Nutritious Nestle

By Jeremy Caplan

Many American consumers know Nestle primarily for its candy bars. But it is also the world's largest food company, with chocolate making up only about 10% of global sales. Now the company is concentrating specifically on healthy foods, reorganizing to create a stand-alone nutrition division as of April 1 in the U.S. and globally on Jan. 1, 2006. The unit will include everything from baby formula to PowerBars. In 2004, four years after Nestle bought the PowerBar brand, nutrition products brought the company more than $4 billion in global sales. "CEO Peter Brabeck was on a nutrition kick long before it was fashionable," says Prudential analyst John McMillin, "but now there's a greater focus on it." In April, PowerBar is launching Triple Threat, designed to taste better than earlier iterations of the energy bar. It's not alone: since 2003, Nestle has introduced or improved 700 nutritional products worldwide. Not bad for a candy company. --J.C.