Nestle Plans To Invest Rs 5,000 Crore In India By 2025: CEO Mark Schneider

Nestle SA plans to invest Rs 5,000 crore in India by 2025, Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider said, as the Swiss FMCG major looks to grow its core business in the country and leverage new opportunities.

The capital expenditure is earmarked for setting up new plants, expansion of the product portfolio and acquisitions, Schneider said. Nestle India Ltd., currently operates nine plants across the country. The investment, which would be subject to clearances and approvals, will also aid job creation.

"When you look into the investment in this country and the investment plan through 2025, we are talking about Rs 5,000 crore," Schneider said. "That compares to Rs 8,000 crore over the last 60 years when we started manufacturing in this country."

Nestle has been in India for over 100 years but started manufacturing locally in the early 1960s, he said.

"In 1961, we started our first manufacturing site and so in that whole time period, it has been Rs 8,000 crore. Now in the next three years, it will be Rs 5,000 crore."

This investment is not only for accelerating and ramping up capex alone but also goes into a whole lot of development works, brand building and meaningful contributions on the ground, Schneider said.

Nestle India Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan said that accelerating the core business of the company would be a focus area.

"It is definitely a highly accelerated plan that we are looking at. This has three pivots' such as continuing the strong momentum of growth that the company has in last 22 quarters," he said. The second part is to do it sustainably, and Nestle has taken "significant steps" in that direction.

"And the third part is really to leverage new opportunities for growth, whether it is plant-based proteins, healthy ageing, healthy snacking, leveraging some of the Indian grains into products for the company."

Schneider said Nestle India's business has maintained "consistency at very high levels" for 22 quarters, which is "outstanding" and "truly stunning" and is a complete willingness for "open cheque book" support every step of the way. The investment would be on organic growth such as capex and putting money into facilities such as existing factories or research centres.

"On top of that, if we see interesting opportunities for M&A, we will be very happy to explore those," he said.

The investment is going to be secular across categories, Narayanan said. "It is not going to be in particular categories...probably we are looking at new locations for factories as well. It could be a big part of the ambition that has as a company."

"The ambition to invest Rs 5,000 crore would have been a significant increase in the direct and indirect employment as well," he said.

Nestle India's revenue stood at Rs 14,709.41 crore in 2021. It had last invested around Rs 700 crore to open its plant at Sanand, Gujarat, to manufacture a range of its popular instant noodles Maggi.