Unilever contributes more than €150m to fight pandemic

Unilever, the household goods, personal care and foods conglomerate, has pledged more than €100m in response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

The Anglo-Dutch company’s actions are designed to help protect the lives and livelihoods of its multiple stakeholders – including its consumers and communities, its customers and suppliers, and its workforce.

To help consumers and communities Unilever will contribute €100m to help the fight against the pandemic through donations of soap, sanitiser, bleach and food. This includes:

• A product donation of soaps and sanitiser of at least €50m to the COVID Action Platform of the World Economic Forum, which is supporting global health organisations and agencies with their response to the emergency. In addition to the supply of soap, Unilever will adapt its current manufacturing lines to produce sanitiser for use in hospitals, schools and other institutional settings.
• Product donations, partnerships and handwashing education programmes, delivered through national health authorities and non-governmental organisations to support local communities most at need.

Unilever will also offer €500m of cash flow relief to support livelihoods across its extended value chain, through:

• Early payment for its most vulnerable small- and medium-sized suppliers to help them with financial liquidity.
• Extending credit to selected small-scale retail customers whose business relies on Unilever, to help them manage and protect jobs.

And the business said it will protect its workforce from sudden drops in pay, as a result of market disruption or being unable to perform their role, for up to three months.

“We will cover our employees, contractors and others who we manage or who work on our sites, on a full or part-time basis. This will apply to workers not already covered by government plans or by their direct employer.”

Chief executive Alan Jope said: “We are deeply saddened by the terrible impact that coronavirus is wreaking on lives and livelihoods everywhere.

“The world is facing its greatest trial in decades. We have seen the most incredible response from the Unilever team so far, especially those on the front line of our operations in factories, distribution centres and stores.

“We hope that our donation of €100m of soap, sanitiser, bleach and food will make a significant contribution towards protecting peoples’ lives, and that by helping to safeguard our workers’ incomes and jobs we are giving some peace of mind during these uncertain times.

“Our strong cash flow and balance sheet mean that we can, and should, give this additional support.”

Unilever has several operations in the North West, including a home and personal care manufacturing site at Port Sunlight, Wirral, a detergents plant in Warrington and a tea making site at Trafford Park in Greater Manchester.

The company is cutting around 100 jobs in Port Sunlight and earlier this month it announced the closure of the Warrington site with 123 job losses, while the Trafford Park site is part of an ongoing review process