Unilever

Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch consumer packaged goods company with brands across food and beverages, home care, and personal care and beauty. One of the world’s leading suppliers of FMCG products, Unilever says that on any given day 2.5 billion people – a third of the world’s population – will use at least one of its products.

The company was created in 1929 by the merger of Dutch margarine manufacturer Unie and British soap maker Lever Brothers – hence the name ‘Unilever’. Unie itself was created by a merger between four different Dutch margarine companies – two of which had been profit sharing for 20 years before the merger – while Lever Brothers is today best-remembered for Port Sunlight, a model village in the northwest of England built for workers at its nearby soap factory, and their families.

Both Unie and Lever Brothers’ innovatively unorthodox approach to business is mirrored today in Unilever – for one, the company is dual-listed with headquarters in both London and Rotterdam and listings on both the Dutch and British stock exchanges.

Unilever is heavily active in ice cream, with brands like Breyers, Magnum, Ben & Jerry’s, Klondike and Carte d’Or; in condiments and sauces, with the likes of Hellmann’s, Knorr, Maille, Marmite and Colman’s; and in tea, where its labels include PG Tips, Lipton and Pure Leaf.