Chocolate

It was in the 1860's that Henri Nestle, a pharmacist, developed a food specifically for babies who could not breast feed. He first used this successfully on a premature infant who couldn't tolerate his mother's breast milk. This product saved the child's life and people soon began to see the value of it. Soon, Farine Lactee Henri Nestle was being sold all over Europe.

In 1905 Nestle merged with a condensed milk company. By the early 1900's they had factories in the United States, Britain, Germany and Spain. With the outbreak of World War I, there was a great demand for these products. By the end of the war Nestle's production more than doubled.

Unfortunately, after the war, contracts dried up and the buying public went back to getting fresh milk. In response to this, Nestle streamlined their operation and reduced their debt. By the 1920's the company had expanded its operation with chocolate being its number two selling product.

But then World War II broke out and Nestle immediately felt the effects. Their profits dropped from $20 million a year before 1938 to under $6 million a year by 1939. In spite of this, Nestle began setting up factories in developing countries expecting a turn around by the war's end. Ironically, the war was responsible for Nestle introducing one of its most popular products, Nescafe instant coffee, which was the number one drink of the United States military.

By the end of World War II, just as Nestle predicted, was the beginning of a great phase of growth for the company. Nestle acquired many other companies during this time. In 1947 they merged with Maggi, Crosse And Blackwell in 1960, Libby's in 1971 and Stouffers in 1973.

By the mid 1970's, Nestle's growth in the developing world offset their slowdown in the more developed countries like the United States. By the mid 1980's they had acquired several additional companies. The biggest was the American company Carnation.

After the mid 1990's, because of the breakdown of trade barriers, Nestle enjoyed what was probably their biggest growth in history. Their acquisitions included the giant company Ralston Purina, which mainly sells pet food.

In spite of Nestle's diversification, they are and will always be mostly known for their ever popular chocolate bars and drinks such as Nestle's Crunch Bar, which is now also made into an ice cream bar, Nestle's Quick, which is a chocolate flavored powder to put in milk, Nestle's Carnation, another popular chocolate drink, Nestle's Kit Kat Bar, Nestle's Smarties, Nestle's Maxibon, Nestle's Extreme and a host of other products, a list that would take days to go through.

In closing, it should be pointed out that a lot of Nestle's success was a stroke of good luck. It seems that a man named Daniel Peter figured out exactly how to combine milk and cocoa powder. The result was milk chocolate. Well, Peter just happened to be a good friend of Henri Nestle. Peter started the company, but ultimately Nestle took it over as was destined to happen.