Nestlé's "formidable" nature lies in its products being everywhere in your life! / In the 2017 Fortune 500, Swiss-based Nestlé retained the top spot in the food and beverage industry, ranking 64th overall. Other peers ranked beyond 130th. Nestlé's 2016 revenue was CHF 89.5 billion (approximately USD 93.796 billion), making it a true behemoth. With 151 years of history, Nestlé owns over 2,000 international and local brands, operates in 191 countries, and its product lines span dairy and ice cream, liquid beverages, prepared foods and cooking products, pet food, and nutritional health skin products. In the 2017 Fortune Global 500's 50 most profitable companies, Nestlé was the only food company on the list, ranking 43rd. The most profitable companies are ranked by profit, with Apple Inc. first at USD 45.687 billion, while Nestlé's profit was USD 8.6592 billion. How many times do we encounter Nestlé in a day?

  • 07:00 — The alarm rings, stretch and get up, accustomed to washing face and skincare with Cetaphil every morning.
  • 07:30 — Nestlé whole milk with a bowl of Cheerios for my son. A cup of Nestlé Gold coffee and golden toast spread with Nestlé Eagle Brand condensed milk for my husband. I also have a bowl of Uncle Tobys oats and a Nestlé orange-flavored C.
  • 08:00 — Before leaving, of course, I can't forget to fill my cat's bowl with Meow Mix cat food.
  • 09:00 — After arriving at the office, the first thing is a Nespresso capsule coffee.
  • 09:15 — Neighbor Wang comes over to share "happy candy" because his daughter won first place in a school recitation contest. Is that worth celebrating? Well, I'll tolerate it since the candy is from Hsu Fu Chi.
  • 11:00 — Take a break from work, and pour a cup of Nestlé Pure Life water.
  • 12:00 — Go out for a big meal with colleagues; Perrier is a must-order, after all, I'm a stylish bourgeois!
  • 12:30 — After the meal, distribute Polo mints to everyone, bringing back childhood memories.
  • 12:40 — On the way back to the office, passing by L'Oréal counter, colleagues insist on recommending a good eye cream.
  • 15:00 — Take out the seaweed-flavored Nestlé Youcui and Nestlé Silk Mocha from the drawer; a simple afternoon tea is still possible.
  • 17:30 — Finish the day's work and get ready to leave. Phone lights up: "Dear, don't forget to buy Yinlu peanut milk for our son!"
  • 18:00 — Chat with a colleague on the way home; she asks at what age babies can start eating Gerber nutrition rice cereal? I remember my eldest started at 6 months.
  • 19:00 — Prepare dinner with my son's favorite Maggi mashed potatoes and a few signature dishes seasoned with Totole chicken essence.
  • 20:00 — Watching TV, my mouth can't stay idle, so I have a few Nestlé ice creams. Everyone gets one.
  • 21:00 — Browse Tmall; my parents' Nestlé Yiyang middle-aged and elderly milk powder is almost finished, so I order a few more cans.
  • 22:00 — Time to wash up and sleep; still use Cetaphil to wash my face, and have a good beauty sleep. In this virtual day, counting without repetition, "Nestlé" appears 22 times—this is the "formidable" aspect of Nestlé! Nestlé's Billion-Dollar Brands Overview Core Business Insights As shown below, we have sorted 13 iconic Nestlé billion-dollar brands (Billion Dollar Brands, a milestone for top-tier brands in the industry) by sales in descending order. We further analyzed these 13 brands across eight categories, revealing Nestlé's product line layout and different brand positioning strategies. Nestlé Empire's 30-Year Journey in China From 0 to 43.3 Billion Breakthrough! Nestlé, originating from a small city in a country with only about 8 million people, is a veteran enterprise with 151 years of operation. It was not the first food giant to enter China, but Nestlé China has indeed achieved successful localization, influencing generations of Chinese people. Since entering China over 30 years ago, Nestlé started from an unremarkable city in Shuangcheng, Heilongjiang, and achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 43.3 billion in the local Chinese market. How did it do it? Early Dairy Products Nestlé officially entered China in 1990, starting with a factory in a remote area of Shuangcheng, Heilongjiang. Nestlé quietly solved the milk source issue first, an advantage that was fully demonstrated during later milk powder safety crises. Nestlé's most advantageous products are coffee and milk powder. However, when Nestlé first entered China, apart from Hong Kong, there was no coffee-drinking habit in the whole of China, so Nestlé started with dairy products. It gradually cultivated the coffee market while increasing milk powder market share. Seasonings Nestlé saw the potential of the seasoning market and, to counter its old rival Unilever, around the time Unilever acquired Bestfoods and its Knorr seasonings in 2000, Nestlé used its own Maggi seasoning brand and R&D funding advantages to attract and acquire leading local chicken essence brands—Totole and Haoji—thereby achieving an 80% market share in chicken essence. Thanks to Totole's rapid development, Nestlé took a leading position in the chicken essence seasoning market. Moreover, Nestlé leveraged its strong seasoning market to extend into China's growing professional catering industry. Nestlé Professional, in addition to providing dairy products, seasonings, and cold drinks, focuses on providing solutions for dishes, costs, and cooking processes to catering enterprises. Its first partner was Haidilao, a leader in the hot pot industry. Last year, Nestlé opened its second professional catering customer exchange experience center in Shanghai; the first was in Beijing, and it is expected to open in Chengdu and Guangzhou in the future. According to the China Cuisine Association, China's catering market has reached a trillion-yuan scale. In the first eight months of last year alone, national catering revenue was 2.2603 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%, ushering in another spring for the catering industry. This attracted not only Nestlé but also foreign companies like its old rival Unilever. Unilever mainly uses its Knorr and other seasoning brands to launch a series of value-added services centered on seasonings, including designing and developing dishes for restaurants and guiding chefs to use standardized