Unilever has today announced an £80 million investment to build in-house fragrance capabilities in the UK, including plans to build a new state-of-the-art fragrance facility in Port Sunlight, develop leading-edge digital capabilities and to recruit and partner for the very best fragrance talent and expertise.
Fragrance plays a critical role in elevating the consumer experience and performance of everyday products, from shampoos and conditioners to skin moisturisers, body washes and deodorants, and in laundry and home cleaning.
The new facility will be a significant step in Unilever’s global investment to build world-class in-house fragrance capabilities, accelerating growth and productivity through fragrance design and ingredient buying, whilst continuing to work closely with key global fragrance house partners.
The facility includes a fragrance research and innovation lab, a compounding facility where new fragrances are blended and developed, and evaluation suites where products are tested to assess performance and preference. The site will be digitally enabled end-to-end, including robotics to blend fragrance oils and real time data capture, enabling digital modelling, analytics and the use of AI to drive fragrance development.
The proposal is to build on the doorstep of Unilever’s world-class R&D facilities and factories in Port Sunlight, subject to planning permission, and for the new facility to integrate fragrance capabilities with consumer insights and product development processes. This will enable Unilever to bring fragrance innovation to their Home Care, Personal Care, and Beauty & Wellbeing brands, including Persil, Dove, Rexona (Sure in the UK) and TRESemmé, with greater speed and efficiency.
Unilever is also investing in talent recruitment, hiring industry-leading perfumers with cross-category expertise from fragrance houses around the world. The specialist team will also include fragrance evaluators, who are trained to smell and assess fragrances, and ingredient technologists who will work on Unilever’s long-term technology programme to deliver pioneering fragrance innovations.
Richard Slater, chief R&D Officer at Unilever, said: “We are delighted to announce this significant investment to build a world-class fragrance house within Unilever. The investment includes a new state-of-the-art facility in Port Sunlight which further expands our leading-edge R&D capabilities in the UK and drives our ambitious plans to build expertise, partnerships and innovation at scale.
Our new fragrance facility and expert perfumers will enable us to bring fragrance insight and innovation to our brands at speed and, working with our partners, to reinvent how fragrances are created for consumer products, leveraging cutting-edge science along with AI and robotics.”
Minister for Investment Baroness Poppy Gustafsson CBE said: “The UK is a top investment destination and Unilever’s major plan is the latest vote of confidence in our economy, which will boost the UK’s thriving R&D sector, supporting our Plan for Change.
“With digital and technologies being identified as a key growth sector in our upcoming Industrial Strategy, we’re not only helping to attract and secure investment, but delivering long-term growth that supports skilled jobs and raises living standards across the UK.”
This is the latest in a wider £300m investment by Unilever in the UK across offices, R&D sites and factories in the next two years. Port Sunlight in the North West is Unilever’s largest innovation site in the UK, where alongside two factories and two R&D labs, Unilever has also opened an Advanced Manufacturing Centre (AMC) and the Materials Innovation Factory (MIF), which was built in collaboration with the University of Liverpool.
