Unilever
Canvas Category OEM : Food
Be part of the world’s most successful, purpose-led business. Work with brands that are well-loved around the world, that improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We promote innovation, big and small, to make our business win and grow; and we believe in business as a force for good. Unleash your curiosity, challenge ideas and disrupt processes; use your energy to make this happen. Our brilliant business leaders and colleagues provide mentorship and inspiration, so you can be at your best. Our portfolio ranges from nutritionally balanced foods to indulgent ice creams, affordable soaps, luxurious shampoos and everyday household care products. We produce world-leading brands including Lipton, Knorr, Dove, Axe, Hellmann’s and Omo, alongside trusted local names and innovative-forward thinking brands like Ben & Jerry’s, The Dollar Shave Club and Dermalogica. Every individual here can bring their purpose to life through their work. Join us and you’ll be surrounded by inspiring leaders and supportive peers. Among them, you’ll channel your purpose, bring fresh ideas to the table, and simply be you. As you work to make a real impact on the business and the world, we’ll work to help you become a better you.
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Unilever transforms operations with GenAI using the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform
A. O. Smith to Acquire Pureit, a Leading Water Purification Business in South Asia
Global water technology company A. O. Smith Corporation (NYSE: AOS) announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Pureit from Unilever. Pureit offers a broad range of residential water purification solutions and has annual sales of approximately USD $60 million, primarily in India. The purchase price will be approximately USD $120 million in cash, subject to customary adjustments. The Company expects to complete the acquisition of Pureit by the end of 2024 and does not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on earnings in the first year.
3D-Printed Molds Speed New Unilever Bottle Designs to Market
For Unilever, bottles that are stretch blow molded with a 3D printed tool are nearly indistinguishable from the final product produced through traditional metal tooling processes, and get product to market more quickly.
Stefano Cademartiri, CAD and prototyping owner at Unilever and Flavio Migliarelli, R&D design manager at packaging supplier Serioplast Global Services have worked hand in hand to test the viability of 3D-printed molds for low-volume stretch blow molding applications. This practice has accelerated prototyping and pilot testing, cutting lead time by six weeks and costs by as much as 90%.
Typically, Serioplast would either directly 3D print Unilever bottle mockups for prototypes, or blow mold them. But until recently, 3D-printed mockups didn’t represent the right feel or transparency and were not reliable enough to be sent to consumers. However, building production-quality samples through SBM requires expensive metal tooling, adding six to nine weeks of lead time to a typical pilot testing phase due to the complexity of the process and outsourcing the production of the mold.
These SBM molds are traditionally machined from metal by CNC, which requires specialized equipment, CAM software, and skilled labor. The production of metal tooling is generally outsourced to service providers offering four- to eight-week lead time that cost anywhere from $2,000 to over $100,000, depending on the complexity of the part and the number of parts per mold.
The Scoop on Keeping an Ice Cream Factory Cool
Borkowski maintains and updates equipment at the innovation center’s pilot plant at Colworth Science Park in Sharnbrook, England. The company’s food scientists and engineers use this small-scale factory to experiment with new ice cream formulations and novel production methods. Much of Borkowski’s work involves improving the environmental impact of ice cream production by cutting waste and reducing the amount of energy needed to keep products frozen.
In 2022, he was temporarily transferred to one of Unilever’s ice cream factories in Hellendoorn, Netherlands, to uncover inefficiencies in the production process. He built a system that collected and collated operational data from all the factory’s machines to identify the causes of stoppages and waste. It wasn’t easy. Some of the machines were older and no longer supported by their manufacturers. Also, they ran legacy code written in Dutch—a language Borkowski doesn’t speak.
While working in production can sometimes be stressful, “There’s a deep pride in knowing the machines that we’ve programmed make something that people buy and enjoy,” Borkowski says.
⛓️🧠 Multinationals turn to generative AI to manage supply chains
Navneet Kapoor, chief technology officer at Maersk, said “things have changed dramatically over the past year with the advent of generative AI”, which can be used to build chatbots and other software that generates responses to human prompts.
New supply chain laws in countries such as Germany, which require companies to monitor environmental and human rights issues in their supply chains, have driven interest and investment in the area.
This Harvard dropout and her brother launched a company to conserve liquids in factories
That’s because Lu, and her older brother David, 25, have since launched and are now growing their own company, H2Ok Innovations, which uses a combination of hardware and software to improve the efficiency of factories by reducing how much liquid they use.
Since officially launching their sibling enterprise in March 2021, H20k Innovations has raised $6.8 million from investors including Construct Capital, Flybridge Capital, Techstars, 1517 Fund and 2048 Ventures. The company is headquartered out of Greentown Labs in Boston, and is booking revenue. Annie and David were recognized as 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 and in March, H20k Innovations was recognized at Unilever’s annual supplier summit and granted the “Start-up of the Year Award.”
🦾 How Robots & Artificial Intelligence are Transforming Unilever's Material Innovation Factory
Each machine at the MIF is designed to crunch colossal amounts of data and maintain consistency across samples and testing. Take Ariana, for example. This robot prepares multiple consistent hair fiber samples in seconds. These perfectly prepped strands are then used for research and testing as part of scientists’ work to create haircare products for Unilever brands. Dove’s Intensive Repair line, now on sale in the UK and the U.S., was developed with Ariana’s assistance, resulting in Unilever’s patented Fibre Repair Actives technology that helps to reconstruct inner hair fibers, reducing breakage and repairing from within.
Artificial intelligence is one advance that’s helping Unilever make progress at pace, allowing scientists to explore vast quantities of data in record time and translate discoveries into new formulas. The vibrant yet fully vegan Hourglass Confession Red Zero lipstick is one such example. Red lipstick is usually formulated using carmine – a pigment requiring over 1,000 crushed beetles per product. But using AI, Unilever’s experts were able to analyze color combinations and possibilities that would have taken millions of physical experiments to replicate. The lipstick launched in 2021.
More than 200 patents were filed between 2020 and 2022 based on data generated at MIF, and Unilever has invested more than €100 million ($123.4 million) in the innovation hub in the past three years.
Evonik builds world's first industrial-scale production plant for rhamnolipids
Evonik is investing a three-digit million-euro sum in the construction of a new production plant for bio-based and fully biodegradable rhamnolipids. The decision to build the plant follows a breakthrough in Evonik’s research and development. Rhamnolipids are biosurfactants and serve as active ingredients in shower gels and detergents. Demand for environ-mentally friendly surfactants is growing rapidly worldwide.
The investment at the Slovenská Ľupča site in Slovakia strengthens Evonik’s partnership with the consumer goods group Unilever, which began in 2019. At the same time the investment allows Evonik to further expand its own market position in the growth market for biosurfactants. The new plant is scheduled to come on stream in two years.
Impinj Raises $22M to Accelerate RFID Product Development
Impinj, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company developing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions for supply chain and logistics automation, announced that Mobius Venture Capital, Unilever Technology Ventures and the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund have joined the company’s previous investors, ARCH Venture Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Polaris Venture Partners, to provide $22 million in third-round funding. Impinj also announced that Aaron Cheatham, a Principal at Mobius Venture Capital which led the financing round, has joined Impinj’s board of directors.
Impinj will use the proceeds of this financing to move into volume production of its RFID products and to expand operations both at its Seattle headquarters and at its Orange County, California facility opened this January.