Nestlé has reportedly hired advisers to weigh up the options for its Blue Bottle Coffee chain.
According to Reuters, the Swiss giant has appointed investment bank Morgan Stanley to work on moves that could include a sale.
Nestlé acquired a controlling interest in Blue Bottle in 2017 in a deal that valued the US business at about $700m.
The Milo brand owner declined to comment on the topic when approached by Just Drinks.
Blue Bottle runs around 100 outlets across the US and Asia. In addition to its café network, the brand sells packaged coffee. In the US, Blue Bottle’s coffee products are available at grocery chains including Target and Save Mart.
Nestlé CEO Philipp Navratil is two months into his tenure at the top job at the world’s largest food maker. In September, he was promoted from CEO of Nestlé’s coffee business Nespresso to replace Laurent Freixe who was dismissed after an “undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate”.
A month later, Nestlé set out plans to cut 16,000 jobs – 12,000 white-collar workers across the group, plus 4,000 in manufacturing and within the supply chain – over the next two years.
“The world is changing and Nestlé needs to change faster. This will include making hard but necessary decisions to reduce headcount over the next two years,” Navratil said at the time.
Speaking to analysts after the announcement, Navratil indicated he would be reviewing Nestlé’s portfolio. “We must have a winning portfolio. I’ll be looking at everything in a rational way. Where we aren’t performing, I will act and act with urgency,” he said.
“I look at assessing business on four key questions: Is this a growth category? Is the returns profile attractive? Are we positioned to win? And are we actually winning?
Across most of the portfolio, the answer to these questions is yes – although we are not yet winning as much as we need to. But if our assessment concludes that one or the other business does not meet the criteria I described, we will act, whether that means fixing, partnering or selling.”
The reported deliberations over Blue Bottle would follow discussions Nestlé has had over other assets in recent months.
In July, the group announced a “strategic review of our mainstream and value brands” within its vitamins, minerals and supplements stable.
In February, meanwhile, Freixe said Nestlé was open to a partnership for its waters business “to realise the potential of the category”.
Navratil told analysts in October the company is “continuing with the strategic evaluation of Waters and mainstream VMS”.
