WHAT IS THE meaning of mayonnaise? For Unilever, a consumer-goods giant whose products are all meant to stand for something, the purpose of its Hellmann’s brand is to reduce food waste by making leftovers tasty. For Terry Smith, a fund manager fed up with Unilever’s dipping share price, this is crazy. “The Hellmann’s brand has existed since 1913,” he wrote earlier this month. “So we would guess that by now consumers have figured out its purpose (spoiler alert—salads and sandwiches).”
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Mr Smith’s concern is the financial performance of Unilever (in the face of investor disquiet, the
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