High energy and raw material costs continue to plague Nestlé. The manufacturer of Kitkat, Maggi and Vittel already increased its prices last year – now a further increase is to follow. However, the group rejects attempts to deceive by using smaller packaging sizes.
Nestlé CEO Ulf Mark Schneider believes that further food price increases are unavoidable this year. “We are not the cause of this inflation, we are affected by it like every consumer,” said Schneider of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ). “We have not yet fully passed on the additional costs we incur. There will therefore be further price increases. Even if inflation is no longer as high as in 2022, we still have some catching up to do over the full year.”
Schneider rejected the accusation that smaller packaging sizes were used to hide price increases: “I don’t want to be accused of deception.” Nestlé is the world’s largest food manufacturer and has increased prices for its range by an average of 7.5 percent in the first half of last year.
In an interview with the “FAZ” newspaper, Schneider was confident about future market opportunities for plant-based meat substitutes. “We turn over more than 800 million francs a year with double-digit growth rates.” The importance of this business for the Group will increase significantly in the coming years. The replacement products made an important contribution to enable Nestlé to achieve its self-imposed goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2025 and halving them by 2030 compared to 2018 levels.
Referring to the potential of lab meat, Schneider said it was inferior to plant-based products in terms of protein content and calorie count. “That’s why I think laboratory meat is particularly interesting for so-called hybrid products. That means, for example, 80 percent of the food is made from plants, and as the last icing on the cake you mix in some cultivated meat.”
