Unilever has revealed an underwhelming full-year update as its CEO revealed the company’s “competitiveness remains disappointing” and its overall performance still “needs to improve.”
The FMCG giant made an underlying operating profit of £8.4bn (€9.9bn) for the full year of 2023, representing a modest rise of 2.6% in comparison to 2022.
Sales for the full year also edged up 7%, however, were slightly dampened in its fourth quarter, falling to 4.7%, while turnover also fell to £50bn (€59.6bn) – a drop of 0.8% from last year.
Unilever’s ice cream segment, which includes Ben & Jerry’s, Wall’s and Magnum, experienced a “disappointing year”, with declining market share and profitability. Sales also fell 0.4% in the fourth quarter, which the FMCG giant blamed on consumers seeking more “value propositions”.
However, there were some brighter spots with Knorr and Hellmann’s helping to drive growth in Unilever’s nutrition category, which returned to positive volume growth and accounted for 60% of the £11.2bn (€13.2bn) turnover in the category.
Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning
Unilever chief executive Hein Schumacher said: “Today’s results show an improving financial performance, with the return to volume growth and margins rebuilding. However, our competitiveness remains disappointing and overall performance needs to improve.”
“We are working to address this by improving our execution to unlock Unilever’s full potential. In October, we set out a Growth Action Plan focused on three priorities: delivering higher-quality growth, stepping up productivity and simplicity, and adopting a strong performance focus.”
Schumacher, who stepped into the role last July, also referenced the ‘action plan‘ Unilever launched late last year.
“The new leadership team has embedded the action plan at pace. We have increased investment behind our 30 ‘power brands’, accelerated portfolio transformation, and are driving a sharper performance focus with clear and stretching targets across the whole organisation.”
“We are at the early stages of this work and there is much to do but we are moving with speed and urgency to transform Unilever into a consistently higher performing business.”
