Nestlé South Africa: leading multi-stakeholder partnership response in the COVID-19 context

What is it about?

On 15 March 2020, Bruno Olierhoek, Chairman and MD, Nestlé East and Southern Africa considers his dilemma of where to focus his community support initiatives during COVID-19, which could reflect their company’s purpose of enhancing quality of life and contributing to a healthier future in their response to the crisis? Also, Creating Shared Value (CSV) was in their DNA as a company and they wanted to do more than philanthropic gestures and therefore they had to decide carefully about leveraging their strategic partnerships in the relief effort. The case highlights existing community involvement projects, pre-COVID-19, which illustrate multi-stakeholder collaboration. These existing trust relationships and partnerships are then leveraged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case highlights unintended consequences of Nestlé’s gesture of donating food products to the 5 000 frontline healthcare workers for specific stakeholder groups, such as the positive emotional responses of Nestlé’s own employees. These events in the case relate to existing theoretical frameworks, like corporate citizenship which elicits pro-organisational behaviour in stakeholder groups.

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