Unilever to invest £80 million in new UK fragrance facility

Unilever is investing £80 million to expand its in-house fragrance capabilities in the UK, including the construction of a new "state-of-the-art" fragrance facility in Port Sunlight - home to three of the company’s global R&D hubs.

It aims to accelerate growth and boost productivity through advanced fragrance design and strategic ingredient sourcing, while continuing close collaboration with key global fragrance partners.

As part of this, the facility will feature a fragrance research and innovation lab, a compounding centre for blending and developing new scents, and evaluation suites where products are tested for performance and preference.

Designed as a end-to-end digitally enabled site, it will also incorporate robotics to blend fragrance oils and real time data capture, supporting digital modelling, analytics, and the use of AI to drive fragrance development.

The proposed facility, subject to planning approval, will be built adjacent to Unilever’s R&D factories in Port Sunlight.

It is expected to bring fragrance innovation to Unilever's Home Care, Personal Care, and Beauty & Wellbeing brands, including Persil, Dove, Rexona (Sure in the UK) and TRESemmé, with greater speed and efficiency.

Unilever's new plans are complemented by a strategic investment in talent acquisition, including the recruitment of perfumers with cross-category expertise from fragrance houses worldwide.

The team will also include fragrance evaluators, who are trained to smell and assess fragrances, and ingredient technologists who will work on the company's technology programme to deliver fragrance innovation.

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 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."

The initiative forms part of Unilever's wider £300 million investment in the UK over the next two years, spanning offices, R&D centres, and manufacturing facilities.