Living in Peru : your everyday companion

By
Ricardo Serra Fuertes
Taken from El Comercio

 

I have come to visit our business. We have developed a new concept of corporate responsibility, which we call “the creation of shared values”. Peru has been one of the first markets to implement this concept. I wanted to see this directly, and also see the economic, social and political situation of a country where we have important investments. The other reason for my visit was to give a lecture.

Peru has had a spectacular economic, political and social development in the past few years, with growth in the economy and improvement in the social area. If we talk about the decrease of extreme poverty, important advances have been made. There is international recognition that today’s Peru is a more modern, democratically stable and socially advanced country than it would have been in the past.

Part of Peru’s population is moderately undernourished, but at the same time another part is overnourished. This double nutritional challenge is very important.

One of the best products is chocolate. For the past 20 years my everyday breakfast has been a cup of “Nescafe” with a tablet of dark chocolate and I don’t think you could consider me obese. You need to consider responsible eating habits and the combination between nutrition and each person’s lifestyle. I just got back from the mountains of Huaraz and the bit of chocolate I had wasn’t enough to cover the amount of energy needed. The same with young people. If they play soccer for an hour and are physically active, they need enough energy and there’s no doubt that a bar f chocolate or something like that will not only be appreciated by children, but it’s also great to cover their energetic needs. What we need to make sure of is that there is a good balance between the person’s lifestyle, and also, that their diet be well balanced.

That’s why we’re talking about educating people, especially young people, about the important aspects of nutrition. For example, the classes given on the “Nutrimovil” in schools, which consists in teaching the students the relationship between nutrition and lifestyle. This is what we can contribute.

After studying I went on a mountain climbing expedition and when I got back I wanted to keep climbing mountains, and I wanted to look for a company that would give me the opportunity to someday come to Latin America, which has always been my dream. I looked until I found Nestle and they told me that there was a possibility if I did a good job. The first job they gave me was as an ice-cream vendor and two years later they offered me the job as Chile’s Chief of National Sales in ice-creams.

No. I had an ice-cream truck, I would leave in the morning and come back at night. I was a regular vendor like so many others that there are around the world.

That I sold 10% more than the rest. I have always said that to have a successful professional career it doesn’t take much. First of all you have to like what you do. Second, you have to serve both the client and the consumer. I wouldn’t say “Lady, I’m here to sell, how many do you want?” I would arrive, say “Good morning”, look at the refrigerator and what I had sold, and so I had a good idea of what I needed. So, I would propose a certain amount of one product and another amount of another product. “Tomorrow the weather’s going to be nice, so we need more popsicles”, I would tell them. Or “Tomorrow the weather’s going to be bad so it would be better to have more cream-based ice-creams.”

I never imagined. This was a multinational company and I was in Austria, which was a relatively small market, I never imagined that I would end up being CEO of the company. I never thought about it and I never asked for promotion. It has always been the result of one action leading to the next.

Visiting a market like Nestle in Peru fills me with optimism, because it these men and women have been able to double sales in five years, imagine the future we have.

There are currently 6.5 thousand million inhabitants in the world. In the next 15 years there will be 9,000 million. There is a decrease in the arable land due to the strong urbanization and erosion in the world. We add to this challenge the problem of water. Today we are feeding 6.5 thousand million people not only with the use of rainwater, which is reusable, we also use fossil reserves that were created hundreds of thousands of years ago, and those are not renewable. We need to find a solution to the use of water in agriculture, using it in a rational way. One problem, for example, is that we irrigate in the middle of the day. And that’s done because water doesn’t cost anything, or because it’s subsidized. Even though there’s enough water in general, it doesn’t go where we need it most or when it’s most needed.

A large part of what we have been developing are products like Andean cereals, with “quinua”, and we are looking at the nutritional advantages it has. The policy is the same one we have in all of our different markets; we try to use as many local raw materials as possible. I think here more than 85% of the raw materials are produced in Peru. All the coffee we use is Peruvian. The milk is also bought here. If you look at the the products developed by Maggi, the new soups have lima beans, peas, and the drinks have Andean cereals.

The coffee is the only thing. To make the coffee products the raw material is bought here. Then it is taken to Colombia, processed, and comes back to Peru, the coffee is 100% Peruvian.

Peruvian cuisine now has a distinguished place internationally. The amount of Peruvian restaurants in the whole world is really a revolution, and a well-deserved revolution because the quality of Peruvian food is unique.

I am a long-time fan of “cebiche con conchas negras” that’s my favorite. There is creativity in Peruvian food, from the most popular to the most sophisticated, there’s something for everyone here.

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for many years. As a mountain climber I really wanted to visit the “Cordillera Blanca.” I left with a wonderful impression, they’re beautiful mountains. It was a very positive experience climbing the Ishinca, 5,600 meters. I like everything related to mountains. For example, I ski, I do snowmobiling and I land on the mountain from a plane on skis.