Unilever Launches €1B Productivity Plan

Unilever is going all-in on home and personal care, planning to shed its Food business and fund its transformation with a hard €1 billion in savings by 2029. The new strategy, Desire at Scale, slashes central overhead, hands more power to regional bosses, and bets that tech-driven R&D—especially in India—can deliver faster, better products. With competitors like P&G tapping $4 billion in debt for instant firepower, Unilever is gambling on self-funding through cost cuts and operational discipline. If they hit their targets, margins could lift, but the risk is execution: can savings materialize fast enough to fuel growth, or will inflation and reinvestment siphon off the gains?

But here’s the catch—Unilever’s transition won’t happen in a vacuum. The company has to juggle regional realities, like the ongoing reliance on Food sales in Nigeria, where personal care volumes are in retreat even as overall profits rise. Meanwhile, the promise of AI-accelerated innovation in India sounds impressive, but there’s a lag between installing digital labs and seeing new products fly off shelves. The next few years are a test of whether decentralizing power and streamlining can really beat rivals who write big checks or simplify faster.

Featuring insights from Unilever CEO Fernando Fernández, Chief R&D Officer Richard Slater, and market analysis from Reuters and Guinness Global Investors.

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