Nestle

Areas of activity

• Nestle Waters - bottled water.
• Nestle Wagner - frozen foods.

Company brands on the market leaders map for the mid-2010s

Business in Russia

Main article: Nestle Russia

History

2025

Dismissal of 16,000 employees

In mid-October 2025, the Swiss concern Nestle, one of the world's largest food producers, announced a large-scale reorganization aimed at reducing costs. As part of this program, the number of personnel on a global scale will decrease by 16 thousand people, which corresponds to about 6% of the state.

The layoffs will affect approximately 12 thousand office employees in all departments and countries, as well as about 4 thousand employees in the production and supply chain sectors. It is assumed that these measures will provide savings of $3.75 billion by the end of 2027.

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Фото: Bloomberg

The world is changing, and in the conditions that have formed, Nestle also needs to transform faster. In this regard, it is necessary to make complex but necessary decisions to reduce the number of personnel, - said the CEO of the company Philip Navratil (Philipp Navratil).

The top priority for Nestle is to ensure further growth, he said. As part of the reorganization, the company evaluates and optimizes all areas of its activities. In particular, considerable attention is paid to automation technologies that reduce the burden on workers and increase production efficiency.

Food concern Nestle, which owns more than 2,000 brands, including Nescafe,, Nespresso, Starbucks Nesquik, Nestea,, Purina Fancy Feast, Friskies, Nan, Illuma, Maggi, Buitoni, KitKat, Cailler, Garoto, Nuts, Poland Spring and, Perrier faced a drop in product sales. In addition, the company has undergone changes in the top management team. Laurent Freixe The CEO was fired in early September 2025 over an office romance. After that, Chairman of the Board of Directors Paul Bulcke resigned^[1]

CEO Laurent Freiche fired over love relationship at work

Swiss food corporation Nestle has suspended CEO Laurent Freiche for concealing a romantic relationship with a subordinate, in violation of the company's internal code of business conduct. Philip Navratil, who previously headed the coffee division of Nespresso, was appointed to the post of leader, who immediately took up duties without a transition period. This became known in September 2025. Read more here

2024: Sale of "natural mineral water" with fecal bacteria

At the end of July 2024, it became known that Nestlé used prohibited methods to filter contaminated water, selling it as "natural mineral water" under the brands Vittel, Contrex and Hépar. It turned out that water sources in France were contaminated, among other things, with fecal bacteria Escherichia coli and pesticides. Read more here

2022

The company confirmed information about a data leak of 10 GB

On March 24, 2022, the hacker group Anonymous announced a hack into the Nestle database. The company confirmed the data breach but said it was the fault of employees.

Anonymous announced the theft of a 10 gigabyte data archive with information about customers. According to hackers, they punish Nestle for its unwillingness to leave the Russian market, as other companies have done. The data, which Anonymous said included internal email, passwords and Nestle customer information, was uploaded online by the grouping on March 22, 2022.

Nestle confirms 10GB data archive leak with passwords, correspondence and customer information

Anonymous argue that their goal is to punish any company that does not boycott Russia because of a special military operation in Ukraine, and Nestle, which has previously expressed reluctance to reduce its activities in the country, was apparently at the top of their list.

This recent claim of a cyber attack against Nestle and subsequent data breach has no basis.

This refers to a case in February where some randomized and predominantly publicly available B2B test data were inadvertently available online for a short period of time.

{{quote "Some primarily public data (such as company names and addresses and some business email addresses) has been erroneously uploaded to the network for a limited period of time (several weeks). This was discovered by our security team and an appropriate review was carried out. The data was prepared for the B2B test site in order to verify functionality, a Nestle spokesperson said. }} Nestle did not specify what kind of non-public data was made public along with open information. Asked if the incident was seen as a data breach, the company did not respond.^[2]

Termination of production and distribution of products in Ukraine

Food manufacturer Nestle, which owns three factories in Ukraine with more than 5,000 employees, announced on February 24, 2022 that it was "temporarily closing its factories, warehouses and supply chains" across the country. As Nestle said in a statement, the company's management recommended that employees stay at home for their safety and follow all official instructions from the Ukrainian government and local authorities.

For February 2022, all our colleagues are safe, we are in constant communication with them and are doing everything possible to pay maximum impact to their safety, as well as adapting our plans to the changing conditions. We are still ready to provide for the local population, we have developed contingency plans, as we want to be sure that we will be able to resume deliveries of our products as soon as conditions allow, the concern said in a statement.

Nestle sells a large range of products in Ukraine, from confectionery and culinary products to infant formula, and also supplies pet food. The products produced by three Nestle factories in Ukraine are ready-made dishes, cooking products, confectionery and drinks^[3]

2021: Revenue growth 3.3%, to CHF 87.1 billion, profit CHF 16.9 billion

At the end of 2021, Nestle's revenue grew by 3.3%, to 87.1 billion Swiss francs, the company's profit amounted to 16.9 billion Swiss francs, which is 38.2% more than in 2020.

Nestle's revenue in Russia increased by 10.5% in 2021, reaching CHF 1.719 billion. In 2020, the figure was 1.555 billion Swiss francs.

Nestle revenue in Russia in 2021 increased by 10.5%

Organic sales growth in 2021 was 7.5%, driven by 5.5% sales growth and 2% price increases, according to a Nestle report. The company claims that the increase in indicators is ensured by the dynamics of retail sales, the restoration of consumption outside the home, rising prices and market share. By product category, coffee was the biggest contributor to organic growth, particularly through the activity of the Nescafé, Nespresso and Starbucks brands, as well as brands that produce pet food.

By product category, Purina PetCare saw double-digit growth, most notably premium brands Gourmet, Felix and Purina Pro Plan, as well as veterinary products. Growth was strong across all channels, especially e-commerce and specialty pet stores. Sales on new growth platforms Tails.com, Lily's Kitchen and Terra Canis together grew by almost 40% at the end of 2021.

The growth was supported by the continued evolution of the company's portfolio towards fast-growing categories and channels, as well as innovation. All markets saw positive growth, with strong sales growth in the UK, Russia, Italy and France.

Nestle sales in the Americas for 2021 decreased by 0.6%, to 33.779 billion francs, in the AOA region (Oceania, Asia, Africa) increased by 0.02%, to 20.735 billion francs, in the EMENA region (Europe, Middle East, North Africa region) recorded an increase of 4%, to 21.128 billion francs.^[4]

2020

Buying a healthy food delivery service for Freshly for $1.5 billion

At the end of October 2020, Nestle announced the acquisition of a startup Freshly for $1.5 billion. The company agreed to pay $950 million in advance and up to $550 million of future profit, depending on the achievement of the conditions. More. here

Among the world leaders in environmental pollution with plastic packaging

Data on the release of plastic packaging in metric tons per year, as of 2020

2019: Nestlé sells Skin Health unit to consortium of funds for CHF 10.2bn

Nestle closed a deal on October 2, 2019 to sell Nestlé Skin Health's dermatology products division, which rebranded and is again called Galderma.

In May 2019, Nestlé announced its intention to sell the dermatology business. The buyer was a consortium including the EQT VIII fund, Luxinva (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority), PSP Investments and other institutional investors. Galderma sold for 10.2 billion Swiss francs.

2014: Nestlé bought Galderma and renamed it Nestlé Skin Health

Nestlé bought Galderma in 2014, then renamed the subsidiary Nestlé Skin Health.

Notes