Expanding its reach beyond barangays, Nestlé has developed a platform where it provides livelihood to thousands of otherwise unemployed citizens throughout the country. This is in the distribution and selling of its products under the Micro-Distributorship (MD) Program, which provides able-bodied individuals who are at least high school graduates with an opportunity to become small-scale entrepreneurs by selling Nestlé products to sari-sari stores. Under the Program, these fledgling entrepreneurs personally distribute and sell Nestlé products to small stores in densely populated areas that can not be covered by existing Nestlé distributors.

A similar program runs in two other business units of the Company— Ice Cream and Nestlé Professional. In Ice Cream, the Program provides livelihood to commissioned street vendors who ply the streets of residential subdivisions and other high-traffic public areas to sell the range of NESTLÉ Ice Cream products categorized as “impulse”, the kind that consumers are known to crave for on a whim. In Nestlé Professional, livelihood comes through its Business on Wheels (BOW) Program, where members earn by selling Nestlé products to small carinderias.

In all three programs, the peddlers are trained on the proper way of selling, product knowledge, and the mechanics of the program they are in. They are equipped with Nestlé-branded motorized cabs and uniforms, and assigned to certain territories to tap and develop their accounts. They get their stocks of Nestlé products from Nestlé distributors, enjoy a certain discount on distributor rates, and are allowed to mark up their price by a certain percentage. On any regular day, these enterprising peddlers earn a net income higher than the daily minimum wage, with the chance to earn more well within their capacity.