Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever’s turnover soars to £53bn led ‘disciplined pricing action’ to meet impact of inflation

Unilever price hikes helped the firm deliver turnover of more than £50bn last year, as the group had a nine per cent increase underlying sales growth for 2022.

The British firm – which owns brands such as Ben & Jerry’s, Dove, Hellman’s and Magnum  – said that turnover also increased 14.5 per cent to €60.1bn (£53.2bn) for 2022.

In a statement, chief executive of the group Alan Jope, said the Unilever  delivered a year of “strong topline growth” in challenging macroeconomic conditions driven by “disciplined pricing action in response to cost inflation”.

The London-based company also said its underlying sales growth grew by 9.2 per cent in quarter four, beating a company provided analyst expectation of 8.2 per cent. 

Looking ahead the group said it expects to see inflation to continue in 2023, predicting net material inflation of €1.5bn (£1.3bn). 

Jope said: “In 2022, we carefully balanced price growth, volume and competitiveness to navigate through the high cost inflation environment. 

“We will again deliver strong underlying sales growth in 2023, with improving volume performance and competitiveness as the year progresses. We will continue to price and drive our cost savings programmes, in order to allow us to invest behind our brands and deliver improved margin.”

It comes after what has been a challenging year  for the brand after the group consumer health care business GSK rejected three unsolicited, conditional and non-binding proposals from Unilever for the acquisition of GSK Consumer Healthcare business in a deal worth nearly £50bn.