"Low-carb fad slims Unilever figures
By Rosie Murray-West (Filed: 03/05/2003)


Unilever shareholders yesterday became the latest to lose weight on the controversial Atkins Diet, but unfortunately the pounds dropped from their investment, rather than their waistlines.

The multinational company yesterday blamed the latest diet fad, which involves drastically limiting your carbohydrate intake, for disappointing first-quarter figures. The company also cited the late timing of Easter and a "spike in retailer de-stocking" for missing its self-imposed earnings guidelines.

Unilever owns Slimfast, the meal-replacement diet brand, which includes milkshakes, pasta, soups and snack bars. Unilever chairman Niall Fitzgerald, a fitness fanatic and marathon runner, is known to use Slimfast products himself.

Its meal replacements products don't fit in with the Atkins Diet, and a spokesman admitted yesterday that the company had "taken its eye off the market" while producing new Slimfast products. "Meanwhile the low-carb fad gained momentum," the spokesman said.

The Atkins Diet has been popularised by celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. Its inventor, Dr Robert Atkins died from a blood clot in the brain last month at the age of 73.

A Unilever spokesman wouldn't comment on whether the company had Atkins-style products in development. Slimfast sales declined in the quarter, and the spokesman said that the company would not meet its earlier growth targets for the product this year. "



Looks like reporters still cannot stop calling Atkins a 'fad' diet.

But SlimFast ISN'T a fad??

Time to milk-shake things up at Unilever

• Low-carb fad slims Unilever figures

Edited by Kate Rankine (Filed: 03/05/2003)


link to article

It's been three years now since Unilever chairman Niall Fitzgerald toddled off along the Path to Growth, and like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, he's made some good friends along the way.

Thanks to his strategy of focusing on key brands and the purchase of American rival Bestfoods, growth has increased and the company has ended up looking slimmer and trimmer.

With the Path plan running out next year, the Emerald City is now in sight. Mr Fitzgerald is no farm-girl from Kansas, though, and he can't just click his ruby slippers together and go home. The shareholders are waiting for the sequel, and there's a danger that it might look less like Path to Growth II and more like the Road to Nowhere.

First-quarter figures from the appetisers-to-anti-perspirants group yesterday were harder to swallow than a pack of Unilever's Slimfast pasta. Even the leading brands, which are the backbone of the Path strategy, grew just 3pc, while overall sales were down 4pc.

It would take a veritable Wizard to present that in a good light, and the company didn't produce one. Indeed, Mr Fitzgerald wasn't talking yesterday - apparently he never does for first-quarter figures - leaving his spinmeisters to come up with a cornucopia of excuses, bewildering everyone about what exactly caused the "slower-than-expected sales".

First up was Iraq and then secondly Sars, this year's top two excuses. Both of these stop us going out and eating ice-cream, presumably because it's difficult to lick a Magnum when you're wearing a mask. Then there is retailer destocking, a process that has been going on for years as companies seek to decrease the amount of inventory they hold at any one time. The company says it has been worse than expected this year, but given that this is a continual issue for Unilever, it might have been better anticipated.

Oh yes, and there's the late Easter and the fact that there is one fewer day's trading this quarter than the same period last year. The latter point is reasonable, but are we really to believe that customers consume markedly more olive oil and Flora at Easter than over any other weekend? It isn't as if the company makes chocolate eggs.

Finally, and perhaps most bizarrely, there's the Atkins Diet, which has stopped us all stocking up on Slimfast shakes. The company doesn't have any low-carbohydrate products in its range, and the current fad appears to have caught it unawares. Perhaps Mr Fitzgerald's innovation team had better get cracking on those bacon milkshakes for Dorothy and her friends.