FoodBev quotes Iwan Thomas on the wave of recent divestments in the food and beverage sector

From Unilever's ice cream spin-off to Nestlé's portfolio reset and Coca-Cola's stalled attempt to sell Costa Coffee, major FMCG players are in some instances rebalancing around perceived high-growth categories in the food and beverage sector. What does this tell us about how FMCG portfolio strategies are evolving for 2026 and beyond?

The largest conglomerates in the food and beverage, and FMCG sector more widely, are transitioning from a strategy of owning everything from ice cream to infant formula — instead they are moving towards a more disciplined approach, identifying core categories and redeploying capital where returns are highest.

In December 2025, Unilever completed the demerger of its ice cream division into The Magnum Ice Cream Company, which appeared to reflect how the cold-chain logistics and seasonal demand profile of ice cream products sat uneasily within the broader group. Nestlé came to a similar decision, announcing plans to sell its remaining in-house ice cream operations to Froneri. Broader restructuring includes the initiation of a sale process for its water division among other divestments. 

Meanwhile in the coffee retail sector, Costa Coffee made headlines after its 2018 acquisition by Coca-Cola failed to manifest the envisaged returns. An auction process was launched in 2025, but the sale was shelved in December. This brings to bear the fact that for FMCG incumbents, the challenge is not that coffee is unattractive as a category, rather, that running physical cafés is a fundamentally different business to manufacturing and distributing packaged goods at scale.

If divestments define one side of the equation, however, acquisitions define the other. The brands attracting capital share several characteristics, functional health benefits, global scalability, premium positioning and alignment with evolving consumer preferences.

Iwan Thomas, Associate in our Corporate team, comments in FoodBev:

The direction of travel seems clearer in 2026. The market should expect more divestments. Nestlé's water sale process is underway, with deconsolidation expected from 2027. The Kraft Heinz split may yet be revived under new leadership. Nestlé is also reportedly weighing a reduction of its stake in Froneri itself.

"The era of the fully integrated FMCG conglomerate, running every product category from soup to soap, appears to be evolving. Scale alone no longer guarantees relevance. The emerging consensus is that dedicated, focused operators are better placed to drive performance in operationally distinct categories, whether that is ice cream, coffee retail or water.

"For a company to succeed in this environment, it must build a portfolio that navigates shifts in consumer behaviour, manages rising costs and positions itself around categories where it can credibly claim to be the best owner, not merely the biggest.

Read the full article in FoodBev here.