The company’s cold sauces category was the one that rebounded in 2020. It ranks second among the largest cocoa exporters in the country.
The smell of cookies with cream of the traditional Wafer Amor or the vanilla ones with their square shape does not go unnoticed when passing through the Nestlé factory, located in the south of Guayaquil.
The multinational company positions this city as one of its two pillars in the country, along with Quito. This for the recent opening of your office in the Hamburg building in the north.
Christof Leuenberger, general manager of Nestlé Ecuador, affirms that having taken this step is important for the company because it started in Guayaquil. “We were founded in Guayaquil. (Later) the company moved to Quito. We want a company with two important pillars ”, he indicated.
The multinational, with more than 60 years in the market, inaugurated its new office in the Buenos Aires city last Wednesday, December 8, and they hope in the long term to enlarge their staff, which currently numbers 2,500 employees.
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Nestlé Ecuador is waiting for the reactivation and tax regulations, according to Leuenberger.
“We are betting on a reactivation, we are sure and we hope that the tax reform will give the government the resources it needs to be able to stimulate this reactivation, that is urgent. And if this comes, the rest happens by itself ”, he mentions.
The company owns four factories in the country: two in Guayaquil, one in Cayambe and one in Tabacundo. It produces several brands: Maggi for seasonings, cold sauces, dressing, pasta sauces, culinary solutions and others. Cereals like Chocapic; drinks like Nescafé and Natura; Rich cookies, Grimaces; and chocolates like Galak and Crunch.
2020, the year the pandemic began, It achieved a high demand for its products, but it rebounded the category of cold sauces such as mayonnaise, tomato sauce and mustard.
“The food industry did well in the pandemic because life was concentrated in the home,” says the senior executive.
This year is different. They are no longer at the margins of 2020 but at those of 2019 when there was no pandemic. “Today that we are more normalized, we need the economic reactivation. It is seen in several sectors, but not in the food sector. There is a slight recovery, but we need consumption to reactivate more ”, he says.
According to him ranking of the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexpor), Nestlé ranks second as one of the largest cocoa exporters. They ship the cocoa beans to the United States, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Malaysia and Indonesia; in 2020 the volume was 21,000 tons.
Of the semi-processed cocoa, 6,654 tons were exported to Colombia, Peru, Chile and Australia that same year. And we ended up with products like Amor, Wafer, Tango, Muecas, Ricas brands that went to the United States and Spain. In total, 232 tons.
Meanwhile, Nestlé Ecuador carries out annual investments between $ 15 and $ 20 million and one of them is linked to sustainability.
And it is reflected in the global initiative RE: Re.Think (our habits); Reduce (use only the necessary resources), Recycle (encourage recycling and reuse of resources).
Through this process they have replaced 17 million plastic straws with paper; They have reduced 192 tons of paper, plastic and cardboard from packaging. They hope to reach 2025 with 100% recyclable packaging
“Nestlé invests a lot in rethinking its activities to make them more sustainable, in October we communicated that to the consumer and it was an important milestone because we have that motto of rethinking, reducing and recycling. To reduce the world of plastic that we use in our product, ”says Leuenberger.
Another objective of the investment is in machinery for the production line and in digitization. Leuenberger says that you can no longer have the same equipment as fifteen years ago.
This year, the company has received seven awards, among them, as the company with the best corporate reputation in Ecuador; two distinctions for the Maggi® brand, one for La Lechera and another for the first prize in the Data Driven category of the Nestlé Marketing Awards for the Americas Zone. (I)
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