SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Nestle’s Nescafe plans to invest an additional 500 million reais ($88.7 million) in Brazil by 2028, the coffee brand said on Thursday in a presentation to journalists.
The amount comes on top of the 1 billion-real investment the company had announced last year in Latin’s America largest economy.
Brazil is the second-largest coffee consumer in the world and Nestle’s total investment – now standing at 1.5 billion reais – will reinforce the country’s strategic role in the company’s global growth, it said.
The fresh investments are focused on expanding its Montes Claros factory, located in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, and increasing the footprint of its “Nestle Professional” coffee machines, according to the firm.
Nescafe refers to its capsule products as “portion coffee” and Valeria Pardal, the company’s business executive officer for coffee beverages said it was optimistic about the sector’s future growth.
“In the last five years, Nestle’s “portion coffee” category has grown around 20%, so we are estimating this level of growth going forward,” Pardal said.
The Nescafe brand was first created in Brazil – the world’s largest coffee producer and exporter – to sell instant coffee, but now has a broader range of products.
($1 = 5.6397 reais)
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Writing by Andre Romani; Editing by Gabriel Araujo and Alistair Bell)
