Nestle is facing a formal demand from some shareholders, including Legal & General, to significantly improve the amount of healthy food the Swiss consumer group sells. In reality three-quarters of Nestle’s global sales are unhealthy products containing high levels of salt, sugar and fats,” said Catherine Howarth, chief executive of ShareAction. Nestle said ShareAction was targeting the wrong company and it would “have to agree to disagree” with the investor coalition. The assertion that 75% of the company’s sales are unhealthy is wrong, said a spokesperson, adding Nestle was the first food company to measure the nutritional value of its entire portfolio against a government-endorsed rating system. Nestle has disagreed with various arguments made by ShareAction, said Pascal Boll, an analyst at Stifel, most notably the claimed fraction of unhealthy food within the company’s portfolio.

Source: Irish Examiner March 14, 2024 19:08 UTC