Nestle lowers sales outlook on weak consumer demand

Nestle lowered its outlook again for 2024 and reshuffled its executive team on Thursday as the global food giant reported falling sales for the first nine months of the year.

The Swiss group, whose brands range from Nespresso coffee capsules to Purina dog food and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, said sales reached 67.1 billion Swiss francs ($77.4 billion), a 2.4 percent drop from the same period last year.

"Consumer demand has weakened in recent months, and we expect the demand environment to remain soft," Nestle's new chief executive, Laurent Freixe, said in a statement.

Nestle appointed Freixe, who headed its Latin America unit, last month to replace Mark Schneider following slowing sales and a series of product scandals.

Freixe said Nestle now expects organic sales growth, which excludes currency fluctuations and acquisitions, of two percent this year.

The group had already cut its annual sales growth expectations from four percent to three percent in July.

Organic sales growth for the first nine months of the year reached two percent, compared to 7.8 percent over the same period in 2023.

Nestle announced several changes in its leadership structure, including merging its Latin America and North America divisions into a single Americas unit.

Its Greater China region will become part of its Asia, Oceania and Africa zone, among other changes that include a reshuffling of the executive board.

"With these organisational changes, all the leaders of key units driving our performance and our transformation will now report directly to me," Freixe said.

"This is crucial, as we sharpen our focus on consumers and customers and restore investment in our brands and in innovation to expand market share and accelerate our performance," he added.