Covid-19 | Unilever pledges early payment support for supply chain

FMCG giant Unilever has announced a wide-ranging set of measures to support global and national efforts to tackle the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

These measures are are designed to help protect the livelihoods of its stakeholders including its suppliers.

Unilever will contribute €100m to help the fight against the pandemic, including a product donation of soaps and sanitiser of at least €50m to the COVID Action Platform of the World Economic Forum.

It will also offer €500m of cash flow relief to support livelihoods across its extended value chain, through early payment for vulnerable small and medium sized suppliers, to help with financial liquidity; this could p[ositively impact the packaging supply chain.

Additionally, the company will be extending credit to selected small-scale retail customers whose business relies on Unilever, to help them manage and protect jobs.

Alan Jope, CEO Unilever said: “We hope that our donation of €100m of soap, sanitiser, bleach and food will make a significant contribution towards protecting people’s lives, and that by helping to safeguard our workers’ incomes and jobs, we are giving some peace of mind during these uncertain times. Our strong cash flow and balance sheet mean that we can, and should, give this additional support.”