Consumers’ high appetite for food during the peak of Covid lockdowns won’t end for some time, Nestle USA chief Steve Presley told CNBC on Thursday.
“When you look at the changing trends in food and what happened during the pandemic and what’s happening after, … a lot of those consumer behaviors are sticking,” the chairman and CEO said on “Squawk Box.”
“We see really strong tackiness to those occasions and to those behaviors that we saw during the peak of the pandemic, sticking and continuing to drive growth. And we expect that to continue through the rest of certainly ’21 and beyond,” he added.
Nestle on Thursday reported global sales grew 1.5% to just over $46 billion in the first six months of 2021. The company said its largest contributor to organic growth was coffee. Nestle saw better-than-expected 8.1% growth in global organic sales.
Categories such as baking and frozen pizza products saw increased growth during the peak of at-home pandemic lockdowns, Presley said. He added that products including coffee, pet care, creamers and traditional frozen foods in the comfort space continued to push the strong momentum that was seen in the peak of 2020 into 2021.
