Nestlé (SIX: NESN) is a publicly listed company headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland that owns 32 consumer brands across 3 categories and makes and sells 2 consumer brands under licence without owning the names, and has 4 recorded transactions.[1]
Nestlé is a Swiss food and drink company formed in 1905 by the merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company with Henri Nestlé's infant food business, and traces its origins to 1866. It is the largest food company in the world by revenue and is organised around coffee, pet care, nutrition, dairy, confectionery and water.
Froneri — joint venture 50% since 2016Froneri is a joint venture between Nestle and PAI Partners; neither party controls it outright, so brands inside it are not Nestle brands.
Starbucks at Home — licensee 100% since 2018[1][6]Made and sold under licence; the Starbucks at Home name is owned by Starbucks.
Nestlé agreed to put its waters and premium beverages business, more than thirty brands including S.Pellegrino, Perrier, Acqua Panna and Nestlé Pure Life, into Peranel, a new company owned 50:50 with the private equity firm Platinum Equity, at an enterprise value of €4.9 billion. Nestlé would receive about €3.0 billion in cash. The result would mirror Froneri, the ice cream venture Nestlé formed with PAI Partners: famous Nestlé brands in a company Nestlé does not control.
Nestlé paid Starbucks $7.15 billion in cash for the perpetual right to sell Starbucks packaged coffee and tea in shops worldwide. No factories or staff transferred: the payment bought a licence, which is why the cafés and the supermarket bags now have different owners.
Nestlé acquired Carnation for about $3 billion, at the time the largest acquisition ever made outside the oil industry. It brought evaporated milk, Coffee mate and Friskies into the group and established Nestlé as a major American food company rather than a European one selling abroad.
Nestlé sold its United States confectionery business, including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Crunch and around twenty other brands, to Ferrero. Nestlé kept its confectionery businesses in every other market.
Nestlé controlled these 6 brands in the past. Each row shows when the ownership ended and who holds the brand now, so a page that once said Nestlé owned it still shows why it no longer does.
The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) keeps an open register of legal entities. Each entity reports its own parents. We show it as a cross-check on the ownership recorded on this page, which is built from filings.
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Official recalls involving Nestlé products
5 recall notices from government regulators matched to Nestlé.
Each applies to the specific products, sizes and lot codes named in the notice, not to every product sold under the name.
Reason given: Firm received complaints of infant choking.
Recalling firm: Nestle-USA, Inc. (Corporate Office) · Brand: Gerber
Matched automatically from FDA, USDA FSIS, UK Food Standards Agency and CPSC records only when the recalling firm corresponds to this ownership record and, for a brand, the brand name appears in the product description. Check the linked notice for exact products and lots. Method.
Frequently asked questions
What brands does Nestlé own?
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Nestlé owns 32 consumer brands tracked here, including Nescafé, La Lechera, Gerber, Carnation, Stouffer's and KitKat.
Is Nestlé a Swiss company?
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Yes. Nestlé is headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland and was founded in 1866.
Who owns Nestlé?
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Nestlé is a publicly listed company owned by its shareholders; it trades as NESN on the SIX.
What was Nestlé's most recent acquisition?
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The most recent completed acquisition recorded here is Starbucks at Home on 28 August 2018.
Sources (7) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
[1]Nestlé S.A. Annual Report 2025 — Nestlé S.A., Annual report, published 19 February 2026; retrieved 16 September 2026.
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