Nestlé Chocolate
Nestlé's History
Historical Nestlé posters promoting chocolate
Nestlé has a long history. Its roots go back to 1849, when Henri Nestlé set up his laboratory in the small Swiss town of Vevey on the banks of Lake Geneva. It was there, in 1867, that he developed Farine Lactée which helped save the life of a neighbour’s child and which was later marketed internationally to nurture the lives of young babies around the world. It was the first infant food and the first Nestlé brand.
Nestlé’s involvement with chocolate goes back to François-Louis Cailler who in 1819 started to make chocolate in Corsier, a village next door to Vevey. Today, Cailler is a famous Nestlé brand and Switzerland’s oldest chocolate brand.
François-Louis Cailler’s daughter married a man called Daniel Peter who, helped by Henri Nestlé’s milk expertise, in 1875 invented milk chocolate.
Nestlé Acquisitions
Through various acquisitions, including Cailler, in 1929 Nestlé became the world’s largest chocolate producer.
More recently, in 1988, Nestlé bought Rowntree, the UK company famous as the makers of Kit Kat, Smarties, Rolo and After Eight.
In 1862 Henry Rowntree bought a cocoa and chocolate business in the city of York, UK and set up his own enterprise. His brother Joseph joined him and hugely influenced the company’s growth.
Henri Nestlé and Joseph Rowntree had much in common. Henri was very concerned about reducing infant mortality and was anxious to make his Farine Lactée available to as many mothers as possible, helping them to bring up healthy babies. His entrepreneurial spirit led to its export to countries all over the world. Joseph also built Rowntree into an international business, but closer to home devoted much of his life to reducing poverty, including building houses for low income families. His Quaker roots and philosophy on life permeated the company and when Nestlé bought Rowntree, they found a common view still applied and helped to bond the two companies together.
