Unilever, the global FMCG giant, is investing GBP 80-mn (about Euro 95-mn) in a new state-of-the-art fragrance facility in the UK.
The in-house fragrance capabilities will be located at Port Sunlight, England, the town founded by William Hesketh Lever, father of the company that would eventually become Unilever.
Unilever already has R&D facilities and factories in Port Sunlight, and the company said the addition of a fragrance hub will help it "bring fragrance innovation to its brands, with greater speed and efficiency".
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.
The building should be complete in 2027, although many of its functions will start earlier than that.
Unilever had first announced its intention to scale up its in-house fragrance design and creation capabilities across its global portfolio in November last year, in the wake of the appointment of Mr. Mathieu Lenoir as Director for Fragrance at the group's Global Creative Centre.
Then, Unilever had mentioned that even though it has partnered with fragrance houses around the world to create scents for its products and such partnerships remain important, it will look to grow its capabilities in-house and transition to a hybrid model, where its digitally enabled teams are involved in every step of innovation and formulating fragrances.
"We will combine our own scientific expertise in areas such as neuroscience, AI and digital product development with existing strategic partnerships, to help deliver consistent and affordable product superiority across our brands more quickly," the company had stated.
"We are 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," said Mr. Richard Slater, Chief R&D Officer at Unilever.
According to Mr. Vivek Sirohi, Global Vice President, Fragrance at Unilever, the move will help accelerate growth by giving the company greater control of the design and refinement of fragrances.
"One of the main benefits of new approach is that we can design fragrances to work with our product chassis – the foundation of the formulation – right from the start. This allows us to move swiftly from formulation to design, manufacture and then launch," he said.
"We are establishing an end-to-end fragrance supply chain which includes everything from ingredient-buying to in-house creation. In doing so, we'll be best positioned to leverage our scale to unlock value by creating unmissably superior fragrances at best-in-class cost," he added.
"Building our in-house fragrance expertise and capabilities means we'll be better positioned to collaborate with, and leverage the expertise of, our fragrance house partners. Our long-term partnerships with the fragrance houses remain critical," he emphasised.
This investment is part of a wider GBP 300-mn 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.