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Mr Brabeck-Letmathe says that Nestlé wants to strike a balance between what he calls the financial fundamentalists, who reckon a company’s only mission is enhancing shareholder value, and the ethical shareholders, “who think the company shouldn’t make a profit but should channel it all into social activities”.

Because Nestlé’s value chain has its roots in agricultural communities that supply its factories with raw material, the company has a vested interest in supporting sustainable agriculture in those communities. That means ensuring that there is a clean water supply, that farmers are using sustainable methods that are not harming the environment. “Otherwise we have a white elephant. Without a long-term supply of raw materials, our factory is worth nothing.” says the Nestlé chief.

How far does that support to the community extend? Not too far. Nestlé is not an aid agency and Mr Brabeck- Letmathe clearly has little patience with those who want big companies to strike moral attitudes. Returning to the issue of child labour, he says that when Nestlé drafted its business principles ten years ago, the company wrestled with the problem of adopting a policy.

Consumers in “sensitive countries” who demand zero tolerance of child labour can only worsen the problem, he reckons. “You have to be very careful that you do not afterwards provoke something that you did not want to provoke. You might get children off the farm and into the bars of Bangkok and the sex business. It’s easy to make nice statements and ignore the reality.”

He also takes a dim view of the mounting attacks on confectionery manufacturers over the problem of obesity and the notion of good food and bad food. Warnings on labels don’t make much sense, he says. Much better to motivate a child to have one hour of physical exercise than to prevent him from eating chocolate.

Nutrition is actually Nestlé’s fastest growing segment. At its core is the infant formula milk business, but the company now has a clinical nutrition business that designs special diets for people with medical requirements, such as patients in recovery from operations or chemotherapy or athletes requiring high-performance diets. It generates close to SwFr1 billion (£435 million) in turnover.

On top of that, he says, Nestlé is revisiting its mass-market products with nutrition technology, increasing the cocoa content of its confectionery because cocoa has anti-oxidants and magnesium. It is also diminishing the sodium in its Maggi soups while increasing the herb content. And the latest acquisition is Jenny Craig, the Australian diet business, purchased for $600 million.

Lean and athletic of build at 62, the Austrian-born Nestlé chairman is himself an advertisement for a healthy lifestyle with a no-nonsense approach to his own diet. Ignoring a bowl full of KitKat bars until pressed by The Times photographer to sample one, he says he didn’t have breakfast. “I knew I was going to sit all morning so I don’t need the calories.”

• Peter Brabeck-Letmathe was born in Villach, Austria, in 1944 and studied economics at the University of World Trade in Vienna.

  He is an accomplished pianist and his early ambition was to be an orchestral conductor but he says he quickly learnt to distinguish between ambition and what is achievable. He joined Nestlé in 1968 as a salesman and later worked as a marketing manager in Latin America, becoming chief executive in 1997.

  Mr Brabeck-Letmathe will give up the role of chief executive in 2008, but will remain as chairman.

  He is vice-chairman of L'Oréal, in which Nestlé has a 25 per cent shareholding. He is also on the board of Credit Suisse, the investment bank, and Roche, the drugs company.

  His pastimes include mountain climbing as well as playing the piano and the guitar. His musical tastes are catholic but he says: “I like good music. I don’t like bad music.”

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