He joined the company at a young age, completing an apprenticeship at the Nestlé SA factory in Eisenharz, Germany just after finishing high school.

He served as honorary chairman of Nestlé SA, Vevey, Switzerland, having been elected to that position by the board after relinquishing its chairmanship in May 2000.

[citation needed] In a 1997 interview, Maucher stated: "There is a certain percentage of prosperity waste (German: Wohlstandsmüll) in our society; people who are either unmotivated, semi-invalid, tired or who just take advantage of the system."

Maucher was alluding to the highly developed German welfare system, which in his opinion removed the necessity to take employment.

He was subsequently criticized for the usage of the term "waste" as a description for human beings, which culminated in Wohlstandsmüll having been chosen as the German Un-Word of the Year 1997 by a jury of linguistic scholars.