Unilever, the company that makes Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soaps and Vaseline, said Tuesday that it is cutting 7,500 jobs and spinning off its ice cream business to reduce costs and boost profits.
Unilever said it will invest in technology to find efficiencies and avoid duplication that it anticipates will help it save 800 million euros over the next three years. The company also laid off 1,500 staffers in early 2022. It saw sales volume drop 3.6% in 2022 after jacking up prices 13.3% on average across its brands that year. In response, it raised prices just 2.8% last year, and sales rose 1.8%.
He noted that the ice cream spinoff had not been widely anticipated by the market even if"political pronouncements from Ben & Jerry’s had provoked a meltdown among some investors."