Mexico City, Mexico - Food producer Nestlé says they are hoping to decrease material imports and improve local purchasing by investing more in Mexico.

The company says that they allocate approximately 13 billion pesos for the purchase of raw material in Mexico to manufacture its various products such as cereals and milk powder, but the company wants this figure to be higher.

Juan Carlos Pardo, corporate affairs director of Nestlé Mexico Group, explained that they are promoting support programs for coffee, cocoa, milk and corn producers in addition to reducing their dependence on imports.

"Some material such as cocoa we import a lot. Only 20 percent of what we use is national production. If we promote the development of domestic producers, we would not have to import more expensive raw materials," he explained.

Nestlé has said they have created a Cocoa Plan, a strategy to support the production in Mexico with an investment of 100 million peso to double its production in the medium term.

"Since we arrived in Mexico, we gave goals to our producers. We also have to make the field attractive for young people so they see that there is an opportunity and do not leave," added the director of corporate affairs.

Recently, Nestlé announced its Maize Plan through which they support farmers of corn and also wheat in order to satisfy 100 percent their input needs by 2020.

According to Pardo, they also intend to increase their exports since the company already sends around 10 percent of its production generated in Mexico to 44 different countries, as Pardo notes, "The company already sent products to Central and South America."

In early October, Nestlé sent its first shipment of infant formulas to Africa. They will start with an annual volume of 4,000 tons, which will be produced between the company's two plants in Jalisco. Pardo says they expect to double this volume of production by 2021.