Nestlé to invest €40 million in Portugal

Nestlé Portugal has announced it will invest €40 million in its factories in Porto and Avenca over the next 20 months.

The CEO of the company, Paolo Fagnoni, said that 80% of the investment would be made in 2018.  The investment has been earmarked for product innovation and improving production efficiency while the multinational will also invest 2-3% of this investment on communication and marketing adding to the €50 million is spent in 2017.

The company also said it would be hiring more staff with an additional 14% on its current 1922 workforce.  Its new services centre at Linda-e-Velha outside Lisbon which is also its headquarters in Portugal will hire the lion’s share of these new staff.

By the end of 2019 Nestlé will employ around 400 staff at the headquarters and services centre which currently has 140 staff working on order processing, purchasing and digital social media marketing for markets such as Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Scandinavia and Italy.

Nestlé expanded into Portugal in 1923, began selling Maggi products in 1948 and Nescafé in 1958. The company celebrated 90 years in Portugal with a visit to its factory in Avanca in 2013.

Of its total sales in Portugal, 20% are exported with particular emphasis on its breakfast products Nestum and Cerelac. Over the past five years the Swiss-based multinational company has made an annual average investment of €15 million in Portugal and has an annual turnover of €461.3 million, of which €76.7 million came from exports.