Today’s quote comes from Bernard Meunier, Nestlé’s country manager, quoted in Business Week (2006) on why they’ve “pumped $500 million into Russia to date”:

“As soon as people step out of poverty, they become potential Nestlé customers.”

I suppose that’s really good news for Russia’s 53 billionaires, but probably bad news for the 20% that live below the poverty line, and the 30% whose wages are below the required minimum to live. It seems that the poorest segments of the population, like pensioners, the unemployed and government employees like teachers are not likely to be Nestlé customers.

(There is of course the exception to the rule, and that’s probably when they want to give free breast milk substitutes that helps contribute to the problem of 1.5 million children dying every year from inadequate breast feeding).