History And Background Of The Unilever Company
Unilever began with British soap-maker company named Lever Brothers. Their revolutionary action in business was by introducing the Sunlight Soap in 1890s. That idea was from William Hesketh Lever, founder of Lever Brothers. This idea helped the Lever Brothers become the first company that help popularise cleanliness in Victorian England. Moreover, the product rapidly emulated globally after that it was a success in UK and made Lever Brothers obtained more business worldwide. One of the reasons of this success was the strategy from William that not only prioritize on selling the products but also focus on manufacturing them. On the other side, in 1872 Jurgens and Van den Bergh created a company that produces margarine. Since there were many competitors in the margarine industry in Dutch, in 1920s, Jurgen and Van de Berth decided to strengthen their company by joining another margarine manufacturer in Bohemia. In 1927, there were three companies including Jurgen and Van de Berth company which formed Margarine Unie located in Holland.
In 1930, the Lever Bros merged with the Margarine Unie and even though, an international merge was an unusual move at that time, both of the two companies have the same vision that by doing this merge with strong global networks would create new opportunities. Finally, the name of “Unilever” was created by the merge of the companies. Not too long after Unilever was formed, they got a big problem which was that their raw material companies were reduced from 30% to 40% in the first year. As that problem started to attack, Unilever had to react quickly by building up an efficient system of control. In September of 1930, Unilever established the ‘Special Committee’ that was designed to stabilize British and Dutch operate and concern as an internal cabinet for the organization.
Since William Lever’s death in 1925, it was Frances D’Arcy Cooper who replaced him to become the chairmen of Lever Brothers. Cooper made several benefits for Unilever, one of his revolutionary action was that he led the various companies that included Unilever into one Anglo-Dutch companies. According to The Netherlands official UK site, “Anglo-Dutch Companies is the British and the Dutch historically joined forces to form some of the strongest companies in the world, and until now their position is still strong”. In 1937, when the correlation between the profit-earning capabilities of the British and Dutch companies found itself overturned, it was Cooper that came to solve the problem by convincing the board of the necessity for restructuring.
In the 1930s, Unilever continued to grow their business when they promoted their products in America Latin. To keep it growing, Unilever adapted a new strategy in 1940s by widening their business areas and create new areas such as particular food and chemical manufactures. Furthermore, Unilever recognized that there were something more important than widening their areas, it was the relationship between marketing and research that they must focus on. Therefore, Unilever expanded their operation by making association by two important actuations in US, those are Thomas J. Lipton company, manufacture of tea, and the Pepsodent brand of toothpaste in 1944. In 1957 Unilever continued their actions by associating with U.K. frozen food maker birds eye, and in 1961 with U.S. Ice cream novelty maker Good Humor.
In the 1980s Unilever made a revolutionary restructuring by selling most of its subsidiary business to concentrate the company’s core business. Eventually, foods, toiletries, detergents and special chemicals were the Unilever’s core business. This restructuring also helped Unilever to make a collaboration with Chesebrought-Pond’s in U.S. in 1986. That collaboration made a big impact to Unilever, their profit margin increased. Furthermore, Unilever bought Chesebrought-Pond in 1987.
Nowadays, Unilever become the world’s most consumed product brand in home care, personal care and food. In 2002, Unilever had a worldwide revenue around €48,760 million. Unilever has two main parenting companies, they are Unilever NV in Rotterdam and Netherland and Unilever PLC in London, UK. However, Unilever still has two major competitors named Nestlé and Procter & Gamble. Unilever has several worldwide products in foods such as Lipton, Knorr, Blue Band, Ben and Jerry, Walls, and Brooke bond. In home care, they have Surf, Sun, Radiant, Domestos and Skip. In personal care, they have Ponds, Vaseline, Rexona, Lux, Dove, Lifebuoy, Pepsodent, Sunsilk and Axe/Lynx.
Social and Environmental issues
Besides Unilever’s success, there are also some social and environmental issues that affects Unilever. There are several damages created by Unilever during their processes in manufacturing, supplying, and labouring.
Palm oil issues that affected by Unilever
Unilever is the company with the world’s largest buyer of palm oil. They turn the palm oil material to their products like detergents, cosmetics, bio-fuel and soaps. Their actions by cutting down the palm oil of the most area in Kalimantan was slowly destroying habitat of Orang-utan, an endangered species which lived almost everywhere in the rainforest of Kalimantan. This action resulted in the extinction of the Orang-utan species in Kalimantan. An expected of two million acres of the rainforests in Kalimantan have been cut down annually. This action is also damaging Indonesia’s rainforest, eventually leading to a severe climate change. Unilever created their products to help people in doing their daily life, but in fact they are also destroying other endangered lives. In 2008, Unilever was criticised by Greenpeace UK because of these actions.
In November 2009, Unilever announced to cancelled and stop buying palm oil from Indonesian company, PT Smart for environmental reason. In April 2010, Unilever had secured GreenPalm certificates. GreenPalm endorsed By RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), Organization formed by several stakeholders in the palm oil industry, to protect the environmental impact of palm oil and endorse sustainable agriculture. These certificates have function to cover the supplies of its European, Australian and New Zealand businesses.