The Anglo-Dutch company, whose brands include Dove soap, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Knorr soup, was updating investors on trading so far this year.

It said leading brands were continuing to gain momentum, particularly food products such as Magnum ice-cream.

The rosy picture came as a sharp contrast to the market's recent run of gloomy news, and sent Unilever shares up 14 pence, or 2.5%, to 582p in London.

Leading brands

Unilever's strategy in the past three years has been to focus on fewer, core items - what it calls "leading brands".

From these it will generate spin-offs - enhancing soap brands, for example, with shower gels, shampoos and deodorants.

The group also plans to launch a flavoured Hellmann's mayonnaise in the US.

These 400 products now account for 88% of sales, and continued to grow by 5% in the third quarter of 2002.

That fits with the group's "path to growth" strategy, which aims to grow the brands by 4.5%-5.0% a year.

On track

The group said: "We remain comfortable with delivery of our targets" adding that the growth had been fuelled by extra investments in advertising and marketing.

But these are paid for by the higher margins that the new products generate.

Unilever is the world's third largest food group and cheered investors in July by raising its full-year earnings forecasts.

Unilever added that it had continued to make savings this year, by restructuring its operations and integrating its acquisition of US rival Bestfoods.