It will take Unilever a long time to shed its woke nonsense

It is quite a change from the days when his predecessor Jope proudly claimed he would dispose of any brands that could not “stand for something more important than just making your hair shiny, your skin soft, your clothes whiter, or your food tastier”.

Shareholders won’t complain about that. No one would have minded if Unilever had combined the sermonising with decent returns for shareholders. 

After all, Apple’s virtue-signalling can be a little nauseating, but you can’t argue with the profits it churns out. That was not what was happening at the UK’s largest consumer goods company, however. 

The company might have had a social purpose but there was not much sign of a financial one. Over the last five years, the share price has drifted aimlessly, falling 5.5pc over that time period. Rivals were doing far better, with Nestlé up 16pc over those five years, and Procter & Gamble up by 66pc. 

It was a dismal performance, and one that if it was allowed to continue was almost certainly going to end with the company being taken over and sold off in pieces by a corporate raider or a private equity firm.

Yet Schumacher is going to find it a lot harder to ditch the social purpose baggage than he thinks. There are two big problems. First, after a decade it will have become deeply embedded in the organisation. 

For years now, managers have likely been hiring staff based as much on their political views as their ability to do the job, and promotions have been based as much on parroting the right slogans as they are improving production, distribution or marketing. It is very hard to root that out. 

Just look at the ferocity of the opposition Elon Musk faced when he tried to change the culture of Twitter; at how staff at NatWest were determined to debank Nigel Farage over his political views regardless of what the senior managers thought; or at how relatively junior editors at Penguin Random House rewrote Roald Dahl despite the damage they inflicted on his prose.