VEVEY. The numbers Philipp Navratil needed arrived before the stock exchange opened. Nestlé sold CHF 22.76 billion of food, coffee, petcare and bottled drinks in the third quarter, up from CHF 21.64 billion a year earlier, and the engine investors watch most closely finally pulled ahead of expectations: real internal growth, the measure of volumes actually leaving the shelves, reached 2.8 per cent against a forecast of 1.5 per cent. Organic growth of 4 per cent beat the 3.4 per cent consensus, and the shares were indicated 1.3 per cent higher in pre-market trading.
Volumes rose in every zone and in every globally managed business, a breadth the company has not shown for several years. Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa led with real internal growth of 5 per cent, the Americas added 2.4 per cent and Europe 1 per cent. Nespresso grew modestly while Nestlé Waters and Premium Beverages surged 7.3 per cent in volume terms. Pricing contributed just 1.1 per cent, roughly half what analysts had pencilled in, evidence that Navratil’s strategy of chasing shoppers rather than price tags is being applied.
“I am pleased with our progress,” the chief executive said on Thursday. “But I am not satisfied. There is much more for us to do to deliver the potential of the business.” Navratil, in the job since September 2025, has spent his first year slimming the portfolio, pushing ice cream and water into joint ventures and agreeing in September to sell the mainstream vitamins, minerals and supplements business to Yellow Wood Partners for USD 1 billion.
Russia leaves the accounts
The second headline of the morning had been building since 17 September, when a presidential decree placed Nestlé’s Russian operations under temporary external administration, part of a wider crackdown on European companies over Europe’s support for Ukraine. The group remains the legal owner of the assets but no longer controls their management, and from the end of September the business is no longer consolidated in Vevey’s accounts.
The arithmetic is now visible. Russia contributed about 2 per cent of group sales and between 3 and 4 per cent of underlying trading operating profit and free cash flow. On deconsolidation, net assets of roughly CHF 1.6 billion were derecognised, and a non-cash charge of about CHF 1.4 billion for cumulative currency translation adjustments was booked without touching total equity. Group net debt for 2026 rises by approximately CHF 0.9 billion as a result. Because Russia has been excluded from organic growth calculations since 2022, the operational beat is clean; the hit lands on reported sales, profit and cash flow from the fourth quarter.
Guidance intact
None of it moved the outlook. Nestlé confirmed it expects organic growth of 3 to 4 per cent for the full year, with real internal growth accelerating versus 2025, an improving underlying trading operating profit margin and free cash flow above CHF 9 billion. Chief financial officer Anna Manz told investors the second-half margin should be broadly similar to the first, excluding any tariff refund benefits, and described the Russian impact on the full year as limited.
For Switzerland, the morning carried a double message. The country’s largest listed company is growing again the way its rivals promise to: through volume. And the bill for staying in Russia three and a half years after the invasion of Ukraine, a decision Nestlé long defended as feeding a civilian population, has finally come due in Swiss francs.