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Growing with Bangladesh - UBL’s journey

Unilever Bangladesh Limited (UBL) is the largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company with a heritage of 60 years, with more than 9 out of 10 households using one or more of its brands for their daily needs. With 22 brands including Rin, Wheel, Lux, Lifebuoy, Glow & Lovely, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, etc., the company is a part of the everyday life of millions of consumers across Bangladesh. UBL’s purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace with a vision to grow the business, while reducing environmental footprint and increasing positive social impact, is reflected in our company’s ethos, which is ‘What’s good for Bangladesh is good for Unilever’.

Roots and Resilience

UBL is a company that has its own history intrinsically related to the development and culture of Bangladesh. It has been a part of the Bangladeshi household since the 19th century as the first boxes of sunlight soaps arrived in the country from England in the early 1900s with the purpose of bringing hygiene and cleanliness for the consumers. In 1962, the foundation of the first soap manufacturing facility was laid in Kalurghat, Chattogram, which marked the beginning of UBL’s journey in the country. Although the journey started from the UK, since 1973, the people of Bangladesh own 39.25% of the shares of UBL through the involvement of the Government of Bangladesh in the management of the business.

From Local Shores to Expanding Reach and Production

Starting with a single distributor in Chattogram, Unilever gradually expanded its reach to all administrative districts of Bangladesh by the end of the 1970s. Building on the success of its soap business, the company introduced new product categories, such as hair care, home care, skin care, and water purification, to meet the evolving needs of Bangladeshi consumers. With the establishment of Unilever Bangladesh’s Personal Product (PP) factory, the majority of personal care products, including shampoo and toothpaste, were manufactured locally rather than imported. At present, more than 90% of our local demand is met through local production.

Today, UBL is proud to serve not just the accessible geography, but also the remotest areas through a network of approximately 1.3 million retail outlets across the country.

Making Sustainable Living Commonplace

Our commitment to social and environmental development has been an integral part of our journey since our inception. Our efforts and sustainability initiatives gained a structured outlook with the launch of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) in 2010. This milestone marked a significant step forward in aligning our business practices with the Sustainable Development Goals. Building upon this foundation, we have continued to refine and enhance our approach, and in 2020, we introduced the Compass strategy, which has been instrumental in further streamlining our efforts, enabling us to make a tangible and positive impact on society and the environment.

In 2023, we refined the Compass further and introduced our Growth Action Plan (GAP), focused on three priorities: delivering higher-quality growth, stepping up productivity and simplicity, and adopting a strong performance focus. We are at the early stages of this work and there is much to be done, but we are moving with speed and urgency to transform Unilever into a consistently higher performing business. By integrating sustainability into every aspect of our operations, we strive to create a brighter future for all, while ensuring responsible business practices that prioritise people and the planet.

Commitment to Sustainability

As a pioneer of sustainable manufacturing, UBL is constantly working to reduce our carbon footprint and aims to collect more plastic than we use by 2025. We are also proactively working in cities to better manage plastic waste. In line with this commitment, we have been collecting and processing more plastic waste from the environment than the amount of plastic used in our product packaging. Our sustainability initiatives have already benefited over 100 million Bangladeshis since 2020, making us a proud partner in progress for Bangladesh.

Our strategy and Growth Action Plan

Our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace.

We believe that the winning businesses of tomorrow will be those that anticipate and respond to the huge changes shaping people’s lives across the world.

We are more certain than ever that it is the right time to focus our sustainability efforts on the four key priorities where we are best placed to drive impact: climate, nature, plastics and livelihoods.

Where to play

We will demonstrate that our business model delivers consistent and competitive growth delivering financial results in the top third of our industry.

• We will build a consistently high growth portfolio
• We will win with our brands, powered by unmissable superiority
• We will accelerate growth in key markets and categories
• We will lead in key channels

How to win

In order to unlock our full potential and accelerate business performance, we have set out a Growth Action Plan. It outlines the steps we are taking to deliver faster growth, drive productivity and simplicity, and dial up our performance culture.

Download our strategy and Growth Action Plan PDF (PDF 106.8 KB)