Information about Unilever

Unilever
	Public (Euronext: UNA, LSE: ULVR, NYSE: UN)
Founded	Merger of Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie in 1930
Headquarters	London and Rotterdam
Key people	Michael Treschow, Patrick Cescau
Industry	Manufacturing (foods, home and personal care)
Products	See brands listing
Revenue	€39.642 billion (2006)
Operating income	€5.408 billion (2006)
Net income	€5.015 billion (2006)
Employees	179 000 [1]
Website	www.unilever.com

Unilever is a widely listed ^{[2] [3]} multi-national corporation, formed of Anglo-Dutch parentage, that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever employs approaching 180,000 people ^[4]| and had a worldwide revenue of almost €40 billion, or just over US$50 billion, in 2005.

Unilever has two parent companies: Unilever NV in Rotterdam, and Unilever PLC in London. This arrangement is similar to that of Reed Elsevier, and that of Royal Dutch Shell prior to their unified structure. Both Unilever companies have the same directors and effectively operate as a single business. The current non-executive Chairman of Unilever N.V. and PLC is Michael Treschow while Patrick Cescau is Group Chief Executive. Unilever's major competitors include Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Kraft Foods, Mars Incorporated, and Reckitt Benckiser.

History

Unilever was created in 1930 by the merger of British soapmaker Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie, a logical merger as palm oil was a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and could be imported more efficiently in larger quantities.

In the 1930s, the business of Unilever grew and new ventures were launched in Latin America. By 1980, soap and edible fats contributed just 40% of profits, compared with an original 90%. In 1984 the company bought the brands Brooke Bond (maker of PG Tips tea), Fabergé and Elizabeth Arden, but the latter was later sold (in 2000) to FFI Fragrances.

Unilever acquired Chesebrough-Ponds, the maker of Ragú, Pond's, and Vaseline, in 1987, which strengthened its position in the world skin care market. In 2000, the company absorbed the American business Best Foods, strengthening its presence in North America and extending its portfolio of foods brands. In a single day in April 2000, it bought, ironically, both Ben & Jerry's, known for its calorie-rich ice creams, and Slim Fast. In 2006 The company sold most of its European frozen food division.

Today the company is fully multinational with operating companies and factories on every continent and research laboratories at Colworth and Port Sunlight in England; Vlaardingen in the Netherlands; Trumbull, Connecticut, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in the United States; Bangalore in India (see also Hindustan Unilever Limited); Pakistan; and Shanghai in China. Its European IT infrastructure headquarters is based in Unity House, Ewloe in Flintshire, Wales.

The US division continued to carry the Lever Brothers name until the 1990s, when it adopted the parent company's moniker. The American unit is now headquartered in New Jersey, and no longer maintains a presence at Lever House, the iconic skyscraper on Park Avenue in New York City.

Unilever has recently started a five year vitality company initiative in which it began to converge the marketing of disparate arms of their business, including personal care, dieting, and consumables into an umbrella function displaying the breadth of their contributions to personal vitality. This plan has been implemented because of the lack of brand recognition that Unilever wields, even despite its ubiquitous presence. In 2006, it concluded with the sell off of the global frozen foods division; excluding the ICF ice cream business, and the Italian frozen vegetables businesses.

The company now publicly professes to take a strong stance on sustainability, as stated publicly by its CEO, Patrick Cescau.^[5]. The company started a sustainable agriculture programme in 1998.^[6]. In May 2007, it became the first tea company to commit to sourcing all its tea in sustainable manner.^[7] To that extent, the company asked the Rainforest Alliance, an international environmental NGO to start certifying tea estates in East Africa. The announcement stated the company aims to have all Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips tea bags sold in Western Europe certified by 2010 and all Lipton tea bags sold globally by 2015. ^[8] The company topped Covalence's Ethical Ranking in July 2007. ^[9]

Corporate governance

Unilever's highest executive body is called the Unilever Executive which is led by the Group Chief Executive (Patrick Cescau). It is responsible for delivering profit and growth across the company.

