India leads Nestlé’s global growth as company deepens manufacturing push

NEW DELHI: India is proving to be a sweet spot for Nestlé, emerging as the company’s strongest-performing market in the first half of 2026 as it looks to deepen local manufacturing and use the country as an export hub.

Philipp Navratil, chief executive officer of Nestlé SA, said India is among the group’s top 10 markets globally and is currently its highest-performing market in the first half of the year.

The comments come as Nestlé looks to capture India’s expanding consumer opportunity by offering products at different price points, investing closer to consumers and increasing its local manufacturing footprint.

Navratil said India is leading growth for Nestlé across emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The company’s strategy in these markets centres on being closer to consumers, understanding local needs and offering products across a wider range of price points. India, in particular, is being positioned as a market with further room to grow.

Nestlé India chairman and managing director Manish Tiwary is leading the company’s operations in the country.

India’s importance to the group is also reflected in its manufacturing and export ambitions. Nestlé currently exports products manufactured in India to 28 countries.

The company sees scope to increase its manufacturing capacity in India, particularly as domestic demand grows.

Navratil said a stronger local manufacturing footprint would be necessary to serve Indian consumers while also allowing the country to develop into a larger production and export base for the group.

That could give India a bigger role in Nestlé’s global supply chain, moving beyond its position as a major consumer market to become an important manufacturing hub.

The approach also fits into Nestlé’s broader strategy of relying on local sourcing and production to strengthen supply chains amid inflation and geopolitical uncertainty.

Nestlé also appears open to tighter nutritional transparency in India as the country considers changes to front-of-pack labelling.

The company supports greater transparency and consumer awareness around the nutritional content of packaged food, including sugar, fat and sodium.

However, it believes the design of any new system will matter. Nestlé’s position is that nutritional information should be scientifically sound and should reflect how people actually consume food.

The company has pointed to portion-based information as more meaningful than simply presenting nutritional values by weight, arguing that consumers typically eat products in portions rather than thinking in terms of grams.

India’s food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has been examining how products high in sugar, salt and saturated fat should be presented to consumers.

The debate has become particularly relevant following growing scrutiny of packaged food formulations and nutritional claims. The Supreme Court of India has also questioned delays surrounding front-of-pack nutritional warnings.

Nestlé is also seeking to protect consumer demand as inflation and supply-chain pressures affect markets globally.

The company said India benefits from a largely local sourcing and manufacturing base, helping it build resilience when global supply chains face disruption.

Price increases, meanwhile, remain a last resort. Nestlé’s approach is to first find efficiencies and protect price points so that consumers are not pushed away by higher prices.

The thinking reflects a broader FMCG challenge: raising prices may protect margins in the short term, but losing consumers can make it considerably harder and more expensive to rebuild demand later.

Navratil’s India visit also included a meeting with prime minister Narendra Modi, where the two discussed Nestlé’s continued commitment to the country and its contribution to India’s growth and development agenda.

With India already its strongest-performing market in the first half of 2026, Nestlé’s focus is increasingly extending beyond selling more products. The company is looking to manufacture more locally, export from India and adapt its portfolio to a market where affordability, nutrition and consumer transparency are becoming increasingly important.

For Nestlé, India’s role is therefore becoming bigger than the sales opportunity alone. The country is shaping up as both a growth market and a production base for the group’s next phase of expansion.