Food giant Nestlé sees slowing sales growth Paul Bulcke, Nestlé chief executive, sad: "In the first half we delivered a balanced performance, both top and bottom line, in an environment of lower growth and lower input costs. Analysts at Liberum said Nestlé's chief financial officer then "talked down the new sales guidance" of about 5pc on a conference call, saying it would be a stretch to reach the new target, and suggested this resulted from the company's decision to be "more price aggressive" than in the past. This implied that growth had slowed from the 4.3pc in the first quarter to about 3.9pc in the second quarter, analysts at Investec said. They said that a marked deceleration of sales growth in Europe was "of concern" and said that "much lower pricing" was responsible. Nestlé said: "The trading environment continued to be subdued with low consumer confidence in developed countries and lower growth in emerging markets. In Europe consumers are extremely sensitive to price and we have been responsive. We also increased the investment behind our brands, supporting innovation which enabled us to gain market share.