What happened and why Nestlé (-2.21%) – the world’s biggest food junkie – left investors in two minds with their latest trading update on Wednesday, as the flurry of furry friends in lockdown fed the coughers of the Swiss giant. The food producing giant, that is home to household brands Nespresso, Nesquik and everyones last-minute airport fix, Milka, saw its third-quarter sales receive a welcome sugar hit with a 4.9% rise, while analysts and investors expecting a jump closer to 2.5%. The food factory has the benefit of some serious diversity on its side, but as life would have it, money-followed-money, and the company enjoyed the consumption acceleration that lockdown brought about... 🐶 New pets gotta eat... Lockdown brought about a serious spike in pet adoption, a rewarding but expensive world and one that Nestle is well stocked in, with popular brands including; Purina and Pro Plan.☕ Caffeine hit... the maker of the Clooney-approved Nespresso and instant giant, Nescafe, has been a major beneficiary of closed cafes and dormant footfall. And time on out side. Despite the bumper sales growth and a nice kick from the health products that the company is now stocking, the Swiss conglomerate only set their growth expectations for the next quarter at 2%... and that had investors feeling pretty 'meh'. 🤔 While investors proved hard to impress (or Nestle playing hard to get), the foodmaker has fared better than smaller rivals such as Danone since coronavirus began, despite taking a hit to its confectionary and bottled water businesses. While Danone is propping up Nestle, Nestle was propping up its American rival Procter & Gamble (+0.69%)... The American safe-haven is offering consumers pandemic must-haves, over Nestle's should-haves. The consumer goods giant chalked up its biggest quarterly sales jump in 15 years, as germ-freak became the default setting for most... Home gains... P&G's home-care sales jumped 30%, out-sparkling every other unit. Brands like Febreze, and Mr. Clean were the wiped the boards clean in the latest update.Overall... sales jumped 9%, and profit soared 20% compared to last year, as the pandemic fed the narrative for the need for a consumer staple. | The Takeaway The hygiene hysteria has sent the everyday human into bacteria-hunting obsessives and that was enough to give an ageing stalwart some rocket-fuelled growth. Both Nestlé and P&G have certainly fared better than Danone throughout the coronavirus crisis. The smaller European rival chalked up a 2.5% growth earlier this week, and is now thinking about how it can slim down operations rather than ramp up.
