第二步：精读重点段落

第二段
It has come a long way since then. It sold goods worth nearly $90bn in 189 countries in 2015. Of the 30,000 cups of coffee sipped around the world each second, Nestlé estimates, one-fifth are cups of Nescafé. But the industry it presides over is in upheaval. On January1st a new chief executive, Ulf Mark Schneider (pictured), took over. He is the first outsider to get the top job since 1922, and his background—running a health-care firm, not selling chocolate bars or frozen pizza—suggests the main source of worry for the business.

第三段
More and more consumers are snubbing packaged food’s sugar, salt and unpronounceable preservatives. Meanwhile, swarms of smaller firms, emboldened by the ease of peddling goods online, are touting supposedly healthier options.
As super-sized companies swat at such tiny attackers, another foe is gaining ground. 3G, a Brazilian private-equity firm, likes to buy big, slow-growing food and drinks companies and slash their costs. Targets have included Kraft and Heinz, two giants which 3G helped merge into one group in 2015, as well as several of the world’s biggest brewers.

第八段
For now, Nestlé is defiant. “We started 150 years ago having a product that actually— there’s symbolism there—saved the life of a child,” says Paul Bulcke, the outgoing chief executive. He and his colleagues say that investment in health and related innovation will produce strong growth at the company for years to come. Still, few observers would call Nestlé a health company. Many of its products are perfectly healthy, including bottled water and coffee. Many are not—milk chocolate and ice cream, to name but two.

第十二段
Nor is Nestlé ignoring 3G’s strategy entirely: it is trying to trim expenses. “We are very much in an investment position, not in a cost-cutting exercise,” says Mr Roger, “but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be cost-efficient in what we do.” Whatever else Mr Schneider has on the menu for Nestlé, radical changes may be somewhat limited by the fact that so many of those who built the company into what it is now are sticking around.

A Life less sweet

Large food companies have long been among the world’s most solid, with reassuringly consistent returns even in hard times. None would seem steadier（更坚固） than Nestlé, based in the Swiss town of Vevey, on a lake near snowy peaks. For its 150th anniversary in 2016 it opened a new museum filled with corporate heirlooms（传家宝）: the first written notes about a new product called milk chocolate, laid out in black cursive（草书）; an old tin of Nescafé, used by soldiers as a stimulant（兴奋剂） in the second world war; and an early can of Henri Nestlé’s infant formula（配方奶粉）, which in 1867 saved the life of a premature baby.

It has come a long way since then. It sold goods worth nearly $90bn in 189 countries in 2015. Of the 30,000 cups of coffee sipped around the world each second, Nestlé estimates, one-fifth are cups of Nescafé. But the industry it presides（主导） over is in upheaval（动荡）. On January1st a new chief executive, Ulf Mark Schneider (pictured), took over. He is the first outsider to get the top job since 1922, and his background—running a health-care firm, not selling chocolate bars or frozen pizza—suggests the main source of worry for the business.

More and more consumers are snubbing（冷落） packaged food’s sugar, salt and unpronounceable preservatives（防腐剂）. Meanwhile, swarms of smaller firms, emboldened（鼓励） by the ease of peddling（售卖，叫卖） goods online, are touting（兜售）supposedly healthier options.

As super-sized companies swat at such tiny attackers, another foe（劲敌） is gaining ground. 3G, a Brazilian private-equity（私募基金） firm, likes to buy big, slow-growing food and drinks companies and slash（削减） their costs. Targets have included Kraft and Heinz, two giants which 3G helped merge into one group in 2015, as well as several of the world’s biggest brewers（啤酒公司）.

Nestlé is not immune（免疫） to such pressures. In recent years it has often missed its goal of 5-6% sales growth. Excluding acquisitions（并购）, its numbers have not met investors’ expectations in 11 of the past 17 quarters. In the most recent quarter, the firm registered organic sales growth of 3.2%.

Changing consumer tastes explain some of these shortfalls. So does a shifting retail（零售） landscape. Managing a giant portfolio（组合） of brands, from KitKat and Nespresso to DiGiorno pizza and Purina dog food, has become harder. Mr Schneider will have to master online ways to market and deliver its well-known brands. The firm needs to coax（哄诱） customers to pay more for premium products as ordinary ones get commoditised（商品化的）, and discounted by firms such as Germany’s Lidl and Aldi.

The firm can still boast impressive（令人印象深刻的） staying power—its global market share across its entire range of products has remained near 20% for the past decade. François-Xavier Roger, Nestlé’s chief financial officer, points out that the group’s sales growth in the first nine months of 2016 was among the fastest of the top ten biggest food and drink companies. Yet a detailed examination of its position by Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, shows that when growth from acquisitions is excluded, it lost share in all but three of its top 20 product categories（种类） between 2007 and 2015. 

Such results are likely to attract particular censure from investors because of Nestlé’s past heavy emphasis on growth and market share, which sometimes came at the expense of the firm’s profits. Shareholders（股东）） in the firm are waiting to see whether Mr Schneider will shake things up. Some want him to sell off businesses that seem most at risk of long-term decline, such as frozen food, as shoppers look for fresher fare.

Food for life?

For now, Nestlé is defiant（反抗的，挑衅的）. “We started 150 years ago having a product that actually— there’s symbolism（征兆） there—saved the life of a child,” says Paul Bulcke, the outgoing chief executive. He and his colleagues say that investment in health and related innovation will produce strong growth at the company for years to come. Still, few observers would call Nestlé a health company. Many of its products are perfectly healthy, including bottled water and coffee. Many are not—milk chocolate and ice cream, to name but two.
   
The firm has a research institute devoted to studying food’s role in the management and prevention of disease—for example, better understanding nutrition’s ability to promote brain health. It may bring growth but probably only in the long term. Nestlé has also partnered with young drugs firms, including one that is testing a treatment for ulcerative colitis（溃疡性结肠炎）.

More immediately rewarding may be its efforts to make best-selling but unhealthy foods a bit more wholesome（有益健康的）. In November the company said it had created hollow sugar crystals（晶体） that taste sweet but contain fewer calories than the usual stuff. It will begin to put the new ingredient（成分） in its chocolate in 2018.

It is also proud of changes to the millions of frozen dinners it sells every week in America. Shoppers had been avoiding the frozen-food aisle（走道）. Nestlé first tried discounts, and then in 2015 introduced new versions of its Lean Cuisine products, stripping out unpalatable（难吃的） ingredients and replacing them with organic ones. At Stouffer’s, another frozen brand, Nestlé decided to target men with easy, protein packed meals that are more nutritionally（营养地） valuable. It worked—its frozen-food sales in America grew faster. In November 2015 they were 6% above what they had been a year earlier. But Bernstein’s Andrew Wood points out that the revival of frozen food now looks wobbly（摇摆的） again.

Nor is Nestlé ignoring 3G’s strategy entirely: it is trying to trim（削减） expenses. “We are very much in an investment position, not in a cost-cutting exercise,” says Mr Roger, “but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be cost-efficient（有成本效益的） in what we do.” Whatever else Mr Schneider has on the menu for Nestlé, radical （彻底的）changes may be somewhat limited by the fact that so many of those who built the company into what it is now are sticking around.