Unilever - Articles and news items

Unilever releases first-quarter 2011 trading statement

Industry news, News / 28 April 2011 / Unilever

Turnover increased by 7.0% to €10.9 billion with underlying sales growth of 4.3%. All categories grew, driven by a particularly strong performance in the emerging markets. Commenting on the results, CEO Paul Polman said, “We have delivered a good performance which demonstrates that the transformation of Unilever is progressing well.”

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Unilever completes the sale of its consumer tomato products business in Brazil

Industry news, News / 4 March 2011 / Unilever

Unilever today announced that it has completed the sale of its consumer tomato products business in Brazil to Cargill for approximately R$600 million (around EUR 260 million).

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Unilever announces management changes

Industry news, News / 21 January 2011 / Unilever PLC

Unilever today announced that Doug Baillie has been appointed Chief HR Officer, following the recent departure of Sandy Ogg, and that Jan Zijderveld is to join the Unilever Executive as Doug’s replacement as President Western Europe.

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New Food Digital Issue 8 2010

Past issues / 2 November 2010 /

This issue features the latest industry news including:

• Kraft Foods – Lays out its new global growth strategy
• Arla – Location of New mega Dairy in London revealed & International Award for Arla Food Ingredients
• Nestle Health Science & Nestle Institute of Health Sciences established to target new opportunity between (more…)

Unimills and Unilever Further Demonstrate Sustainability Commitment With Long-Term Agreement on Sustainable Palm Oil

Industry news, News / 15 September 2010 / Edelman

Unimills, the leading European supplier of natural vegetable oil based ingredients, and Unilever, a global consumer goods company, today underline their commitment to sustainable agriculture by announcing a long-term supply agreement for hardstocks based on Segregated Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO).

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Unilever leads Dow Jones Sustainability Index

Industry news / 14 September 2010 / Unilever

Unilever has been named sustainability leader in the Food & Beverage ‘super-sector’ of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for the twelfth consecutive year. (more…)

Packaging for customers, consumers and the environment

Issue 3 2010, Past issues / 30 June 2010 / Jay Gouliard, Vice President Global Packaging, Unilever

Unilever is one of the leading suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods, with products on sale in over 170 countries. Our portfolio of foods, home and personal care brands is trusted by consumers the world over. On any given day, two billion people use our products. Unilever business and brands have impact at every stage of their lifecycle; in sourcing raw materials, packaging, manufacture, distribution, consumer use and disposal. Towards the end of 2009, we launched a new vision to double the size of our business while reducing its overall environmental impact across the entire value chain. (more…)

A new vision

Issue 3 2010, Past issues / 30 June 2010 / David Pendlington, Sustainability Agriculture Programme Coordinator, Unilever

In November 2009, Unilever launched a bold new company vision to inspire people to take small, everyday actions that can add up to make a big difference for the world. Our aim is to double the size of its business while reducing its overall environmental impact. This new vision recognises the world is changing. Populations are growing. By 2050, nearly three billion more people will occupy the planet and by only 2030, world food production will have to increase by 50 per cent to meet the growing need for food. Rising incomes around the world continue to fuel demand for consumer products, products that rely on an increasingly constrained set of natural resources, whether its fuel or other raw materials. At the same time, climate change is not just a problem for the environment, it represents a huge threat to economic and social stability. (more…)

Training, education and capacity building in food and water safety and in nutrition

Issue 1 2009 / 20 February 2009 / Leon Gorris, Senior Scientist Risk Assessment, Unilever and Yasmine Motarjemi, Corporate Food Safety Manager, Nestlé

This paper argues the case for increased awareness of the importance of training and competence in management of food and water safety, prevention of food-borne and waterborne illnesses and improvement of health and nutritional status. The challenge is huge as almost everyone needs to receive education commensurate with his or her role in the food chain and the assurance of water safety.

While laudable efforts are made to train and educate professionals as well as consumers in food and water safety and nutrition, these capacity building efforts will benefit from a better coordination and strategic planning at the global level and from a broader support of governmental initiatives by the food industrial and allied sectors, coupled to a more effective implementation at the local level. This paper presents the vision of Industry Council for Development on the subject and proposes a strategy for improving the infrastructure for training, education and capacity building in food, water and nutrition The strategy is based on effective leveraging of resources through public-private sector partnership. (more…)

Sustainable agriculture at Unilever

Issue 4 2008 / 3 December 2008 / David Pendlington, Sustainable Agriculture Programme Coordinator, Unilever

Sustainability has become increasingly important to Unilever, especially our food business – which includes brands such as Knorr, Lipton and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. It is a core element in our Vitality Framework, which sets out how the company plans to achieve our mission of adding vitality to life by increasing social value and improving environmental impacts.

Brand teams also consider sustainability as part of their product strategies because consumers increasingly want to know where our ingredients have come from, how they were grown, and the impacts they have on both the environment and local communities. Consumers have become more aware of climate change, water scarcity and other threats. They want sustainability as well as quality, flavour and the other attributes we always aim to provide. They care about the conditions for workers in the fields and animal welfare as well as environmental impacts.

Supermarket groups such as Wal-Mart and Tesco have responded to these concerns and are increasingly looking for suppliers who can demonstrate progress on sustainability. “This is a competitive issue. We have to make sure our brands perform well on sustainability,” says Jan-Kees Vis, Director of Sustainable Agriculture. (more…)

Ten years in the food industry

Issue 2 2007, Past issues / 23 May 2007 / Huub Lelieveld, Unilever

The past ten years have seen many changes in both food science and technology as well as in food regulations. Contrary to the decades before then, most of it has been consumer driven. Consumers have become more aware of the influence of eating habits on their lives, in particular their health, and the food industry has happily tried to comply with their wishes with innovations, thereby stimulating research and development.

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Sterilisation – only better

Issue 2 2005, Past issues / 3 May 2005 / Wouter De Heij and Robert Van den Berg, Agrotechnology and Food Innovations b.v., Ludo Van Schepdael, Solico b.v., Hans Hoogland, Unilever Research Vlaardingen and Harmannus Bijmolt, Resato International b.v.

Increasing microbial safety and extending the shelf-life of packed food and other products sensitive to microbial spoilage is often performed by relatively slow thermal processes. The adverse effects of the corresponding heating periods can be decreased by using technologies that put a vast amount of energy into the product quickly, for example direct steam injection or microwave heating. Cooling the product quickly, however, is more complex.

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