According to the latest report of CCTV News
Unilever announced
It will lay off 7,500 jobs worldwide
Approximately 5.9% of its global workforce
In addition, Unilever also announced:
The ice cream business will be divested
This business is in the Chinese market
There are consumers who are very familiar with it
and ice cream brands such as Luxue, Menglong, and Kawaiiduo
Consumer goods giant announces layoffs
and will divest the ice cream business
According to a number of media reports on the 19th, Unilever, a world-renowned consumer goods giant headquartered in London, announced that it would lay off 7,500 people worldwide, accounting for about 5.9% of its total global workforce. Unilever currently employs around 128,000 people, and the planned layoffs are mainly for office-related positions. The layoffs are due to Unilever's divestment of its ice cream business, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025 and to reduce costs in other areas.
Unilever said that after the spin-off of the ice cream business, it will focus on four major businesses: beauty and health, personal care, home care and nutrition.
Unilever said that in the next three years, it is expected to save about 800 million euros (about 6.25 billion yuan), which is enough to offset the expected operating gain due to the divestiture of the ice cream business. The proposed changes are expected to affect around 7,500 jobs worldwide, and the total cost of restructuring over the next three years is now expected to be around 1.2% of the Group's turnover, up from the 1% previously announced.
Unilever's Dream Dragon Ice Cream
It has been exposed to the "double standard" of materials
At present, the price of ice cream in the market is not low, and an ice cream can easily cost more than ten yuan or even dozens of yuan, and in 2021, Unilever's Menglong ice cream has been exposed to the "double standard" of Chinese and foreign materials.
At that time, the media reported that the main raw material of Menglong's ice cream products sold in the European market was milk, while the main raw materials of domestic products were water and a small amount of milk powder.
Experts explain that there is a huge cost difference between the two: "If the protein content of the reconstituted milk is the same as that of concentrated milk, the cost of reconstituted milk is about 8,000 to 10,000 yuan per ton, and the price of concentrated milk is about 13,000 to 14,000 yuan per ton, so the difference between the two is about 3,000 to 4,000 yuan per ton." ”
Unilever:
Ice cream's market share
and profitability are declining
According to 2020 data from market research firm Euromonitor, Unilever sells ice cream in more than 60 countries, accounting for almost one-fifth of global ice cream sales, a larger share than the next four largest sellers combined.
However, in the 2023 financial report, Unilever's ice cream business saw the most severe decline in sales, with Unilever's ice cream business pricing increasing by 8.8% but sales down 6%, the lowest sales growth rate among Unilever's five business groups.
Unilever said in its earnings report that ice cream's market share and profitability are declining in 2023 due to the impact of high price elasticity throughout the year, the impact of consumers buying cheaper value products, and less favorable summer weather conditions in places such as Europe compared to the previous year, resulting in poor performance of ice cream throughout the year.
The frequent divestitures are seen as a "throw-off" by Unilever, perhaps because the company's performance growth has been sluggish in recent years. Some netizens wondered why the ice cream, which is not cheap, has become a "burden" for enterprises? In this regard, industry insiders have made an analysis.
Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, said that for Unilever now, ice cream has lagged behind, so it will choose to focus on other sectors with higher gross profit and high growth.
"International food giants such as Unilever, Nestle, and Danone are basically focusing on these development directions, the first is high-tech, the second is the industry threshold, the third is high gross profit, and the fourth is high growth. In addition to these four sectors, some other traditional businesses will basically be slowly divested. ”
(Source: Ping An Ding)