What Does Nestlé’s Business Look Like in 2026?

Nestlé is the largest food and beverage company in the world, operating in 187 countries with more than 2,000 brands.

On April 16, it held its 159th Annual General Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

During the AGM, Nestlé’s annual review was approved, which discusses its financial performance, business transformation and sustainability progress.

Nestlé’s business transformation

As of the end of 2025, the largest section of Nestlé’s portfolio is powdered and liquid beverages, making up 28.1% of its sales.

Its PetCare brands are responsible for 20.6% of sales and its nutrition and health science products make up 16%.

During 2025, Nestlé targeted growth in its coffee, pet care and nutrition and health business areas.

Coffee is Nestlé’s largest business, with its three iconic brands: Nescafé, Nespresso and Starbucks.

It has worked on increasing its capacity for faster regional distribution to meet the growing demand for cold coffee in Asia.

In the pet care sector, Nestlé’s Purina brand is the market leader in North America.

Nestlé is driving growth in this area through vet partnerships for pet health, leveraging its R&D capabilities to develop its pet food to support multiple health conditions including obesity and diabetes.

Pablo Isla, Chairman of the Board at Nestlé, says: “Strong corporate governance is the foundation of our company and its future success. Our goal is to continuously strengthen our effectiveness by regularly appointing new independent directors with diverse areas of expertise.

“Our focus is on driving real internal growth, fostering a performance culture and transforming the company to make it more efficient and digitally empowered.

“We are acting with a new sense of urgency and, through our efforts, are generating savings for reinvestment.”

Expansion in healthcare and sustainability

Nestlé is expanding its focus on nutrition, targeting growth in categories such as vitamins, minerals and supplements, active nutrition and medical nutrition.

Its Health Science division provides medical nutrition for patients who cannot consume food orally, using data on patient preferences to develop its portfolio with familiar food ingredients and plant-based alternatives.

In 2025, sales of its Compleat real food tube-feeding solutions were up by about one-third due to Nestlé’s optimised marketing, use of influencers, communications with healthcare professionals and campaigns in the medical community.

Nestlé aimed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2025 and it aims to further reduce them by 50% by 2030, on the road to net zero.

In 2025, it achieved a 24.5% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions against its 2018 baseline.

Innovations and technologies

Nestlé has been collecting data-driven consumer insights to create innovation pipelines for preferred products.

It aims to respond to emerging trends, including modern cooking, new flavours and textures, frequent small meals and nutrition goals across life stages.

For example, it has launched Milo Pro in response to the growing popularity of high-protein foods and beverages, with three times more protein than traditional Milo drinks.

These aim to target teenagers and young adults looking to support their active lifestyles with a ready-to-drink or a powder option.

It is also engaging with brands to grow its cultural presence, in particular with its new partnership with Formula 1.

In 2025, it made KitKat the Official Chocolate Bar of Formula 1, attracting the young and diverse fan base of more than 825 million people across global markets.

Stefan Palzer, Chief Technology Officer at Nestlé, says: “We are leveraging our expertise across categories to develop a global approach to recipe and material specification.

“By complementing this with digital tools, we are becoming more efficient, while ensuring safety, compliance and preference.”

What does Nestlé’s future look like?

Going forward, Nestlé is planning to unlock the resources needed for investment at scale by generating efficiencies and cost savings by the end of 2027.

It is expanding the scope of its growth platforms from 10% to 30% of its sales, expected to deliver high single-digit growth.

The company is also building multi-year innovation pipelines, based on strong consumer insights that extend beyond individual products to encompass entire product ranges.

It aims to scale innovations in its coffee category, to align with the growing interest in cold coffee products, especially from younger generations.

Philipp Navratil, CEO of Nestlé, says: “In 2025, we laid a strong foundation for long-term success. As we look ahead, accelerating our progress will be essential to achieving our ambitious financial and sustainability goals.

“The next few years at Nestlé will be marked by change, and our future is promising. I am confident that with our people, capabilities and brands, we are well-positioned to succeed.”