seasonings, thereby improving dish standardization—a pain point in the rapid expansion of Chinese catering. Currently, the catering services offered by Unilever and Nestlé are quite similar. Whether Nestlé Professional can continue to grow rapidly remains to be seen! Coffee In China, when coffee is mentioned, people think of Nestlé because Nestlé almost single-handedly cultivated China's coffee-drinking habit. As a new product introduction, the first issue to solve was raw materials. To this end, Nestlé introduced coffee cultivation to Pu'er, Yunnan, starting in 1992, sending foreign coffee agronomists to teach farmers hands-on cultivation techniques. On March 23, 2016, Nestlé even opened its first global coffee center in Pu'er. Besides raw materials, the rest was market cultivation. With the advertising slogan "Nestlé Coffee, tastes great!" opening the Chinese market, Nestlé started with instant coffee and gradually extended its product line. Now its domestic coffee product line includes instant coffee, ready-to-drink coffee, and capsule coffee machines, with instant coffee including the 1+2 series, collection series, and pure coffee series. Nespresso and Dolce Gusto capsule coffee and machines are well received in the market. Overall, Nestlé Coffee currently ranks first in the Chinese coffee market. Water In drinking water, although Nestlé is the world's largest bottled water producer, with brands including San Pellegrino and Perrier, its advantage in the Chinese water market is not obvious. To quickly enter this field, Nestlé acquired a local company and established water sources. Under this strategy, in 2010, Nestlé spent heavily to acquire 70% of Yunnan Dashan, a well-known mountain spring brand in Yunnan Province with an 80% market share. Although not well-known nationally, its advantage as an excellent water source brings great convenience to Nestlé. However, in terms of water, Nestlé is still not a dominant player in the domestic market; the top three bottled water brands in China are Kangshifu, Nongfu Spring, and C'estbon. Beverages China has a long history and culture of tea drinking, but Nestlé's tea powder performance in the Chinese market is not outstanding. Due to optimism about the tea beverage market, in 2001 Nestlé and Coca-Cola jointly established the Global Beverage Partners (BPW), and in 2002, Nestea and Yuanye Tea were launched. However, this highly anticipated product failed against domestic competitors like Kangshifu and Uni-President, and eventually withdrew from the market. Despite this Waterloo in the tea beverage market, Nestlé's desire to expand in the beverage market remains strong. In the ready-to-drink coffee beverage category, Nestlé is the champion in the Chinese market, with a market share exceeding 50%. This business has been transferred to Yinlu, which was acquired in 2011. The acquisition of Yinlu can be seen as a major move by Nestlé to capture the beverage and snack food market. Yinlu holds the top market share in ready-to-drink porridge and compound protein beverages, effectively filling Nestlé's gap in the beverage market. Ice Cream Ice cream is also one of Nestlé's global key businesses. As early as 1960, Nestlé acquired an ice cream company to enter this field. In 1999, while acquiring Totole, Nestlé also bought 97% of Guangzhou Wuyang, the largest ice cream brand in Guangdong. In addition, in 1997, Nestlé acquired another ice cream manufacturer, Shanghai Fule Foods (closed in 2009). However, in the Chinese market, Nestlé's ice cream business lags behind domestic brands like Mengniu and Yili, and also behind Unilever's Wall's. According to Euromonitor data, by 2010, Nestlé's ice cream sales were 932 million yuan, with a market share of 3.2%, ranking fourth, while the leader Mengniu had 17.3%, and third-place Unilever's Wall's had 7.4%. Candy and Snacks Nestlé's best-selling candy and snack in China is Que Chui Sha (a wafer snack), while other candies have market shares far below Kraft, Mars, etc. Additionally, KitKat failed several times to enter the Chinese market. Facing China's huge candy market, Nestlé wanted a share, so in 2011, it acquired Hsu Fu Chi, securing a place in the long-impregnable Chinese candy market. Milk Powder With its early milk source in Shuangcheng, Heilongjiang, Nestlé's milk powder business is one of its key businesses in China. Nestlé has now built three major milk zones in China, including Shuangcheng, Laixi in Shandong, and Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia, ensuring sufficient milk supply. However, although Nestlé leads the global milk powder market share, it is not particularly strong among Chinese milk powder brands, especially in infant formula. In 2011, according to AC Nielsen data, Nestlé ranked only tenth among the top ten infant formula brands, with Wyeth at fifth. But after acquiring Gerber and Wyeth, Nestlé's market share in infant formula rose to the top. In August 2017, six of Nestlé's infant formula products, including NAN and Doricin produced in Shuangcheng, obtained registration approval under the new national formula registration policy. This laid a good foundation for further improving Nestlé China's milk powder performance. It is also worth mentioning that thanks to R&D by the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences, Nestlé has launched several formulas for children with protein allergies and intestinal malnutrition in recent years, receiving a positive market response. From 1999 to 2004, after Nestlé acquired Totole, Haoji, and Wuyang, sales in the China region quadrupled. With subsequent acquisitions of Yunnan Dashan, Hsu Fu Chi, Yinlu, and Wyeth, China jumped to become Nestlé's second-largest global market. Nestlé was not the first food giant to enter China, but Nestlé China has indeed achieved successful localization. China is Nestlé's largest market globally after the United States. Nestlé China's 2016 financial report showed sales exceeding 43.3 billion yuan! Over 30 years in the Chinese market, from coffee, milk powder, to seasonings, drinking water, beverages, candy and snacks, and ice cream, Nestlé's products can be said to accompany every Chinese consumer. With its astonishing perseverance and patience, Nestlé has expanded its territory in China. The future of Nestlé China is worth looking forward to! -END-