Disclaimer: This section is based on my personal interpretation and learnings from my six-month experience at Unilever. It contains only publicly available information or knowledge that can be found online, and does not disclose any confidential, proprietary, or privileged information belonging to Unilever.
Context
I worked as a Category Management Intern in Unilever’s Home Care division in Belgium from July 2024 to December 2024, supporting brands such as Sun, Robijn, Coral, Biotex, Cif, and Glorix. My role focused on portfolio management, pricing and promotions, sales forecasting, and market analysis.
Industry Vocabulary & Key Concepts Learned
During my internship, I developed fluency in the language of FMCG and category management. Some key concepts include:
Private Label vs A-Brand: difference between retailer-owned brands and established manufacturers.
RSP vs ASP: gap between the recommended sales price and the actual retailer sales price.
Parallel Trade: products imported indirectly into a market.
Share on Shelf (SoS): shelf space allocated to a brand vs its market share.
Depth of Deal: measure of promotional aggressiveness (e.g., 1+1, 2+1 offers).
Sell-in vs Sell-out: distinction between sales to retailers and sales to end-consumers.
Fair Share on Shelf: checking if shelf presence is proportional to market share.
I also familiarized myself with finance terms used in FMCG: BMI (Brand Marketing Investment), SCC (Supply Chain Costs), P&L (Profit & Loss), IBP (Internal Business Plan), UOP/UOM (Underlying Operating Profit), USG (Underlying Sales Growth).
Tools & Analytical Methods
I gained hands-on experience with data and analytical tools commonly used in FMCG:
Nielsen: market performance data, tracked in 4-week periods (13 periods per year), used for MAT (moving annual total) and YTD (year-to-date) comparisons.
Excel skills: pivot tables, Power Query for data cleaning, INDEX & MATCH, XLOOKUP, conditional formatting, regression analysis, and Pareto analysis (for assortments).
Data Visualization: building Power BI dashboards and using add-ons like Think-Cell for presentations.
Me (Lucas) in the offices of Unilever Belgium
Retail Landscape in Belgium
I deepened my understanding of Belgium’s retail ecosystem:
Hard Discounters: Aldi, Lidl.
Colruyt: aggressively matches competitors’ promotions, reinforcing its “lowest price” strategy.
Carrefour & Delhaize: full-service supermarkets, with Delhaize positioned at the premium end.
Kruidvat: drugstore model.
Albert Heijn: Dutch retailer expanding in Belgium.
I was featured on the LinkedIn account of Unilever with more than 20M followers to explain my role.
You can see the post here
Bonus: Social Media
Responsibilities & Tasks
Regular monitoring of pricing and promotions across retailers.
Updating and analyzing assortment performance (innovations, delistings, legacy products).
Conducting Pareto analyses of assortments to identify value concentration.
Supporting forecasting and performance reviews with market data (Nielsen).
Contributing to planogram analysis (shelf space allocation vs fair share).
Planning promotion calendar for 2025 and negotiating with retailers
Key Learnings
Developed strong skills in Excel, data analysis, and market interpretation.
Learned how price promotions impact P&L, and why deep discounts often erode base sales.
Understood the balance between brand positioning, retailer dynamics, and consumer behavior.
Gained exposure to the retail logic of different players and how multinationals adapt strategies market by market.
Strengthened abilities in stakeholder communication and cross-functional collaboration.
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© 2025 Lucas Sala. All rights reserved.
This website has been created to present and document my corporate experiences. This section is based on my personal interpretation and learnings from my six-month experience at Unilever. It contains only publicly available information or knowledge that can be found online, and does not disclose any confidential, proprietary, or privileged information belonging to Unilever.