Unilever is more than just popsicles and Ben & Jerry's -- it's a good buy

It's almost guaranteed that you have some Unilever (UN) products in your kitchen, pantry, or bathroom. This Anglo-Dutch packaged-food and consumer-product behemoth's brands include everything from popsicles and Ben & Jerry's ice cream to Dove and Suave soaps and shampoos to Hellman's mayonnaise.

Unilever is very fond of saying that 160 million times a day, someone, somewhere, buys one of its products. And more and more of these customers live in the fast-growing economies of the Far East. The company has been operating in the region for more than a hundred years, giving Unilever very wide coverage across Asia, with thousands of core distributors supplying its products to millions of retail outlets.