Albert Camus, the French existentialist, looked to Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder to the top of a hill for eternity, and saw in his toil the absurdity of the human condition.

It seems that Nestlé looked to Sisyphus and saw a business model.

“Every step we take, we're directed towards the top of the mountain,” Paul Bulcke, its chief executive, says. “We have to maintain the pace and that's the Nestlé way. It continues every year. We have to do 200 metres to get to the mountain top. We're going to have to adapt flexibly.” This begs the question of what the top of the mountain is. Mr Bulcke looks puzzled, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “The top of the hill is an end and a company doesn't have an end.”

So what is next for Nestlé? “Year-end results.” And after that? “Next year's.”

Boring? Hardly. Mr Bulcke's office may overlook the scenic splendour of Lake Geneva, but the view from the chief executive's chair at the world's largest food group is anything but calm and peaceful. This spring he took charge of a company with sales of about SwFr110billion (£60billion) at a time of rampant food inflation, a crisis eclipsed only by the financial carnage that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers. His surprise appointment is thought to have triggered the defections of two key executives - Paul Polman, who left for Unilever, and Lars Olofsson, who went to Carrefour. It has been a controversial few months.

So how was it for Mr Bulcke?

“Motivating,” he says in fluent, accented English, his fourth language of six. “An ideal year to take over a company like Nestlé. It's a privilege to have the experience of leading a company like Nestlé - a strong company with a good vision and strong strategies behind that vision, a strong human structure behind that vision.”

Mr Bulcke is good at talking Nestlé. The company appears recession-proof: in October it reported an 8.9 per cent organic increase in sales for the first nine months of the year. He says that the robust performance is vindication of the company's strategy of pushing its four competitive advantages - research and development (R&D), its product range, global reach and 280,000-strong workforce - in four growth platforms - nutrition, emerging consumers, premium goods and “out-of-home” goods.

When he became chief executive in April, Mr Bulcke was bequeathed $39billion by Peter Brabeck, his predecessor, money raised from the sale of a 25 per cent stake in Alcon, a maker of eyecare products, to Novartis. Nestlé looked certain to spend it. Analysts excitedly suggested that Nestlé would buy out the majority stake in L'Oréal held by Liliane Bettencourt, the 86-year-old daughter of the cosmetics company's founder. Others suggested Hershey, the underperforming American confectioner.

Mr Bulcke pooped the party by ruling out making any significant acquisitions in the near future. It was as if Nestlé had celebrated winning the lottery by having double-glazing put in. On mention of this, the 54-year-old Belgian returns to his mantra. “One vision, four competitive advantages, four growth platforms,” he says, raising four fingers for emphasis.

But the image this paints of Nestlé - that of a relentlessly, ruthlessly, unapologetically boring company - is wide of the mark, according to Mr Bulcke. “We're not a supertanker. That monolith you perceive isn't what we perceive,” he says, reeling off a list of innovations that have gone from the drawing board to the shelves in less than a year. One coffee product went from “bean to box” in less than a year; a water brand was signed off only a year ago and “Bang, we have it,” he says. “Yes, we're a huge company, but we're going faster than yesterday. The world is changing.”

Nestlé has also proved to be nimble at adapting to local markets: in Africa, it sells individual cubes of Maggi, its stock product, so that it is affordable, adding iron to combat anaemia. It redesigned its Top Cup - a coffee filter that sits on top of a mug - to make it work better in humid countries.

Nestlé's work in developing countries is a prickly subject. For 20 years, it has been dogged by accusations that it aggressively markets baby milk in the Third World. The long-running campaigns to boycott Nestlé products, from KitKat to Nescafé, still clearly rankles. “I would like to have Nestlé's image more in line with what we think we stand for in Britain than what it is today,” Mr Bulcke says.

“I just wish that organisations and people who hang on the past gave us an honest chance to be who we are in Britain, rather than being dragged down any factors that aren't relevant today or never were.”

Nestlé's battle to rid itself of that image explains why it is unusually sensitive to regulatory problems or ethical criticisms. In October, it was slapped on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority for a claim that Maggi noodles “help to build strong muscles and bones”. It was aired on Nepali TV, where regulations are less stringent, but was also shown accidentally in Britain by satellite. “Somebody pushed on the wrong button. Then the ad was aired in the UK,” he says. Throwing up his hands, he adds: “Well, okay, you got me. You can sacrifice me. We didn't have a clinical test for something that we knew was true.” For the first and only time, the attendant press officer interjects, beginning to say that the error was not Nestlé's ... but Mr Bulcke cuts him off, telling him: “No.

“We're going to change that because I don't like it. I don't need terrible incidents where I don't need to have them.”

Mr Bulcke says that Nestlé not only always plays by the legal rules in every market but also “everything we do is totally in line with our own company's values”. Despite hailing from Flemish Belgium, Mr Bulcke appears to be proud of Nestlé's position in Swiss society as a bastion of stability, a role that has become ever more important after the sub-prime-fuelled excesses of UBS and Credit Suisse.

He allows himself a brief look out of the elegant, modernist headquarters at Vevey, near Montreux. His office shows no trace of a hinterland beyond Nestlé. An alpine scene by the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler hangs opposite his desk. On his bookshelf, the occasional environmental tome rests between titles such as The CEO Within and Why Should Anyone Be Led By You.

He says that Nestle's value resonate with him. “We're proud of our values, as a Swiss company. Long-term thinking. That passion for quality. A certain pragmatism. A direct way of treating people. That's why you see at the top of this building that Swiss flag waving in the wind. And then he returns to his theme - “Four competitive advantages, four growth platforms” - before concluding with a satisfied flourish: “You know them.”

Paul Bulcke: CV

Born: 1954 in Roeselare (Belgium)

Education: 1972-76 Studied commercial engineering at University of Louvain; 1976-1977 postgraduate studies in management, University of Ghent 1995 Program for Executive Development, IMD Switzerland

Career: 1977-79 Scott Graphics International, Bornem (Belgium), financial analyst; 1979-80 Nestlé SA, marketing trainee (Switzerland, Spain, Belgium); 1980-96 Nestlé Peru, Nestlé Ecuador and Nestlé Chile marketing, sales and division functions; 1996-98 Nestlé Portugal, market head; 1998-2000 Nestlé Czech Republic and Slovakia, market head; 2000-04 Nestlé Germany, market head; 2004-08 executive vice-president Nestlé S.A. Zone Director for Zone Americas: United States of America, Canada, Latin America, Caribbean; April 2008 to present chief executive officer, Nestlé SA

Family: Married, three children

Q&A

If you could change one thing in the financial and commercial environment, what would it be?

Bring back common sense and basic good practice

Who, or what, is your mentor?

Many of the great Nestlé people I met over the past 30 years, not least (honorary chairman) Helmut Maucher and (chairman) Peter Brabeck

Does money motivate you?

It certainly can be a demotivating factor if you don't have enough. But real satisfaction comes from a job well done

What gadget must you have?

I'm not really a gadget man, things have to be useful. But I do have a soft spot for nice watches

What does leadership mean to you?

Firing up 280,000 people's enthusiasm behind a shared vision

How do you relax ?

Time with the family. And thinking about sailing. I too rarely get a chance to actually do it