The FMCG giant has confirmed a GBP 80 million (about EUR 95 million) investment in a new state-of-the-art fragrance facility in the United Kingdom.
The new unit will include 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. Unilever said 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.
Unilever plans to build these new fragrance capabilities on the doorstep of its longstanding R&D facilities and factories in Port Sunlight, near Liverpool.
The building should be complete in 2027, although many of its functions will start earlier than that, The Times reported.
The group said it aims to “bring fragrance innovation” to its brands, with “greater speed and efficiency.”
“We’re one of the world’s largest buyers and users of fragrance, which are absolutely critical to the product performance of so many of our brands and categories and the consumer perception,” Richard Slater, chief R&D officer at Unilever, told The Times.
This investment is part of a wider GBP 300 million spending package 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.
Unilever had announced its intention to scale up its in-house fragrance design and creation capabilities in November last year, in the wake of the appointment of Mathieu Lenoir as Director for Fragrance at the group’s Global Creative Centre.
Beyond the UK, Unilever recently announced it will invest USD 1.5 billion to expand its beauty and personal care operations in Mexico.
