Nestlé leans on price increases to offset lower sales

Nestlé continued to grow in the first half of 2025 - but high costs put some pressure on profitability. Business in China also weakened. The Swiss food giant is sticking to its margin targets for the year as a whole. Sales for the period from January to June totalled CHF44.2 billion - around 1.8% less than in the same period last year. This was primarily due to negative currency effects caused by the strong Swiss franc. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox. Organic growth - i.e. adjusted for currency and portfolio effects - accelerated slightly to 2.9% compared to 2.8% in the first quarter. This growth is almost exclusively due to price increases, for example for Nespresso and Kitkat. Volume growth (RIG), on the other hand, slumped to 0.2% from 0.7% in the first quarter. In the second quarter, growth was negative at 0.4%. Weak demand in the US had a negative impact. In North America, Nestlé's most important market with a 35% share of sales, tariffs and ...