Nestlé
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Nestlé S.A. ( NESS-lay, -lee, -əl, French: [nɛsle]) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 2014. It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017. In 2023, the company was ranked 50th in the Forbes Global 2000. Nestlé's products include coffee and tea, candy and confectionery, bottled water, infant formula and baby food, dairy products and ice cream, frozen foods, breakfast cereals, dry packaged foods and snacks, pet foods, and medical food. Twenty-nine of Nestlé's brands have annual sales of over 1 billion CHF (about US$1.1 billion), including Nespresso, Nescafé, Nestea, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer Corporation, Vittel, and Maggi. As of 2024, Nestlé has 337 factories, operates in 185 countries, and employs around 277,000 people. It is one of the main shareholders of L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics company. Nestlé was formed in 1905 by the merger of Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, which was established in 1866 by brothers George Ham Page and Charles Page, and "Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé" founded in 1867 by Henri Nestlé. The company grew significantly during World War I and again following World War II, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. The company has made a number of corporate acquisitions including Findus in 1963, Libby's in 1971, Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, Klim in 1998, and Gerber in 2007. Nestlé has faced longstanding criticism over its business practices. The company's promotion of infant formula in developing countries sparked a boycott in the 1970s for discouraging breastfeeding. It has also been accused of benefiting from child labor, forced labor, and deforestation in West African cocoa production, fined for price-fixing cartels and criticized for its water extraction practices.