Quick commerce is emerging as a critical growth lever for Nestle India, helping the company extend its premium product range beyond metro markets, chairman and managing director Manish Tiwary said at the company’s annual general meeting, as reported by The Economic Times.
The company’s omni-channel strategy spans traditional retail, modern trade, e-commerce, and quick commerce, with premiumisation gaining strong traction in urban markets and larger towns. Per Nestle India’s FY26 annual report, online channels grew 97% during the year, playing a meaningful role in overall business growth. Tiwary attributed this to sharper product availability and strategic tie-ups with key e-commerce and quick commerce platforms.
Alongside its channel expansion, Nestle India is reworking its product portfolio with a focus on health, reducing added sugar, salt, and saturated fat while enhancing nutritional value where feasible. Any such reformulation, Tiwary noted, must be science-backed, regulation-compliant, and consumer-approved. Key moves in FY26 included the nationwide rollout of a no-added-sugar Cerelac and upgrades to the NAN infant nutrition range, while the AskNestle platform has crossed 92 million visits since its 2019 launch.
Household penetration remains a bigger priority than price hikes, with the company adding roughly 5.2 lakh retail outlets since April 2023 across urban, semi-urban, and rural India.
Tiwary also revealed a major global milestone: India has now overtaken all other markets to become the world’s largest market for both Maggi and KitKat. Despite ongoing commodity inflation in coffee, cocoa, energy, and freight, Nestle India said it will prioritise productivity and efficiency gains ahead of price increases.
