Nestle beats first-quarter sales estimates

LONDON: Nestle posted far better than expected first-quarter sales growth on Thursday as more people bought coffee and pet food made by the world’s biggest packaged food company.

Nestle, which makes Maggi seasonings, Nescafe coffee and Kit-Kat chocolate wafer bars, maintained its full-year outlook of organic growth between 3% and 4%, and a higher underlying trading operating profit margin than last year.

Organic sales, which exclude the impact of currency movement and acquisitions, rose 3.5% in the three months ended March. Analysts had on average expected organic sales growth of 2.4%.
Total reported sales decreased by 5.8% to 21.3 billion Swiss francs ($27.12 billion) meeting analyst estimates.