Introduction to Unilever

No matter who you are, or where in the world you are, the chances are that our products are a familiar part of your daily routine. Every day, around the world, people reach for Unilever products.

Unilever today

Our brands are trusted everywhere and, by listening to the people who buy them, we've grown into one of the world's most successful consumer goods companies. In fact, 150 million times a day, someone somewhere chooses a Unilever product.

Look in your kitchen, or on the bathroom shelf, and you're bound to see one of our well-known brands. We create, market and distribute the products that people choose to feed their families and keep themselves and their homes clean and fresh.

People's lives are changing fast. As the way we all live and work evolves, our needs and tastes change too. At Unilever we aim to help people in their daily lives. So we keep developing new products, improving tried and tested brands and promoting better, more efficient ways of working.

We have a portfolio of brands that are popular across the globe - as well as regional products and local varieties of famous-name goods. This diversity comes from two of our key strengths:

• Strong roots in local markets and first-hand knowledge of the local culture.
• World-class business expertise applied internationally to serve consumers everywhere.

Focusing on performance and productivity, we encourage our people to develop new ideas and put fresh approaches into practice. Hand in hand with this is a strong sense of responsibility to the communities we serve. We don't only measure success in financial terms; how we achieve results is important too. We work hard to conduct our business with integrity - respecting our employees, our consumers and the environment around us.

Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods. Here are some recent highlights from our three global divisions - Foods, home care and personal care.

Foods

• The acquisition of Bestfoods in 2000 brought us leadership in the culinary category. Knorr is now our biggest brand, with €2.3 billion sales in over 100 countries and a product range covering soups, bouillons, sauces, noodles and complete meals.
• We are the number one producer of frozen foods in Europe, under the Findus brand in Italy, Bird's Eye in the UK and Iglo in other European countries.
• We are the category leader in margarine and spreads in most European countries and North America, with brands such as Becel (the Netherlands), Flora (UK) and Take Control (US). We have met consumer demand for healthy foods by launching pro.active, a spread which contains ingredients that can help reduce cholesterol levels.
• In the branded olive oil category we are a leader, the most important brand being Bertolli. Appealing to consumers' taste for Mediterranean food, we have launched Bertolli pasta sauces and dressings.
• We are the world's leading ice cream producer, with brands such as Algida and Wall's in Europe, and Ben & Jerry's in the United States. Innovations such as Magnum snack-sizes and Cornetto miniature and multi-packs have sparked progress.
• We are the largest seller of packet tea in the world through our Lipton and Brooke Bond brands.

Home & personal care

• We lead the home care market in much of the world, which includes cleansing and hygiene products.
• Many of our home care products are market leaders including Brilhante, Cif, Comfort, Domestos, Omo, Skip and Snuggle.
• Within the personal care market, we are global leaders in products for skin cleansing, deodorants and antiperspirants.
• Our global core brands in the personal care market are Axe, Dove, Lux, Pond's, Rexona and Sunsilk.