By Saabira Chaudhuri 

LONDON-- Unilever PLC, the home of mass-market brands like Dove soap and Hellmann's mayonnaise, also wants to be known for $85 pots of mustard, $45 tins of tea and $15 tubes of toothpaste.

From opening boutique-like stores in London and Paris to acquiring an artisanal ice-cream company, the world's second-largest consumer-goods company by sales is pursuing a carefully crafted effort to push more high-end products in Europe and North America. Unilever reasons that the mass markets in these regions remain constrained, and the outlook for emerging markets sluggish.

"It's the premium market segments that are still growing faster than the midprice ones in many parts of the world," said Chief Financial Officer Jean-Marc Huët at a conference in December.

Although the move is relatively small for the EUR48.44 billion ($53.23 billion) company, any boost would be welcome: Unilever's revenue slumped 2.7% in 2014 from a year earlier.

Since March, Unilever has acquired four premium skin-care brands--Murad, Dermalogica, Kate Somerville and REN--that sell at drugstores and specialty-retail locations like professional salons and spas. Last year, the consumer-goods giant created a prestige division, which sells high-end cosmetics and personal-care products.

On a warm recent afternoon, Unilever's Maille mustard store just down the street from the Ritz hotel in London's Mayfair district was buzzing.

At the "taste bar," shoppers could sample a mustard made with the French sweet wine Sauternes--and they could take home a roughly pint-size, lime-green sandstone pot of it for GBP55, or about $85. Other flavors included candied orange peel and ginger, lemon and harissa, and pistachio and orange. Unilever has Maille (pronounced MY-yuh) stores in Paris and New York as well.

Elsewhere, in London's trendy Shoreditch neighborhood, shoppers at the company's T2 store browsed more than 200 varieties of tea in brightly colored boxes, stopping by aroma tables for a sniff or tasting stations to sample a blend. Strawberries-and-cream tea cost GBP18.50 (about $29) for a 250-gram tin, while Pai Mu Tan tea would set sippers back GBP30.

In December, Unilever bought artisanal ice-cream maker Talenti, whose flavors include sea-salt caramel and Sicilian pistachio.

Unilever has been expanding its high-end portfolio at a time when bigger rival Procter & Gamble Co. is paring its footprint as it looks to focus on core brands. Last week, P&G agreed to sell much of its beauty business, including areas such as salon products and designer perfumes, to Coty Inc. in a $13 billion deal.

There is a gamble to pushing upmarket. While Unilever is adept at selling large volumes of midprice products to middle-class consumers, particularly in emerging markets, the jury is still out on whether it can conquer a more-premium customer in the developed world, said Jefferies analyst Martin Deboo said. "It's different channels to market, it's a different way of thinking," he said.

But Unilever is limiting its risks by making small, targeted acquisitions, said Berenberg analyst Fintan Ryan. "They're not moving into cosmetics or colors; they're focused on skin care and on the more medical elements of it rather than the beauty end, which is a more discretionary purchase," he said.

Unilever has already been through much of the restructuring that P&G is embarking on, in 2005 selling its fragrance business to Coty for $800 million, including the perfume licenses for Calvin Klein and Vera Wang. At the time, then-Chief Executive Patrick Cescau said the company wanted to focus on its core categories. Unilever sold Elizabeth Arden, a cosmetics and fragrances unit, in 2001.

Overall, the company has been shifting its portfolio toward personal-care brands, which tend to carry higher margins, and away from its slower-growth food business. Some investors are looking for more radical action, like a sale of Unilever's spreads business, which it said late last year it would split off into a stand-alone company but continue to fully own.

Under CEO Paul Polman, who took the reins in 2009, Unilever has steadily increased revenue, but margins in its home-care and refreshments units have been narrower than those of rivals. In response, Unilever has turned to adding more features to its core products and in some cases has pushed into more-upmarket segments, which typically carry fatter margins.

"Maxing the mix is more relevant today than ever before, specifically in a lower-growth environment," said Mr. Huët in December.

The company even has taken its older frozen-confection brands upscale with products like Ben & Jerry's Cores--pints with a center of fudge, caramel or raspberry jam surrounded by ice cream--and Breyers Gelato, which comes in flavors like strawberry truffle and tiramisu. Innovations, according to Unilever, bolster its gross margins 75% of the time.

The company's North America president, Kees Kruythoff, in December said the premium part of its refreshments arm is "growing significantly ahead of where the rest of the portfolio sits."

Unilever is also working to add some allure to its core Dove brand, recently launching a new oxygen-moisture hair-care range to add volume to flat hair, and deodorant that help the skin repair itself from shaving damage.

"Consumers, even if hard-pressed in developed markets, are still ready to pay for more real, differentiated innovation," said Mr. Huët.

Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com

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