28 October 2026
If you are covering the latest financial results from Unilever, please find below a comment from Chris Beckett, consumer staples analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
"Despite the market wanting more from Unilever, its latest earnings were a decent set of results. This is a business going through a lot of corporate activity as it looks to right size itself, so anytime it is beating the wider market in terms of sales growth is positive, even if slightly lacking on more bullish investor expectations.
"Organic sales grew at 5.2%, comfortably ahead of the wider market. Home and personal care products continue to shine for Unilever, justifying its decision to merge the food division into McCormick as it continues to inch along. This imbalance is reflected across the results, however, and it is this detail that is making investors a little nervous about the strength of Unilever's turnaround.
"Emerging markets continues to bail out the sales growth in developed markets, where Unilever is going backwards in Europe and the US. The business has an investor day coming up and there will be a need to address how it plans to fix this imbalance in sales and get all regions and divisions firing on all cylinders.
"With the food division being spun out, Unilever should have a good story to tell investors, with a much more focused conglomerate that is innovating in areas of real growth. That said, clearly there are going to be some hurdles along the way, and until the overhang of the McCormick deal is resolved, things could be a little bumpy in the quarters ahead."
