US consumers unsettled by economic slowdown, Nestle CEO says

ZURICH (Reuters) -Consumers in the United States are unsettled by a slowdown in the economy, but Nestle is recovering market share there, the CEO of the Swiss food group was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday.

Nestle CEO Laurent Freixe told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung daily that his company was performing well in the U.S. despite concerns stemming from the Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on its key trading partners last month.

"The U.S. market is under pressure," he said. "There's uncertainty, and consumers are feeling the economy slowing. But we've recently performed better than our competitors in the U.S. We're regaining market share. We're on the right track."

Freixe also said his company was not putting its water business on sale - but might sell a stake in it.

"To unlock the full potential, we need a partner as a co-investor so that we don't have to take the funds for expansion out of our core business," Freixe told the newspaper. "A joint venture would be one possibility."

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Kanjyik Ghosh; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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