By George Glover

Nestlé stock was rallying on Thursday even though the Nescafé and KitKat maker reported a drop in quarterly sales.

The food giant's Zürich-listed shares jumped 5.9% to 80 Swiss francs in early trading. Europe's flagship Stoxx 600 index was 0.2% lower as investors fretted about a flare-up in tensions in the Middle East.

Nestlé reported first-quarter sales of 21.32 billion Swiss francs ($27.17 billion). That was a 5.7% drop from a year ago, but it beat the 21.15 billion Swiss francs that analysts polled by FactSet were looking for.

CEO Philipp Navratil, who took over in September 2025, has made real internal growth $(RIG)$ the central priority of his plan to turn the struggling company around. The metric measures the volume of products sold.

RIG climbed 1.2% from a year ago. It rose for every category except infant formula, where a recall in January marred sales.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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April 23, 2026 04:05 ET (08:05 GMT)

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