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Unilever

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Unilever Ice Cream

Unilever ice cream is an Anglo-Dutch company that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, ice cream beverages, cleaning agents and also personal care products. Unilever employs more than 248,000 people and had a worldwide turnover of €48 660 million in 2001. Unilever has two parent companies: Unilever NV in the Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Unilever PLC in the London, United Kingdom. This arrangement is similar to that of Royal Dutch/Shell prior to their unified structure. Both Unilever companies have the same directors and are very effectively operate as a single business. The current non-executive Chairman of the Unilever N.V. and PLC is Antony Bergman’s while Patrick Cesar is Group Chief Executive. Unilever's major competitor includes Nestlé and Procter & Gamble.

History

Unilever was created in the year 1930 by the merger of British soap maker Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unite, the logical merger as palm oil was a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and can be imported more advantageously in larger quantities. In the 1920s, the business of Unilever grew and new ventures were launched in Latin America. By 1970, soap and edible fats contributed just 40% of profits, compared with an original 90%. In 1983 the company bought the brands Brooke Bond (maker of PG Tips tea), Faberge and Elizabeth Arden, but the latter was later sold (in 2000) to FFI Fragrances. Unilever acquired Cheese brought-Ponds, the maker of Vaseline, in 1986, which strengthened its position in the world skin care market. The company later absorbed the American business Best Foods, strengthening its presence in North America and extending its portfolio of foods brands. Today the company is fully multinational with operating companies and factories on every continent and research laboratories at Colewort and Port Sunlight in the United Kingdom; Vlaardingen in the Netherlands; Edgewater, New Jersey in the United States; Bangalore in India; and China.

Brands

After some recent pruning, Unilever now has a portfolio of about 500 brands, many of them local that can only be found in certain countries. The brands fall almost entirely in two categories as set out below.

Heart brand

A Menu from Unilever's Italian subsidiary Algida.Unilever operate a number of ice-cream companies referred to as the "Heart brand", since in general the only branding they have in common is a heart-shaped logo. They generally manufacture the same ice-cream with the same names, with rare occasions of regional availability, under different brands. Some of these ice-creams include Magnum and Solver.