The company whose brands also include Purina dog food, Maggi bouillon cubes, Gerber baby food and Nesquik chocolate-flavoured drinks, has struggled with flagging consumer demand in key markets in recent years, shook up management last year and laid off 6% of its staff.
During the first three months of the year the company reported sales of CHF21.3 billion (US$24.9 billion), a drop of 5.7% from the same period last year.
The Swiss franc has appreciated considerably over that period as investors sought a safe haven amid global uncertainty, providing a 9.3 percentage point drag on sales.
Excluding currency impacts and changes in business operations, known as organic sales, sales rose by 3.5%.
The results beat expectations of 2.5% organic sales growth to CHF21.2 billion of analysts surveyed by Swiss financial news agency AWP.
Nestle’s management has been targeting another indicator, real internal growth (RIG), which reflects sales volumes.
This rose by 1.2% in Q1, surpassing the 0.2% expected by analysts.
“Our Q1 performance demonstrates that our RIG -led growth strategy is delivering,” said new chief executive said Philipp Navratil.
“In an uncertain and complex environment, I would like to thank all our people for their dedication and our customers and consumers for their trust,” he added.
That trust was tested at the start of this year when it emerged that Nestle waited for days for a health-risk analysis before alerting authorities after detecting a toxin in its baby formula.
A scare over the toxin cereulide in an ingredient received from a global supplier eventually forced several manufacturers to recall potentially contaminated products in over 60 countries.
Nestle estimated that the recall and impact on consumer demand led to a 0.9 percentage point drop in organic sales.
It said product availability had returned to normal.
“We are already seeing early signs of improvement and expect to fully recover by the end of the year,” the company said in a statement.
Nestle confirmed its 2026 guidance of three to 4% organic growth, and an acceleration in real internal growth.