Unilever

Unilever is one of the worlds leading product manufacturer with over 400 different brands spanning 14 different categories. They broadly fall into these three main categories:

• Food - these brands include Knorr, Bertolli, Flora, Slim-Fast and Lipton
• Home care - products include Comfort, Cif, Domestos, and Surf
• Personal care - these brands include Lux, Dove, Sunsilk, Pond's and Vaseline

The company came about as a result of a merger between British soap maker Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie in 1930. The merger enabled the company to import large quantities of palm oil which was a major raw material for margarine and soap. So for the early years Unilever primarily produced products made of oils and fats.

Today the company has broadened out to produce a host of household goods, but is considered the third largest consumer producer behind Proctor & Gamble and Colgate - Palmolive.

Unilever in the UK

Many of Unilever's products are market leaders in Britain. These include Persil, Dove, Magnum, Flora, Marmite and Lynx.

Unilevers's origins in the UK go back to 1885 with a brand called Sunlight. William and James Lever launched this first branded and packaged laundry soap onto the market, and since then Unilever products have been hugely successful in the UK.

Research and development is a major part of the Unilever Company. They have two global research facilities at Port Sunlight and Colworth in the UK. The Port Sunlight site is the company's biggest research and development centre and is situated on the site that William Lever built the first factory over 100 years ago. Over 700 scientists and engineers work to create a huge variety of products for consumers all over the world. The work on these global brands results in over 100 patent filings each year.

The Unilever laboratory at Colworth has years of scientific experience in fields such as agribusiness, specialty chemicals, food technology, product safety and environmental impact.

Unilevers' other research and development centres are located in the Netherlands, Trumbull USA, Shanghai and Bangalore India.

Safety and environmental decisions are another big part of Unilevers operations. They have a Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre that approves products and assesses product safety. This assessing begins at the first product idea right through to the final assessment just before it is launched into the market, with monitoring of the product continuing after it has been launched.

The Unilever group has also set up the Unilever Food and Health Research Institute. Over 450 experts and scientists work to improve the science and technology from:

• Health and nutrition
• Flavour generation and delivery
• Food microbiology and preservation
• Food structuring and processing
• Consumer perception and behaviour

The Unilever Institute then publishes the results of their work in journals, so that methods can be discussed with other experts in the different fields all over the world.

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