Nescafe celebrates 75th birthday

A Nestle brand that started as an idea to solve the problem of what to do with unsold coffee is celebrating its 75th anniversary and its position as one of the world’s favourite drinks.

Today, Nescafé instant coffee is present in over 180 countries, with more than 5,500 cups consumed every second.

The story starts in 1929, when Louis Dapples, the Nestlé chairman at the time, was presented with an interesting task by his former employer, the Banque Française et Italienne pour l’Amérique du Sud. Following the Wall Street Crash and the collapse of coffee prices, the bank had a lot of coffee sitting unsold in warehouses in Brazil.

Nestlé was asked whether these stocks could be turned into a ‘soluble coffee cube’ to be sold to consumers.

Coffee is the second most used product in the world, right behind oil, which is why Nescafe adapts its portfolio to the tastes of local consumers, thus offering more than 200 different flavors worldwide.