Nestle investing Rs 4,200 crore by 2025, to set up its 10th factory in Odisha

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Nestle India has «strong commitments» for local manufacturing with plans to invest Rs 4,200 crore by 2025, including in its 10th plant in the country at Odisha, its Chairman and Managing Director Suresh Narayanan said on Friday. Nestle India, the maker of popular Maggi noodles, KitKat chocolate and Nescafe, is investing to create capacity as it sees «fairly robust» demand in coming years in the Indian market. «The investments done are fairly significant… till the first half of 2023, about Rs 2,100 crore already been invested on capital investments,» said Narayanan in a media roundtable here.

These investments are for augmentation of manufacturing capacity, he said adding a third of that has gone into food space, another one-third on chocolate and confectionary and the rest on nutrition and others. «Another Rs 4,200 crore is being spent between 2023 and 2025. This includes around Rs 900 crore for a new factory in Odisha,» he said.

Last year in September, Mark Schneider, the CEO of Nestle SA, global food & beverage conglomerate and its parent firm, announced to invest Rs 5,000 crore by 2025. Since its inception, Nestle India has invested around Rs 7,000 crore in the last 60 years here, said Narayanan. «This is the indication of where the promise for India stands and where the performance of the company is taking us,» he said adding new manufacturing practices and technology and digital infra are coming as a bundle.

A good part of this support is coming from the Swiss parent firm Nestle SA, which is providing technology, process and management capabilities for the new system. Detailing about the investments, Narayanan said: «There will be probably two or three areas where it will go. One of course is for the new factory in