UPDATE 1-Unilever key brands to boost growth

* Unilever looks to key brands for growth

* Plans for protracted downturn

* Looks for profitable sales volume growth (Adds further company comment and background)

CHICAGO, March 16 - Consumer goods group Unilever is looking to its key brands such as Hellmann's, Dove and Bertolli to drive growth as it expects no early end to the current downturn.

Anglo-Dutch Unilever, the world's third-biggest food and consumer goods group, expects its top 25 brands, which account for 75 percent of its revenues, to push the group's performance despite recession in many markets.

"We're going to plan for a more protracted downturn and hope for a more rapid turnaround," Michael Polk, the head of Unilever's Americas region, told the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago on Monday.

Polk said its Hellmann's mayonnaise, Dove soap and Bertolli frozen meals in the United States have already seen strong growth despite sizeable commodity-related price increases or being at a higher price point compared to rival products.

Hellmann's gained U.S. market share due to its taste, Dove by offering a moisturising cream in a soap bar and Bertolli frozen dinners for two as consumers traded down from restaurant food to eating at home, Polk said.

"When you've got a crystal clear proposition like Dove or like Hellmann's, your brands have the strength to handle the pricing environment that they came out of in 2008," he said.

Unilever's formula for growth in 2009 was to aim for profitable sales volume growth, protect its profit margins and maintain cash flows, he added.

"Our ambition is to win, not to compete," he said.

In early February, the group surprised investors by scrapping all its financial targets, blaming global economic uncertainty and saying it could not give a specific 2009 outlook in current conditions.

Its new chief executive, Paul Polman, said giving specific guidance was not helpful, but this wrong-footed analysts who had expected more from Polman, who took over the top job at Unilever in January after working for bigger rivals Procter&Gamble Co and Nestle AG.

That came after Unilever reported that fourth-quarter 2008 sales volumes fell 1.6 percent as price increases peaked at over 9 percent, with sale volumes in Western Europe and the US sharply down as their economies slowed markedly.

The price rises followed sharp increases in commodity prices such as vegetable oils, which have since fallen, but some others, such as tea, tomatoes and beef extract, have stayed high, and so Polk says the major benefit from falling commodity prices will only come in the second half of 2009 for Unilever. (For summit blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/summits/)