UNILEVER FACES $2.3 BILLION IN COST INCREASES, SHIFTS STRATEGY Unilever, whose 400 consumer brands include Lifebuoy soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, faces a $2.3-billion increase in the cost of its raw materials during the first half of this year, CEO Alan Jope said in a statement last week. Its cost for crude oil...
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SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
AMAZON MAPS CAMPAIGN TO CONQUER BRICK-AND-MORTAR RETAIL On 18 January, Amazon unveiled the newest iteration of its Go stores: a “multimission” convenience store suitable for the suburbs, with upscale food, possibly with wines and craft beers, and lounges with workstations and USB ports. Customers will need an Amazon app on their phones to enter the...
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING STILL BIGGER
KKR BID TO BUY TELECOM ITALIA SPARKS BATTLE FOR CONTROL The board of Telecom Italia (TI), Italy’s largest telecommunications provider, met Sunday to mull a takeover bid from U.S. private equity firm KKR. KKR already owns 37.5 percent of TI’s “last mile” business that connects individual homes and businesses to the larger network; now KKR...
SPOTLIGHT: INFLATION SPREADING
INFLATION WALLOPS EUROZONE Costs for Europe’s manufacturers and service companies rose at their fastest pace on record, according to IHS Markit’s October purchasing managers index. The index fell from 56.2 in September to 54.3 in October, a sharper drop than analysts had foreseen and taking the measure to a six-month low. Numbers above 50 indicate...
A TRAVELING FACTORY
International consumer goods conglomerate Unilever has fitted up a shipping container as a “nanofactory” to make basic consumer items such as mayonnaise and skin creams. If it works, the company will make a fleet of the traveling factories that can be quickly rigged up to test new product ideas or shipped on trucks or boats...
SALES DOWN AND PRICES UP AT CONSUMER PRODUCTS COMPANIES
Sales were down 3 percent in this year’s second quarter at Kimberly-Clark, maker of such consumer staples as Huggies and Kleenex. Home-care products brought in 17 percent less revenue, year over year. Sales of personal care products rose 6 percent and commercial products 2 percent. Margins slid 40 percent, more than analysts were expecting. The...
FOOD COMPANIES RAISE RETAIL PRICES
Campbell Soup rode a surge in sales during the eat-at-home economic shutdown, but has seen sales slump 12 percent in this year’s first quarter, shrinking the company’s gross profit margin from 34.5 percent to 31.7 percent, as people returned to restaurants amid shortages of basic supplies. Now the company has announced it will raise prices...
NO JAB, NO JOB?
As we forecast in the beginning of May, more COVID restrictions would be lifted throughout the U.S., more employees would return to workplaces, and significant numbers of people would be vaccinated… that has happened in many states. Perfectly Legal Now comes word from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that it is not a violation...
PRICES FOR CONSUMER GOODS SET TO RISE
With prices for raw materials climbing, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and other makers of consumer staples have laid plans to pass those greater costs to consumers. We had predicted back in our 4 August 2020 issue that inflation – caused in part by supply-chain disruptions and then pushed up by higher demand as economies...
Closing the loop on reusable packaging
Loop is a start-up that attempts to blend consumer convenience with zero-waste packaging: the service will deliver goods to your door – laundry detergent, food, soda pop, about 300 items in all – in reusable containers, then pick up the empties, clean and refill them, and send them back to you. Customers pay a deposit...
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