Members of the Unilever Executive include: Pato Donald (Group Chief Executive) Silvia Lag-late-o (President Foods) Kees van der Graaf (President Europe) Ralph Kugler (President Home and Personal Care) Harish Manwani (President Asia and Africa) Jim Lawrence (Chief Financial Officer) Sandy Ogg (Chief HR Officer) Michael B. Polk (President Americas)

Executive and non-executive directors & financial advisors at Unilever are: Michael Treschow Professor Geneviève Berger Leon Brittan Wim Dik Charles E Golden Dr Byron E Grote N. R. Narayana Murthy Hixonia Nyasulu Lord Simon of Highbury CBE Jean-Cyril Spinetta Kees J Storm Jeroen van der Veer

Unilever is currently focusing on 400 brands in a bid to increase its profits by reducing the variety, and therefore cost, of advertising and packaging.

Brands

After some recent purges, Unilever now owns about 400 brands, many of them local that can only be found in certain countries. The brands fall almost entirely into two categories: Food and Beverages, and Home and Personal Care.

Food and beverages

Ades or Adez - soya-based drinks Alsa - desserts and syrups Amora - French mayonnaise and dressings Annapurna - salt and wheat flour (India) Becel - also known as Flora/Promise; health-aware: margarine, spreads, cooking oil, milk, fermented milk Ben and Jerry's - ice cream Best Foods - mayonnaise, sandwich spreads, peanut butter and salad dressings Bertolli - pasta sauces and olive oil (ambient/chilled & frozen) Bifi - a mini salami Blue Band - Family-aware: margarine, bread, cream alternatives Bovril - beef extract Breyers - ice cream Brooke Bond - tea Bru - instant coffee (India) Bushells - tea (Australia, New Zealand) Calvé - sauces, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, peanut butter Capitan Findus - children's frozen food Conimex - Asian spices (Netherlands) Colman's - mustard Continental - side dishes Country Crock - margarine

Doriana - margarine (Brazil) Du Darfst (Germany) Elmlea - Pourable cream available in different varieties (UK) Findus - frozen foods (Italy and UK) Flora- margarine, light butter, jams Fudgsicle Gallo - olive oil "Heartbrand" - ice cream (umbrella logo, see below for national brands) Hellmann's - mayonnaise I Can't Believe It's Not Butter - margarine spread Imperial Margarine - margarine Jif Lemon & Lime Juice Karo - syrups Kissan - Ketchups Squashes and Jams (India) Knorr - sauces, stock cubes, ready-meals, meal kits, ready-soups, frozen food range Lady's Choice - mayonnaise, peanut butter and sandwich spreads (Philippines) Lan-Choo - tea (Australia/New Zealand) Lao Cai Seasoning Lawry's and Adolph's Lipton - tea Lipton Ice Tea - ready-to-drink tea Maille - French mustard Maizena - corn starch Mazola - edible oils Marmite - yeast extract spread (except in Australia and New Zealand)

Mc' Collins - tea (Peru) Mrs. Filbert's - margarine (USA) Paddle pop - Icecream (Australia) Pfanni - Bavarian potato mixes Peperami PG Tips - tea (UK) Phase - cooking oil Planta - margarine Popsicle - Frozen treats Pot Noodle - cup noodles Promise - see Becel/Flora Ragú - pasta sauces Rama - margarine Royal - pastas (Philippines) Red Rose Tea - tea (Canada) Sana - Margarine (Turkey) Saga - tea (Poland) Scottish Blend - tea Skippy - peanut butter Slim·Fast - diet products Sunlight Soap (Africa) Stork margarine Streets (ice cream) (Australia) Turun sinappi - mustard (Finland/Sweden) Unilever Foodsolutions - professional markets (food service) Unox - soups, smoked sausages Vaqueiro - cooking margarine, cooking oil Wish-Bone salad dressing

Heartbrand

Unilever is the world's biggest ice cream manufacturer, with an annual turnover of €5 billion^[10]. Except for Breyers and Ben & Jerry's, all its ice cream business is done under the "Heartbrand" brand umbrella, so called because of its heart-shaped logo. Unilever currently operates eleven ice cream factories in Europe; the biggest include factories at Heppenheim in Germany, Caivano in Italy, St. Dizier in France and Gloucester in the United Kingdom.

