Nestlé

Multinational corporation, the world's largest packaged-food company, best known for producing chocolate, coffee, and baby milk. Headquartered at Vevey, Switzerland, the company produces food, beverages, and pet care products. At the end of 2005, Nestlé employed 250,000 people around the world, with profits of around $6.5 billion.

The founder was Henri Nestlé (1814-1890), a Swiss research chemist who in 1867 first devised a substitute for mother's milk. His product, consisting of ordinary milk mixed with baked meal, was a success, and in 1875 he sold his business to a Geneva company who kept his name. In 1878 the Nestlé Company first manufactured condensed milk, in competition with the existing Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, founded in 1866. In 1905 the two companies merged to form the Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, the largest dairy company in the world. The company later increased their manufacture of chocolate, and in 1938 launched Nescafé, the instant coffee that was their first non-dairy product. After various amalgamations and takeovers, the company once more took the name of Nestlé in 1947.

From the 1980s Nestlé acquired several other food and beverage companies, including Carnation (1985), Rowntree (1988), Perrier (1992), and Ralston Purina (2001).

From the 1990s, Nestlé has been criticized by charity organizations and the press for its marketing of baby milk in the developing world.