Unilever has announced plans for a $270 million innovation centre in New Haven, Connecticut, where packaging design will be integrated with formulation, fragrance creation, consumer insight and research and development functions.
The centre will support Unilever’s beauty, wellbeing and personal care brands and is expected to become fully operational by spring 2029. Around 300 employees will work at the facility, which includes $50 million in capital expenditure and represents the company’s largest US R&D capital investment in 40 years.
A packaging innovation studio will use real-time consumer feedback to support faster development of packaging prototypes for physical retail and online channels. Packaging designers will also work with perfumers and chemists from the earliest stages of product development through the centre’s Unilever Fragrance House.
The facility will bring together materials discovery, product testing, skin care and cleansing research, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and a human performance laboratory. Unilever said combining these functions under one roof is intended to shorten development cycles and support products designed in the US for international markets.
“This new centre is where we’ll innovate at the intersection of science, technology and culture,” said Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA and CEO of Personal Care North America. “As the US becomes a centre of gravity for Unilever, we’re harnessing the best of American innovation to match our growth ambition here in the US and around the world.”
Richard Slater, Unilever chief R&D officer, said: “The centre will bring these capabilities together to create products that are developed in the US and built to scale globally. The step change here is integration and speed: science, design and sensorials working as one, with AI accelerating every stage of the cycle.”