The Heartbrand was launched in 1999 (and slightly modified in 2002) as an effort to increase international brand awareness and promote cross-border synergies in manufacturing and marketing ("centralisation"). It is present in more than 40 countries<ref name="heartbrand" />. Although the logo is common worldwide, each country retained the local brand so as to keep the familiarity built over the years. In 2005, Glidat Strauss received special permission from Unilever to export their brand of ice cream to the United States because of the strict kosher certification the products in Israel have. Under terms of the agreement, Strauss ice cream and krembo may be sold only in kosher supermarkets and import shops. It is distributed in North America by Dairy Delight, a subsidiary of Norman's Dairy.

Partial list of national brands:

Algida - Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland Bresler - Chile Cargills - Sri Lanka Eskimo - Austria Frigo - Spain, Serbia Frisko - Denmark GB Glace - Sweden, Finland Glidat Strauss - Israel, USA Good Humor - USA, Canada HB - Ireland Helados La Fuente - Colombia Hertog Ola - Netherlands (selected products) 和路雪 - China, Hong Kong Holanda - Mexico, Central America Kibon - Brazil, Argentina Kwality Wall's - India Langnese - Germany Lusso - Switzerland Miko - France Ola - Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa Olá - Portugal Pingüino - Ecuador Selecta - Philippines Streets - Australia, New Zealand (slogan 'Nothing Beats Streets')[11] Tio Rico - Venezuela Wall's - United Kingdom (Great Britain), Indonesia, Pakistan, and other parts of Asia Wall's HB - United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)

Prior to the heart logo, each country could choose its own logo, although the most common one consisted of a blue circle with the local brand's name over a background of red stripes; second most common old logo, used by Wall's in the UK and other countries, was a yellow logo with Wall's in blue text.

Unilever generally manufactures the same ice-cream with the same names, with rare occasions of regional availability, under different brands. Some of these ice-creams include Carte D'Or, Cornetto, Magnum, Solero and Viennetta.

Advertising

Unilever is well known for memorable advertising around the globe like;

• Lynx/Axe click advert with Ben Afleck
• PG Tips Monkey and Al
• Knorr Chicken Tonight, ' I feel like chicken tonight'
• Flora London Marathon
• Knorr global brand
• Dove 'Real beauty'
• Calve Pindakaas (peanut butter) in Holland
• Comfort Pure recommended by mothercare

See also

• Morris Tabaksblat, a previous CEO
• Gorton's of Gloucester, a former subsidiary
• Palm Line Limited, a former shipping company

Criticism

Unilever's status as a large multinational has attracted a variety of criticisms from political activists ^[12]. For example, it has been criticised for causing environmental pollution by Greenpeace ^[13], for testing products on animals by PETA, and for making use of child labour ^[14], among others.

Unilever employees have called for Unilever to stop dealing with the notorious PT Musim Mas, an Indonesian palm oil producer, known for their anti-union, anti-workers' rights mode of operation. ^[10] There has never been a high-profile human rights case involving Unilever.

Hindustan Unilever, the Indian arm of Unilever - was forced to withdraw television advertisements for its women's skin-lightening cream, Fair and Lovely. Advertisements depicted depressed, dark-skinned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin.^[16]

The band Chumbawamba has a song critical of Unilever, simply named after the company.

References

(Note: Some of these references have incorrect 'retrieved' dates. Those marked 'August 2007' were actually retrieved before 28th May 2007.)

External links

• Official website
• One-hour Radio Broadcast on Unilever - Part I (Deconstructing Dinner)
• Foodservice website
• Lady Lever Art Gallery

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