Nestlé’s 2025 Results: The coffee portfolio proves as the Engine of Growth
February 20 - 2026
Coffee Geography Magazine
Nestlé’s fiscal year 2025 report reveals a company navigating a complex global landscape, with its vast coffee operations emerging as a cornerstone of resilience and strategic focus. Despite headwinds from significant input cost inflation—particularly in coffee and cocoa—and a challenging macroeconomic environment that dampened consumer sentiment, the coffee sector delivered standout performance, underscoring its critical role in Nestlé’s portfolio.
The company’s Powdered and Liquid Beverages category, which houses its coffee giants Nescafé, Nespresso, and the licensed Starbucks brand, was the largest contributor to group growth. It posted a robust organic growth of 7.3%, a figure largely propelled by strategic pricing actions necessary to offset soaring raw material costs. Encouragingly, this pricing power did not come at the expense of volume; real internal growth remained positive, indicating that consumer demand for Nestlé’s coffee offerings stayed resilient. This performance was a key driver in the group’s overall 3.5% organic growth, even as total reported sales dipped to CHF 89.5 billion due to the strong appreciation of the Swiss franc.
On the left - Nestle's Chairman Pablo Isla- On the right - CEO Philipp Navratil
A significant narrative within the coffee business is the company’s aggressive pivot towards the cold coffee segment, targeting younger demographics and new consumption occasions. Innovations like Nescafé Espresso Concentrate, which allows consumers to create café-style iced drinks at home, and Nescafé Iced Blend, a soluble coffee designed to dissolve in cold liquids, are central to this strategy. The company is investing in capacity to meet this demand, exemplified by a new, digitally enabled production line for the concentrate in Malaysia. Nespresso, too, is engaging a younger audience through cultural collaborations, such as its partnership with musician The Weeknd for the Samra Origins campaign. This focus contributed to Nespresso’s 6.0% organic growth for the year, led by strong double-digit performance in North America.
This commercial drive is intrinsically linked to the sustainability commitments detailed in Nestlé’s accompanying Non-Financial Statement. The company acknowledges the long-term risks climate change poses to its coffee supply, with scenario analyses projecting potential yield reductions for key crops like coffee by 2040 due to heatwaves and water stress. In response, Nestlé is scaling its responsible sourcing and regenerative agriculture programs. In 2025, 94.3% of its coffee supplies (excluding Nespresso) were responsibly sourced, and 91.0% of Nespresso’s coffee came through its AAA Sustainable Quality Program. Furthermore, 86.8% of green coffee volumes were covered by due diligence systems addressing child labor risks. These efforts are part of a broader strategy to de-risk supply chains and ensure long-term access to raw materials, effectively linking the company’s financial performance with its environmental and social impact. The 24.5% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions against a 2018 baseline further demonstrates an attempt to decouple growth from environmental footprint, with the coffee sector playing a pivotal role in this transition.