Activist investor Daniel Loeb's Third Point has taken a stake of 3.28 billion Swiss francs ($3.4 billion) in Switzerland's Nestle and urged the world's largest packaged-foods company to find ways to accelerate growth, media reports said.

The stake amounts to about 1.25 per cent of Nestlé's shares, reported Fox Business.

Third Point outlined changes the consumer-goods giant could make, including improving margins, innovating in its core business and selling noncore assets and its 23 per cent stake in French cosmetics company L'Oréal SA.

Third Point disclosed the Nestle position in a letter to the hedge fund's investors, according to a Reuters report.

"It is rare to find a business of Nestlé's quality with so many avenues for improvement," Third Point said in the letter.

"Despite having arguably the best positioned portfolio in the consumer packaged goods industry, Nestlé shares have significantly underperformed most of their US and European consumer staples peers on a three year, five year, and ten year total shareholder return basis," it said.

Third Point said Nestlé has "fallen behind over the past decade," and that while competitors have adapted to changes in how people shop and to more competition from small, local brands, "Nestlé has remained stuck in its old ways", the Fox Business report said,

Nestle has not responded to requests for comment.