Nestle sales down from last year, meet expectations

Nestle announced lower revenue growth in the first half of 2015, compared with last year.
Sales for the first half were CHF42.8 billion (US$43.8 billion), with 4.5% organic growth and 1.7% internal growth.
“The first half results were in line with our expectations, broad-based across categories and geographies, solid even in difficult circumstances, and consistent with our strong performance over time. … This allows us to confirm the outlook for the full year,” said Paul Bulcke, CEO.
In North America, the company’s pet care segment showed good growth, in spite of the negative effects of the Beneful case. Among the drivers were Fancy Feast cat food, the Pro Plan platform for dog food, and cat litter.
The company said pet care continued to be a growth driver for Latin America and will benefit from new production capacity in Argentina and Mexico. Growth in Eastern Europe was strong, driven by pet care and other product lines.
For the first half of the year, Nestle’s pet care segment saw sales of CHF5,465 million (US$5,594 million).
In February 2015, a California man filed a class action lawsuit against Nestle Purina Petcare Co., alleging unsafe petfood manufacturing and distribution. The plaintiff claimed that Purina’s Beneful dog food injured his three dogs. He claimed Purina added propylene glycol, an automotive antifreeze component, to Beneful. Lucido says two of his dogs suffered and one of his dogs died after ingesting Beneful beginning January 15, 2015. Nestle has called the lawsuit baseless.