Johannesburg, June 6 - The world's largest food group Nestle has spent 37 million rand ($4.72 million) on generators to overcome South Africa's power shortage, its southern Africa chief executive (CEO) told Reuters on Friday.
State utility Eskom has struggled to meet demand for electricity in Africa's biggest economy, resulting in a rationing of power through load-shedding since January, when the national grid almost collapsed, plunging millions into darkness.
"We invested 37 million rand in generators in order to have our main sites able to cope with the situation we had," Yves Manghardt, CEO of Nestle southern Africa said.
Nestle, which has a global stable of blockbuster brands like Nescafe coffee and KitKat chocolate bars, has 27 factories in South Africa and has invested more than 1 billion rand in the country over the past three years, Paul Bulcke, the global CEO for the Switzerland-based food group, told a media briefing.
Nestle has recently transformed from a massive processor of basic foods like milk powder and corn flakes to a high-tech maker of sports foods, healthy foods and medical nutrition.
In April, Nestle said it was open to making big acquisitions with the proceeds from the sale of Alcon to drug firm Novartis, but Bulcke would not specify any target companies.
"I do believe we are very nicely set up to really secure the growth we are looking for," Bulcke said.
"We still have some time to think about it," he added, referring to market talk that Nestle may increase its stake in French cosmetics giant L'Oreal.
There has been renewed speculation Nestle may make a move on L'Oreal in which it already owns a 30 percent stake, or that it could hook up with one of its remaining rivals, such as U.S chocolate maker Hershey.
Bulcke, who took up the position of CEO in April, said he does not believe the price of raw materials will decrease.
"I don't believe they're going to go down to the level they were before," he said without elaborating.