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By Thomas Mulier
Bloomberg News
Published on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008
Nestle SA, the world's largest food company, will invest $14 million in a beverage center in the Cleveland suburb of Solon that will research products to sell to restaurants, hotels and food-service companies.
Nestle Professional, the division that will run the center, aims to double its annual sales by 2018, said Marc Caira, the unit's head.
Half of North American consumer food and beverage spending takes place outside the home, according to Nestle. Nestle Professional has Yum! Brands Inc.'s Pizza Hut chain, McDonald's Corp. and Darden Restaurants Inc.'s Red Lobster unit among its customers.
''We are seeing a slowdown in the out-of-home business,'' Caira said. ''The out-of-home industry is usually one of the first industries to feel it as people cut back on discretionary spending. It's also one of the first industries to rebound.''
Nestle Professional's business in the Americas has annual sales of $1.8 billion, and the company expects that to increase 6 percent annually in the coming years, said Jorge Sadurni, the unit's local head.
While Nestle commands the biggest global shares of the water and coffee markets, it and the four other biggest food service companies control only about 3 percent of the market.
Nestle Professional predicts long-term growth because eating out is increasingly becoming a ''necessity'' for consumers, Caira said.
Separately on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Nestle is recalling about 880,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine chicken meals that might contain foreign materials. Nestle received one report of injury and identified the objects as small pieces of hard plastic, the USDA said.
Nestle SA, the world's largest food company, will invest $14 million in a beverage center in the Cleveland suburb of Solon that will research products to sell to restaurants, hotels and food-service companies.
Get the full article here.

