News

Launches

This year is a very busy one for the whole team. We started the year with the launch of Pizza Sauce. This has been an innovation for Pakistan. Pizza is a popular food item in Pakistan, so it was necessary for us to launch this new product. Results are encouraging as far. We are also increasing our mayo portfolio in order to meet the needs of our customers with the addition of Cheese mayo and Garlic mayo.

Chefs Conference

Unilever Foodsolutions arranged it's first very Chef's Conference at Lahore Country Club from July 22nd to July 23rd, 2007. The main focus of the conference was to create awareness of UFS products among the premier chefs of the Pakistani hotel industry and get their feedback. Goerge Lohmann, UFS Corporate Executive Chef, Eastern Europe and AMET, discussed cost control in the kitchen and how the use of convenience products saves time, while maintaining consistency in taste. He also demonstrated the use of new variants of mayonnaise(Cheese and Garlic Mayo). All the chefs appreciated the quality and taste of the new products and gave some useful feedback. Towards the end of the first day, a very energetic and interesting cooking competition was arranged among the participants. Everyone was very enthusiatic and the premier chefs demonstrated the use of our products and prepared some mouth-watering dishes in alimited time of 20 minutes. On the second day, all the participants were taken to visit the Unilever Pakistan Foods Limited and Walls Ice cream factories. Visitors were all accolades about the state-of-the-art factories and the hygienic control sysytem. This conference definately aided in establishing a relationship between Unilever and its major customers and we expect it to help us in achieving our business goals. We look forward to making this an annual event.

HoReCa foodsolutions centre

For the first time in Unilever history around the world, Unilever Foodsolutions Pakistan has aligned with Makro to develop a separate HoReCa corner in order to become a more professional destination for this segment. This corner has been named the ‘foodsolutions centre’. The idea behind the centre was devised so as to provide a convenient solution for the customers coming to Makro. Originally the stock was being placed under different categories which meant that it took time for customers to find their desired products. We decided that a dedicated area catering only to bulk food items should be created where you can find all such products in one place! The agreement between the two organisations encompasses all Makro centres in Pakistan where this ‘foodsolutions centre’ will be placed, where 75 percent of the shelf space will be dedicated to Unilever products. The area has been branded displaying our star brands– Knorr, Best Foods and Rafhan.

Mayo, Mayo and more Mayo

This year saw the much awaited launch of three new variants of mayonnaise – Cheese Mayo, Garlic Mayo and Mayo Lite. The need for these variants was identified looking at the Pakistani market which was currently untapped. Both Cheese Mayo and Garlic Mayo directly address the cumbersome process of developing these variants from scratch. Thus we sought out an easy product that reduces their cost, storage problems and the difficulty of making the sauce. Mayo Lite caters to the growing trend of healthy eating where it contains lower calories than regular mayonnaise, while giving the same excellent taste and consistency. The launch was a 360-degree initiative where our customers were provided samples, squeezy bottles, dip bowls and dispensers. Activations were carried out using buntings, mobiles and standys to generate consumer awareness. Sales results are very encouraging thus far, especially in Islamabad and Lahore. We have over-run our predicted volumes by three times!