A demand for coffee, dairy products and pet food sent sales at Nestle (NESN.SW)
joker game soaring to its strongest quarterly growth in a decade.
The Zurich-based company, which is the world’s largest food group, said consumers were snapping up Nespresso pods, Nescafe instant coffee and Starbucks-branded products as sales grew 7.7% on an organic basis - higher than analysts had forecast.
Volume increases for dairy products were achieved in part thanks to lockdown trends like home baking.
The company also expanded its ecommerce business over period, which now makes up a sixth of its sales, and its health science portfolio as people become more concerned with well-being.
Although more people bought online as they were forced to stay at home to curb the spread of coronavirus, retail sales saw solid growth and its out-of-home channels reported signs of improvement.
The maker of KitKat chocolate bars confirmed its guidance for the year and expects an increase in organic sales growth compared to the 3.6% achieved in 2020.
During the first quarter of this year it was also boosted by an economic recovery in China. This made Asia its best-performing region.
Nestle said it expects a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels at the earliest in 2022.
Shares were more than 3% higher on the back of the news, outperforming the European food sector.
