Swiss food group Nestle will invest 500 million yuan ($81 million) to triple its ice-cream production in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, in the next five years.
Nestle holds the leading position in the Guangdong ice-cream market with two brands: Nestle and Wuyang -- a Guangdong brand it acquired in 1999 -- and the firm aims to further strengthen its advantage there, Daniel Lutz, senior vice president of Nestle China in charge of ice cream and frozen food, said March 29.
Lutz said Nestle's goal is to offer ice-cream flavors that Chinese people enjoy. Wuyang ice cream has red bean and mung bean flavors to cater to a Cantonese market, and Nestle uses sesame in China but not elsewhere. Nestle's ice-cream business in China is growing by about eight percent annually, he said.
The expanded ice-cream production at the Guangzhou plant is targeted specifically at consumers in South China, Nestle China spokesperson He Tong told the Global Times March 31, a sign of the firm's confidence in that market. Due to fierce competition, Nestle closed its Shanghai ice-cream plant at the end of 2011 and suspended sales of ice cream in East China. Its share of China's overall ice-cream market has lagged far behind domestic dairy producers Yili and Mengniu, as well as Wall's, which is owned by multinational consumer goods company Unilever.
