula.

Acquisitions and divestments had a net neutral impact on reported sales, with the acquisition of Atrium Innovations and other deals being offset by divestments, mainly U.S. confectionery. Foreign exchange had a negative impact of 0.5%. Total sales increased by 2.3% on a reported basis to CHF 43.9 bn.

Mark Schneider, Nestlé CEO said: "Our first half results confirmed that our strategic initiatives and rigorous execution are clearly paying off. Nestlé has maintained the encouraging organic revenue growth momentum we saw at the beginning of the year. In particular, the United States and China markets showed a meaningful improvement. We were also pleased by the enhanced organic growth in our core infant nutrition category.”