Unilever Archives & Records Management turns 40!

By Claire Tunstall
Global Head of Art, Archives and Records Management

Average read time: 11 minutes

This year marks a big 40-year milestone for our Unilever Archives and Records Management team – otherwise known as UARM.

It was in May 1984 that Unilever’s Special Committee recognised the importance of maintaining our company history and set about creating a formal archive. Our collections are varied and reflect the nature of Unilever’s business through time and range from a 13th Century deed to our recently published digital Annual Report and Accounts!

Over 40 years the team has grown from one lone Archivist, our collections have been built upon and we have even moved locations. 

The team have handled over 40,000 enquiries both from within Unilever and from members of the public. Some of our favourite enquiries are from pub quizzers and the do you remember-ers!

At our storage sites in Port Sunlight and Rotterdam we have 20km of storage and there are over 500 different archive collections that we look after. You can explore them here. That’s 7,042 new accessions of material ranging from one box to entire lorry loads!

In 2009 our collections were  Designated by the Arts Council and the work the team does is accredited by the UK National Archives.

Today the team are based in Port Sunlight and Rotterdam and are a mix of Archivists and Records Managers and specialist support staff. Combined we have over 90 years of accumulated knowledge – that enables us to serve Unilever and our consumers – the original AI is Archives Intelligence! 

But we are not standing still - we are collecting today for tomorrow and partner with Keepthinking and Preservica to ensure our systems are up to the challenge.

We collaborate with academics and heritage organisations, support our brands to unlock more from their core. Behind the scenes we collect, conserve, digitise and catalogue material to make it accessible. 

Here’s to the next 40 years!