Marketing

The Nestlé commitment to Africa

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Contents

Over a century of commitment and a vision of future growth and development by Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe

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1 Africa’s challenges and opportunities

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2 Nestlé in Africa: products, places and people

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3 Nestlé and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals

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Catalysing the shift from poverty to prosperity

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Front cover: Omowunmi Shittu, owner of this Maggi Restaurant in Lagos, Nigeria, welcomes hungry diners to her canteen, where she sells traditional fare flavoured exclusively with Nestlé’s Maggi bouillon cubes and

seasonings. Fortified with iodised salt to help prevent thyroid disease (goitres), Maggi bouillon cubes have been for decades one of the most frequently recognised and purchased food products throughout Africa.

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Over a century of commitment and a vision of future growth and development

Since the 1880s, when Nestlé condensed milk travelled the African continent in miner’s rucksacks and continuing today, with hundreds of products available from Cairo to Cape Town, African consumers have come to see Nestlé as part of their daily lives. Starting with our first factory in 1927 (in South Africa), we now have twenty-seven factories, plus numerous distribution and management centres. In Africa, we directly employ more than 11500 people; and tens of thousands of additional people are employed as our suppliers and distributors. To succeed in Africa requires patience, perseverance and a dedication to long-term economic development that will withstand shifting social circumstances. Through a very long-term business strategy, developing regional and national companies over decades, placing long-term business development over temporary

short-term returns, we have become a source of stability and economic growth in Africa. In this century, we expect African markets to offer additional economic opportunities, as we expand operations, introduce new products...