According to report, Unilever is deepening its roots in the U.K. with an £80 million investment to build a cutting-edge fragrance research and development facility in Port Sunlight, England—the historic town founded by William Hesketh Lever, whose legacy laid the foundations for the company. This new initiative marks a significant expansion of Unilever’s in-house fragrance capabilities, positioning the company to lead innovation in scent design for everyday consumer products.
The state-of-the-art facility will be fully digitally enabled, incorporating robotics for blending fragrance oils, AI-driven development processes, and real-time data capture to enhance digital modeling. It will house a comprehensive fragrance innovation ecosystem, including a research and innovation lab, a compounding center for fragrance creation, and evaluation suites for product testing.
Designed to accelerate growth and operational efficiency, the fragrance hub will support the development of fragrances across Unilever’s diverse product portfolio, from shampoos and moisturizers to deodorants and laundry detergents. It will also serve as a global talent magnet, with plans to hire expert perfumers from top fragrance houses, as well as fragrance evaluators and ingredient technologists focused on long-term innovation.
Richard Slater, Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer, highlighted the strategic importance of the new facility: “This investment 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.”
The fragrance R&D center is part of a broader £300 million investment by Unilever in its U.K. infrastructure over the next two years, which includes enhancements to offices, R&D sites, and manufacturing facilities. Port Sunlight, already home to Unilever’s largest innovation site in the U.K., continues to be a hub of scientific and technological progress, also hosting an Advanced Manufacturing Center and the Materials Innovation Factory, developed in partnership with the University of Liverpool.
