History and development
Unilever's history in China can be traced back to 80 years ago, when Lever Brother established its first operation in Shanghai in 1923 and became the largest soap maker in the Far East. In 1986, Unilever re-established itself in Shanghai, committed to building and maintaining a successful business, and a multi-local multinational in China. Unilever has introduced over 20 brands to Chinese consumers, covering home and personal care, food and beverages and ice cream. From 1986 to 2001, the breadth of our involvement in China adds up to about US$1 billion in investment, the introduction of more than 100 types of advanced technologies, creation of 14,000 job opportunities and more than 4000 local employees.
Unilever's business in China mainly covers 3 areas:
- Home and personal care-Unilever Co. Ltd. Brands include: Zhonghua, Signal, Hazeline, Lux, Pond’s, Dove, Vaseline, Omo and Comfort;
- Foods-Unilever Foods China. A wholly owned company by Unilever, producing Knorr bouillon, soups, sauces, dressing and peanut butter, Lipton black tea, green tea, jasmine tea, and ready-to-drink tea beverages.
- Ice cream-Wall's China. A wholly owned company by Unilever, producing Magnum, Paddle pop, Cornetto, Solero and other ice cream.
After years of development, we have made some of the world's most familiar brands a daily part of the lives of Chinese consumers. The annual tax amount has reached RMB600 million.
Further demonstrating our long-term commitment to China, in Feb 2000, Unilever invested RMB166 million to set up Unilever Research China, the 6th global research center of Unilever. This center has access to the scientific knowledge developed globally by Unilever and acts as a bridge to Chinese academia by introducing more traditional natural ingredients into our products.
In 2002, following China's accession to WTO, Unilever established a global supply management office in Shanghai. This office will provide more opportunities for Chinese suppliers for raw materials to export to Unilever companies overseas.
In 2003, Unilever's manufacturing base for home and personal care products is set up in Hefei, making it one of the biggest manufacture sites for Unilever global. This site not only provides high quality products for Chinese consumers, but also has the great potential to serve as the manufacturing center for Unilever global business.
In 2004, Unilever made the decision to build its own office building in Shanghai as regional headquarter.
Unilever believes that successful localization starts with the localization of employees. An outstanding local team can better understand and meet the needs of Chinese consumers. In Unilever, 90% managers are recruited and trained locally.
Unilever seek to be a responsible employer, business partner and good corporate citizen, earning respect for our values wherever we operate.
In China, Unilever sponsored 9 hope schools and launched the "Unilever Hope Star" project in universities, helping 200 poor students for the 4-year colleague tuition. We also set up scholarship in Fudan University to reward students with excellent performance. Since 1996, we launched "Zhonghua" teeth protection campaign across the whole country. In 2000, we launched a tree-planting campaign in more than 10 provinces in China to increase people's awareness of environmental protection. In about 2 years, near 60,000 people participated in the campaign and planted 5,000,000 trees. All these activities established Unilever's image as a responsible social citizen in China and win the acknowledgement of the local society.
As a truly multi-local multinational, Unilever will continue to play our part as a modern citizen of China by fastening localization, and by training more local managers. We will utilize our local and global research expertise to develop more high quality products to meet the need of Chinese consumers, to improving the every day quality of life for the people we serve and contributing to the Chinese community we are in.
